After missing three games and spending three minutes on the bench waiting for his return, Lamar Jackson took a little more time to get going on Thursday.
After a low Jackson pass was incomplete on the Ravens' first drive and forced a punt, Baltimore and its returning quarterback took the lead following an Alohi Gilman forced fumble.
It came on a fourth-down call with Jackson finding tight end Mark Andrews for six.
Just like that, there were glimmers of the Ravens of old, which built into a stellar night of Jackson throwing four touchdowns in his triumphant return as Baltimore rolled past the Miami Dolphins, 28-6.
"It's awesome," said Jackson, who watched from the bench as the Dolphins won the coin toss and elected to receive the ball, delaying his first game action since Sept. 28. "It's great to be back and get a dub."
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In a full week of practice for Jackson, his head coach saw a performance such as this on the horizon.
"He was that sharp mentally all week and he was that sharp on Tuesday when we went fast," John Harbaugh said. "Half the practice, we went fast on Tuesday and he was lights out. It was impressive. I was pretty optimistic that he was gonna play well."
Jackson found himself in just about the perfect setting to return to action, as the Pompano Beach, Florida, native carved up Miami once again, throwing for four or more TDs for the third time in five games against the Dolphins. He completed 18 of 23 passes for 204 yards with no interceptions and a sparkling 143.2 rating.
In five career starts against the Dolphins, Jackson is 3-2 with 1,405 passing yards (281 per game), 18 passing touchdowns, just one interception and a 142.9 passer rating, the highest by any single player (minimum 100 attempts) versus a single opponent in history, per NFL Research.
After hitting Andrews on his first two touchdowns, Jackson hit Charlie Kolar and Rashod Bateman for third-quarter scores.
There appeared to be some rust early -- notably the aforementioned low miss to Bateman on the first drive -- and Jackson didn't look to be his usual speedy self running five times for 14 yards, but the overall stats and final result were certainly stellar.
"Yeah, a little bit," Jackson said when asked if it felt like he hadn't played since Week 4 against the Chiefs. "I missed a pass to Bate like the first drive, so it was going through my mind the whole game. But it's cool. We got the dub."
Miami had twice as many first downs (10-4) and twice as many yards (225-109) as Baltimore in the first half, but Jackson and the Ravens owned a 14-6 halftime lead.
In the second half, the Ravens really took off, with a Jackson scramble igniting them. On the opening drive of the second half, Jackson faced a third-and-6 before rushing for 13 yards.
"That was probably the key play of the whole game probably because if not, you're kind of in the second quarter mode still," Harbaugh said of Jackson's third-down run.
Andrew's second TD catch came with 14:10 to go in the second quarter and preceded a trio of three-and-outs to end the half. Jackson's scramble sprang the team back to life and keyed an 11-play, 68-yard drive that ended with Kolar's TD and truly got the ball rolling on a blowout.
Baltimore finished with 338 yards of offense, 229 coming in the final two quarters.
"I just felt a little comfortable and our guys were ready to score," Jackson said. "Shoutout to the offensive line. They did great. All phases, all skill positions, and our running backs, those guys were just locked in and wanted to put points on the board because we only scored twice in the first half."
Baltimore has now won two straight after a dreadful 1-5 start. Only four teams since the 1970 merger have made the postseason after such a beginning.
However, since 1990, 21 teams have advanced to the postseason following 3-5 starts.
Jackson is back, and with him, the Ravens' swagger might have returned, as well.
"Yeah, I mean it's do or die," Jackson said. "Win or go home. Usually we start off winning games, and we never be behind, but right now we're behind and we all got to step it up."