A year ago, Lamar Jackson's peers ranked him the second-best player in football. This year, he checked in at No. 69, a fall of 67 spots that stands as one of the more jarring single-year drops the NFL Top 100 has ever produced.

The NFL Top 100 is voted on entirely by the players themselves, ranking the league's best heading into the new season. Jackson has been a fixture near the top of that list for years, finishing No. 2 in both 2024 and 2025, and claiming the No. 1 spot outright in 2020 after winning his first MVP award. He'd go on to win a second MVP in 2023, one of only a handful of players in NFL history to capture the award twice. This year's ranking is a very different story, and it's already generating plenty of conversation across the league.

Why the Drop Happened

The ranking reflects a genuinely difficult 2025 season for Jackson, at least by the extraordinarily high bar he's set for himself. He missed four games due to injury and finished with 2,549 passing yards, 21 touchdowns and seven interceptions, numbers that represent his lowest full-season passing total since 2022. His per-game passing average of 196.1 yards was his lowest mark since that same year. He also ran for a career-low 349 yards, a steep decline for a player whose rushing ability has always been central to his game, and he was sacked 36 times, the second-highest total of his career.

Behind the numbers, reporting out of Baltimore has pointed to a shifting relationship with the coaching staff as part of the picture. Jackson had thrived for years under offensive coordinator Todd Monken, but that connection reportedly cooled as the season progressed. The Ravens finished 2025 at 8-9 and missed the playoffs entirely, a stunning turn for a team that had gone 12-5 the year before. It marked John Harbaugh's final season as head coach after 18 years running the program, and Baltimore enters 2026 with real change at the top, a new offensive coordinator in Declan Doyle and a new head coach in Jesse Minter.

For a franchise that had made the playoffs in five of the previous six seasons, an 8-9 finish and a first-round exit from the conversation entirely was jarring enough on its own. Add in a down year statistically from its franchise quarterback, and it's not hard to see why players around the league adjusted their view of where Jackson stood heading into this season's vote.

The Case That He's Still Elite

Not everyone is convinced the ranking reflects reality, and the pushback has been loud. Pro Football Network's own separate rankings placed Jackson at No. 2 overall, a staggering gap compared to where his peers slotted him. ESPN's own survey of league executives, coaches and scouts ranked him fifth among all quarterbacks, trailing Josh Allen, Patrick Mahomes, Matthew Stafford and Joe Burrow, but still firmly inside the position's top tier.

That last comparison is where a lot of the frustration is coming from. Burrow played in only a handful of games last season due to injury, yet still ranked ahead of Jackson in the eyes of NFL players. Ravens wide receiver Zay Flowers made his feelings on the ranking clear, expressing total confidence in his quarterback regardless of where the players' vote landed him. Outside linebacker Kyle Van Noy, who spent the past three seasons playing alongside Jackson in Baltimore, put it plainly in comments to the team's official site. "A lot of people said he wasn't quarterback enough," Van Noy said. "I think he's proven those people wrong. But more importantly, he's proven his mom and him right."

It's a telling response from a teammate who's watched Jackson operate up close for years, and it captures something that shows up again and again throughout his career: outside doubt tends to arrive right before Jackson's best stretches of football.

What It Means Heading Into 2026

Jackson turns 29 this season, and Baltimore's front office has made it clear they feel real urgency to finally get over the championship hump while he's still squarely in his prime. He's never lacked for individual accolades, two MVP awards, four career top-two finishes in this same Top 100 ranking, and a résumé that most starting quarterbacks in the league would trade for immediately. What's been missing is a trip to the Super Bowl, and that gap is clearly shaping how the roster and coaching staff have been retooled this offseason.

A new play-caller in Doyle, a healthier supporting cast, and reportedly better health for Jackson himself entering camp all point toward a bounce-back campaign. Many analysts around the league view last year's ranking as more of an outlier than a real reflection of where Jackson stands among the game's elite quarterbacks.

For a competitor with Jackson's track record, a 67-spot drop voted on by the very players he lines up against every Sunday is the kind of thing that tends to get circled and remembered. Baltimore's season opener can't come soon enough for a quarterback who's spent his entire career answering doubts with results.

It's worth remembering how often this exact pattern has played out before. Jackson fell all the way to the 32nd and final pick of the first round in the 2018 draft over questions about whether his game would translate to the NFL, then won his first MVP award just two seasons later. He's since made four Pro Bowls, been named First-Team All-Pro three times, and holds the NFL record for career rushing yards by a quarterback. Whatever this year's Top 100 vote says about where his peers currently view him, it's hard to find a stretch in his career where being underestimated has slowed him down for long.