Matt Milano: Bills 'pretty confident' they can 'contain' Lamar Jackson

The Bills are in the Divisional Round for the first time since the mid-1990s, and the going isn’t getting any easier for red-hot Buffalo.

The last time the Bills faced the Ravens (Week 14 of 2019), they wore red, which seems fitting considering how well they’ve been playing in the last two-plus months of the 2020 season. They’ll don their usual blue tops for their meeting with Baltimore this weekend, and they hope to leave their fans anything but blue after Saturday’s contest.

Good Morning Football took a moment this week to recall one Bills defender’s unflattering encounter with Baltimore’s game-changing quarterback Lamar Jackson. Linebacker Matt Milano once approached the elusive quarterback in their 2019 game and attempted to tackle him in space, only to be left in the dust by Jackson’s premier direction-changing ability, a play GMFB ran repeatedly because of its impressiveness.

As is the case with most professional athletes, Milano has exhibited a short memory. He believes the Bills are capable of bottling up Jackson, who has run wild in recent weeks, including last weekend’s 136-yard performance in a win over Tennessee.

“We’re pretty confident in being able to contain him,” Milano said Thursday, via NewYorkUpstate.com.

The Bills did, in fact, contain Jackson in their 24-17 loss to the Ravens last season, limiting him to 40 rushing yards on 11 carries. Jackson made them pay through the air, though, tossing three touchdowns and finishing with a passer rating over 102.

Buffalo will need a better showing against Jackson if it hopes to take down Baltimore and prove it is the hotter of the two teams.

“You gotta be ready to rock, you know?” Milano said. “He can make anything happen at any time. Being aware of him at all times is gonna be key for us. We just gotta be sound tacklers. A lot of other quarterbacks could just run it up and they’re gonna slide or be one cut. With Lamar, he’s a very shifty guy. … You just gotta make a play. That’s what it really comes down to.”

Buffalo will need to make more than a few plays to stop a Baltimore team that hasn’t lost since Week 12, which came in early December, back when most folks were just setting up their Christmas trees. With those trees having been long dragged to the curb or stowed away in boxes for the next 10-plus months, the time has come to move forward.

For the Bills, that means taking down a team that beat them a year ago.

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