RG3 predicts a Ravens Super Bowl appearance: ‘It’s now or never’ originally appeared on NBC Sports Washington
While the Baltimore Ravens have been one of the AFC’s best teams over the last three years, you never know when a championship window can close. At least that’s what their former quarterback and former NFL Offensive Rookie of the Year Robert Griffin III thinks.
RG3 won the Heisman Trophy at Baylor, took home ROY honors as a member of the Washington Football Team, then spent three seasons across I-95 as a member of the Ravens. Having spent eight total seasons in the NFL on teams with varying degrees of success, he can spot when a squad is primed for a deep postseason run. That’s what he thinks his former team will do in 2021.
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“I think the Ravens take that final step. I think they take it all the way to the Super Bowl,” Griffin III said on Wednesday’s episode of ESPN’s Get Up. “I know the guys in that locker room, I know how they work, I know how much it means to them. That defense is aging a little bit, so I think it’s now or never for the Baltimore Ravens and I think Lamar Jackson gets it done.”
Griffin gave a shoutout to his former position mate in Baltimore and one of the best QBs in the AFC, Lamar Jackson. Jackson had a ‘down year’ by his standards in 2020, which was still an incredible season overall—he threw for over 2,700 yards, 26 touchdowns and 9 interceptions. He still thinks he can surprise opposing defenses, saying recently he ‘strongly doubts’ the NFL has figured him out.
“Right when teams think they’ve figured him out, they haven’t because guess what: he doesn’t even know what he’s gonna do next,” Griffin said of the former league MVP. “The offense is in the predictability of it…but at the end of the day, you have to stop him. He is the offense.”
Baltimore made a point of giving Jackson more targets this offseason, drafting WR Rashod Bateman with their first-round pick out of Minnesota and signing Sammy Watkins from Kansas City. On the defensive end, the Ravens boast one of the best units in the league, led by cornerback Marlon Humphrey. All told, Baltimore was no. 2 in the NFL in points allowed and no. 7 in yards allowed last season.
Still, Jackson is the undisputed leader of the team and the main catalyst for taking his squad to the NFL mountaintop.
“When you are such an instinctual player and you play off of the feel of the game, you need to keep playing. So I feel like the best route for the Ravens…is to get into the Wild Card so they can play every single week,” Griffin III said. “I think that’s what Lamar Jackson needs to stay in rhythm and continue to have his feel for the game—not to have those weeks off where he can kinda relax.”
