Lamar Jackson made it quite clear how he felt Sunday night after another early playoff exit, this time in the Divisional round in Buffalo.
"I'm tired this s---," Jackson said following the 27-25 loss to the Bills. "I'm tired of being right there. We need to punch it in. We need to punch in that ticket."
Jackson's draft night proclamation that he would deliver a Super Bowl to Baltimore has taken longer than he anticipated.
Five playoff trips since 2018. One AFC Championship game appearance. Zero trips to the Super Bowl.
But Jackson's teammates have no doubt that, eventually, that last digit will change.
"It's inevitable. He's going to win a Super Bowl, and I want to be a part of it," fullback Patrick Ricard said Monday as the Ravens cleaned out their lockers.
"It just sucks that it hasn't happened yet. I, personally, feel bad for him because he deserves it, just because of how great of a player he is. He deserves to be considered one of the best quarterbacks. He already is, but I know everyone considers championships as the standard, and he'll get it one day."
Jackson might win his third MVP in a couple weeks, but he's long over the individual accolades. His sole focus is hoisting the Lombardi Trophy.
He's also not the first great quarterback to wait this long. Peyton Manning had the same 3-5 postseason record as Jackson after his first five trips. Manning didn't reach the Super Bowl until his seventh postseason and won it all for the first time at 30 years old. Manning finished with two rings and is in the Hall of Fame.
Jackson just recently turned 28 years old. He's still in the prime of his career and the Ravens will return most of his core offensive pieces next season.
"There's still time," said Ricard, who said he loved hearing comparisons between Jackson and Manning. "He's still young. He's definitely going to get one at some point."
In order to do it, the Ravens and Jackson need to clean up their turnovers. Jackson criticized himself for an interception and fumble that he lost in Buffalo. He had just four interceptions and five lost fumbles in the 18 games before that.
While Jackson put the blame on himself, his teammates saw how Jackson almost rallied them from an 11-point halftime deficit and may have pulled it off had it not been for a fourth quarter fumble and dropped two-point conversion by tight end Mark Andrews.
"Lamar is what makes this team go, and he's the reason why we still had a chance," running back Derrick Henry said. "He's a Hall of Fame player, had a great season. It's a team effort. We came up short together. It's not on him. Forget what anybody else outside of what we [have] going on says. We believe in him, and we'll always [have] his back."
The Ravens have unparalleled regular-season success with Jackson at the helm. They've won back-to-back AFC North championships and will take aim at the division's first three-peat next season.
They know it will take a lot of work to build back up again, but they believe they'll be right back in the hunt again, in large part because of No. 8.
"As long as Lamar is here, you'll have a shot every year at getting a Super Bowl," Ricard said. "That's the main thing; as long as Lamar is here, he has a good group of guys around him that play hard for him, that's all he needs."
