John Harbaugh knows what he’s doing by prodding Lamar Jackson

John Harbaugh says it irks him and bothers him, and maybe he’s telling the truth, but either way, he should really be jumping for joy.

The Baltimore Ravens head coach was long, eloquent, vociferous and impassioned over the weekend in his defense of quarterback Lamar Jackson, stating in no uncertain terms exactly how it makes him feel when he hears his signal caller’s reputation impugned.

In reality, the varying levels of snark thrown at Jackson since his disastrous outing in the AFC Championship defeat to the Kansas City Chiefs isn’t a bad thing for the Ravens, and it is certainly no obstacle to their chances of enjoying a more profitable run this season than the disaster that ended last.

When Jackson gets slighted, history suggests that he responds in an indignantly productive manner. Maybe that’s what Harbaugh’s outburst was really about, reminding his QB that there are doubters out there lining up to toss a sizable dose of shade.

You may have heard or read Harbaugh’s remarks by now, and they were quite something. Jackson’s been off sick from the last two days of Baltimore practice, but if he hadn’t, he’d surely have been walking around with his chest puffed out after this offering.

“There’s a lot of great things said about Lamar,” Harbaugh told reporters. “But there’s a lot of stuff that’s said that you’ve got to just scratch your head about and kind of wonder what that person is even thinking.

“But we take it personally. Lamar’s a guy all his life … who has been answering those same questions. I’m talking about since he was a kid, junior high, high school college, the draft, the success he’s had in the National Football League, and it still comes up.”

What comes up is a multitude of things. It started with the assertion that his running style would be a poor long-term fit for the NFL, and right now, after two NFL MVP seasons but a postseason record of 2-4, hinges on how he’s not only never won a Super Bowl, but not come remotely near to doing so.

Harbaugh’s spiel was notable because this is a time of year when interesting comments from coaches are few and far between, either because there’s still six weeks before any meaningful games take place or just because everyone wants to hurry back into the air conditioning because it’s painfully hot outside.

Not so with the Ravens coach, who decided that this was the right moment to simultaneously turn cheerleader, while perhaps also trying to light some extra fire in his QB.

But here’s the thing. Not that Harbaugh should have said any different, but privately he should be wishing that the criticism of Jackson pervades and becomes a talking point of the summer.

For Jackson answers his criticism. He takes it in and ingests it and usually spits it back out at the accuser in the form of performance. That’s how the fifth QB drafted in 2018, lower than Baker Mayfield, Sam Darnold and Josh Rosen, was voted as the league’s best player two seasons later.

When they said he couldn’t beat the Chiefs after beating essentially everyone else his first three years, he beat the Chiefs in 2021.

He responded to being told that not hiring an agent was a mistake by inking what was then the biggest deal in league history.

He responded to questions about whether that $52 million a year was value for money by winning his second MVP.

What fires him up next? What else but the pain of last season’s playoff collapse, a 17-10 loss to the Chiefs where he looked like a shadow of his regular-season excellence.

“He’s still growing, he’s got a growth mindset, he’s going to get better and better no doubt — but what does he have to do to prove himself to some people?” Harbaugh added.

“The vision for Lamar Jackson, the vision, it’s something you see like its already happened. You can see it like it’s already been done. And the vision that we have together is that Lamar Jackson is going to become and be known and be recognized as the greatest quarterback ever to play in the history of the National Football League.”

Knowing what we know of Jackson, this is the balance that feels about right. Praise without any kind of limitation from within the Ravens’ set-up, nit-picking and not-so-polite wonderings about whether he choked away a shot at last season’s Super Bowl from the outside.

“This was not about his stats or accolades,” FS1’s Paul Pierce said on “Undisputed,” in reference to Harbaugh’s points. “This was a mental thing for his QB and believing in him. You know how disappointed Lamar was losing at home last year as Super Bowl favorites, this is about the psyche of the game. This is what coaches do. For me this was psychological.”

Entertaining, too. If it takes the gnawing distress of what happened in January to get the best out of Jackson this time around, so be it. If it takes an outspoken reminder from his coach to amp things up a little, even better.

Martin Rogers is a columnist for FOX Sports. Follow him on Twitter @MRogersFOX.

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