Is Lamar Jackson ready to bounce back?
Yahoo Fantasy's Matt Harmon is joined by senior NFL reporter Jori Epstein to discuss Jackson's early look in training camp and if he can be a reliable fantasy starter. Check out the full conversation on the "Yahoo Fantasy Forecast" podcast - and subscribe on Apple Podcasts , Spotify or wherever you listen.
Video Transcript
You're kind of bringing up a good note here that this is a pretty big transition for the quarterback even if we don't think about it in the same way of, like, Jalen Hurts' transition earlier.
Yeah, and so, like, he's definitely had moments at camp where with the timing, with the left foot forward, like, Durham Smythe was telling me the way he- Lamar has, his peripheral vision has been really impressive to Durham in terms of how he's seeing the rollouts.
I think there's a lot that Lamar can do.
I also think that you just gotta wonder a little bit about the transition.
Now, one of the things we should keep in mind is obviously we've seen Lamar in his first year under new offensive coordinators, he's won MVPs.
I think that that would be a little bit of an unrealistic starting point for us to see it at.
On the other hand, they could have gotten Like, most young coaches like Jesse Minter would've said, "I want a former head coach on offense.
I want, like, a Kliff Kingsbury type on offense because then he can kind of be the head coach of the offense.
I'll be the head coach of the defense."
Yeah, you have some culture, et cetera, et cetera.
That's not what they did because they felt like for Lamar to be at his best, he kind of needed someone a little bit younger and more likely to connect with him.
And so Lamar and Declan do seem to be connecting very well.
I mean, Declan was telling me about a day where it was one of their off days.
Lamar came in to watch film in his office, and they go from 2:00 to 5:30 PM.
And so they're definitely building that rapport.
But is the system gonna feel immediately natural?
On one hand, you have to wonder if it takes time from the right foot forward to the left foot forward in the passing game.
On the other hand, it's Lamar Jackson, and like why am I doubting Lamar Jackson?
I, I shouldn't be.
Especially now that he's healthy.
He pointed out, like, they were He's getting a question I think I saw this week where it was like, "You didn't run a lot last year."
He's like, "Yeah, I was injured all year."
You know?
Right.
So, now that he's healthy, hopefully that helps too.
