Lamar Jackson Rebuffs Louis Riddick's Question About Incorporating Pieces of Patrick Mahomes' Game

An age-old journalist trick when conducting interviews is to throw a few softball questions to the subject early in the conversation to loosen things up and elicit an easy answer.

It appears ESPN NFL analyst Louis Riddick tried to employ this technique during his conversation with Lamar Jackson and was quickly rejected.

During Riddick's interview with the defending NFL MVP ahead of tonight's Monday Night Football showdown against the Chiefs, Riddick asked Jackson the following in relation to Patrick Mahomes:

""When you watch his game, and when quarterbacks watch one another, are there certain things that you really like about his game that you go, I need to try and do a little bit of that? There has to be some of that right? You guys kind of take from one another a little bit right?""

Jackson's answer and facial expressions to the leading question are amazing.

It's not shocking for Jackson to seemingly be perturbed by this question. His talents have been overshadowed by those of more traditional pocket-passing quarterbacks, like Mahomes, throughout his professional career. Throw in the fact that Mahomes won a Super Bowl last year while the top-seeded Ravens were eliminated in their first game of the playoffs, something the media has discussed ad nauseam this offseason, and one can understand Jackson's blunt response to this seemingly-innocent question.

Here's the full interview in case you're interested.

This actually reminds me of Michael Jordan discussing his technique as a teammate in The Last Dance. Jordan was unapologetic about the way he physically and emotionally provoked (some called it harassed) his teammates in order to get more out of them. That leadership style was questioned during and after his career. Jordan, similar to this, was likely sick of hearing about it, hence the blunt response followed by Jordan actually tearing up and telling the producer "break."

Athletes are often asked similar questions multiple times and, like all humans, can get aggravated having to repeat themselves. This doesn't seem like that situation, and his answer doesn't suggest he's mad about being asked the question or that he doesn't appreciate Mahomes' game. But it does seem like a situation where Jackson has been asked to compare himself to Mahomes or has heard others compare the two, and wanted to make it clear how different they are.