Quarterback Lamar Jackson suggested during organized team activities last week that he had just recently gotten over the Baltimore Ravens' 17-10 loss to the Kansas City Chiefs in the recent AFC Championship Game.
As Josh Alper of Pro Football Talk shared on Monday, Jackson also discussed Baltimore opening the 2024 regular season at the reigning Super Bowl champion Chiefs on Thursday, Sept. 5.
"I really don’t care who we play," Jackson explained. "It really didn’t matter. At the end of the day, our goal is to make it to the Super Bowl."
Jackson earned the second regular-season Most Valuable Player Award of his career while guiding the 2023 Ravens to a conference-best 13-4 record. However, he fell to 2-4 as a playoff starter via the seven-point defeat against the Chiefs.
According to Jamison Hensley of ESPN, Jackson's offenses averaged 10.5 points in those postseason losses.
"We lost to them in the playoffs," Jackson added about Kansas City. "Just us beating them in the regular season doesn’t really do anything; it just helps us keep stacking up wins to hopefully make it to the playoffs if anything to try to get in that same position again and hopefully be successful. It really doesn’t matter who we play [in the] first game; obviously, it’s the Chiefs, but I really didn’t care."
Jackson revealed that he and his teammates have "a little chip on our shoulder" coming off the conference title contest. Per Hensley, Ravens head coach John Harbaugh insisted while speaking with reporters that he's just fine with his players continuing to talk about coming up short this past winter.
"I want them talking about everything," Harbaugh said. "What we're talking about is confronting everything that has to do with us being the very best we can be as a football team and as an individual player. So, if that's part of the confrontation, 'Let's go, man. Let's talk about it, and let's get better, and let's find a way to beat those guys.'"
As of Monday morning, DraftKings Sportsbook listed the Chiefs as the betting favorites at +300 odds to represent the AFC in Super Bowl LIX. The Ravens were second on the list at +475 odds.
