The 32-day wait is finally over for the Baltimore Ravens fans. Lamar Jackson, who suffered a right hamstring injury in the 37-20 loss to the Chiefs, made his much-awaited return to the football field during the high-stakes Thursday Night Football game against the Dolphins at Hard Rock Stadium.
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Wearing a custom outfit that read “Better with age,” Lamar reclaimed the starting QB role from Tyler Huntley, who completed 77% of his passes for 186 yards, threw one touchdown, and added 53 rushing yards in a 30-16 win over the Bears last week.
Lamar Jackson has arrived at Hard Rock Stadium ahead of his first game back 🤩
📸 @Ravens pic.twitter.com/C4kfKezIJe
— NFL on ESPN (@ESPNNFL) October 30, 2025
Before the injury, Lamar played four games, completing 71.6% of his passes for 869 yards, with 10 touchdowns and only one interception. If that was not enough, he added 166 rushing yards and one rushing score. And, the biggest highlight was his impressive 130.5 passer rating.
Notably, Tom Brady, while breaking down Lamar’s return to the struggling 2-5 Ravens for Fox, added that the Ravens need him to “show up and play his best football down the stretch.”
“He’s already played amazingly this year and played incredibly last year. But what he was doing this year, to have the type of quarterback rating he had, but not the win, was crazy. But it just shows that if this team can get healthy and Lamar can play well, you never know what can happen in the second half of the season,” Brady said, expressing hope that the Ravens can still make the playoffs after a rough start.
Brady also noted the emotional gravity of Lamar’s return. “When you miss games and you see your teammates fighting on the field without you, there’s something inside you as a competitor that makes you want to go out there and join the fight with them,” he explained, by relating it to his own experience.
Coincidentally, Brady’s opponent was also the Kansas City Chiefs. In the Patriots’ 2008 season opener on September 7, Brady suffered a season-ending ACL and MCL tear in his left knee after Chiefs safety Bernard Pollard hit him as he released a pass in the first quarter.
“I was only seriously injured one time, and I came back in 2009 after that ACL injury,” Brady recalled. “That first game was at home against Buffalo, and I had so many jitters before kickoff. It took me about a quarter to settle in. We won on a last-minute comeback, as you’d imagine. I was so excited. Yeah, it was a relief, but it was so gratifying.”
Brady finished that game, completing 39 of 53 passes for 378 yards, two touchdowns, and one interception as the Patriots edged the Bills 25–24 in a dramatic comeback for their clutch QB.
Meanwhile, the difference between Brady and Lamar, though, is timing. Brady had a full season to recover and reflect on his game. However, Lamar had just a month, and his team was already under pressure in the playoff race.
But Lamar knows one thing for sure: those concerns will fade fast if the Ravens can stack three straight wins, just like the Chiefs did after their 1-3 start this year.
