The week after I posted this, Lamar started a 7-game stretch where he posted a QB rating of 130.0. He finished the season with a passer rating of 113.3 at age 22. The only other QBs to top 100 at that age are Deshaun Watson (103.0) in 2017 and RG3 (102.4) in 2012. Next on the list are Roethlisberger and Marino.
I still think the Pennington comp is pretty solid. As the world saw Saturday, he doesn't have great arm strength and struggles to throw outside the numbers. So the Ravens didn't do him any favors by having him drop back to pass 72 times (59 attempts, 4 sacks, 9 scrambles). How in the world did the Ravens RBs combine for only 9 rushes after the team destroyed the all-time NFL season rushing record? Clearly, the coaches choked as bad as the players. Also, Lamar is young and gets a little frenetic when the team struggles, which is when he pushes to make a play and often makes a mistake instead, rather than letting the game come to him.
There is no reason to think he won't get better. And he finished the season with a 66% completion rate, which will be fine even if he doesn't improve.
However, the harsh reality is that Lamar now has a playoff monkey on his back. In some ways, nothing he does all next year matters until January. He's shown he can have a dominant regular season and so people will be much less impressed if that happens again next year - they're going to be watching to see if he can get it done in the clutch (and waiting to pounce if he can't)