On Christmas Day, two of the biggest stars from two of the world’s biggest forces converged in Houston. Ravens quarterback Lamar Jackson, the NFL’s reigning Most Valuable Player, was in town to play the Texans. Beyoncé, one of the world’s most popular musicians, was in town to play the halftime show for Netflix.

There was a certain poetry, a certain symmetry, to the two icons sharing the NRG Stadium stage. Beyond their mass appeal, immense talent and relative inscrutability, Jackson and Beyoncé were also in the middle of public reinventions. Jackson, long one of the NFL’s most dynamic runners, had become an elite pocket passer. Beyoncé, a pop star for over two decades, had topped Billboard’s country music charts for the first time with her album “Cowboy Carter.”

Perhaps it’s fitting, then, that their evolutions could be honored the same week, too. On Thursday, four nights after a breakthrough Grammy Awards for Beyoncé, Jackson is likely to win his second straight NFL Most Valuable Player award and third overall, a testament not only to his statistical excellence but also his stylistic flexibility.

Jackson’s career does not have quite the same breadth as Beyoncé’s, which has been recognized with Grammy wins across five musical genres. But his 2019, 2023 and 2024 seasons offer snapshots of Jackson’s movement across the sport’s various quarterbacking spectrums. They reflect his malleability as an offensive force, his one-size-fits-all skill set. They speak to, well, Jackson’s own kind of range.

“We’re kind of in every world offensively, and it’s not easy to do that, but we can do that because of our quarterback, because our quarterback is capable of living in all of those different offensive worlds,” Ravens coach John Harbaugh said at the team’s season-ending news conference last month. “And that’s tough for a defense to defend.”

Never more than this past season. In 2024, Jackson posted career highs in passing yards (4,172), passing touchdowns (41) and passer rating (119.6) while throwing just four interceptions. He became the first quarterback in NFL history with at least 4,000 passing yards and 800 rushing yards in a single season. Jackson beat out Buffalo Bills quarterback Josh Allen for MVP honors from the Pro Football Writers of America, All-Pro honors from the NFL Players Association and first-team All-Pro honors from the Associated Press, whose 50-person voting panel also decides the league MVP.

“I’m getting a feel for what [defenses are] doing to me, and that’s just making my job a lot easier.”

Lamar Jackson

Jackson, a near-unanimous MVP last year, stayed ahead by changing lanes. Before the season, Harbaugh had said the Ravens’ offense would have to iterate: “You can never keep it the same.” He didn’t want patterns. Patterns were predictable, and Jackson should be anything but.

Over the offseason, through training camp and well into the season, coordinator Todd Monken and Jackson fine-tuned their approach. The resulting Ravens offense had all of Jackson’s signatures — read-option run plays, passes attacking the middle of the field, whirling scrambles — but in slightly new packaging.

In 2019, Jackson went under center on just 6.5% of his plays, according to TruMedia, by far the lowest rate in the league among regular starters and a first-percentile mark among all quarterbacks with at least 200 pass attempts in a season over the past six years. In 2023, Jackson’s first year under Monken, his under-center rate jumped to 16.6% (eighth percentile). This year, it nearly doubled: 29.1% (39th percentile). And no quarterback was more efficient as an under-center passer than Jackson (0.45 expected points added per drop-back).

Jackson’s comfort as a full-field passer has also blossomed. In his first MVP season, Jackson ranked in just the 17th percentile in the percentage of passes attempted outside the numbers and in the 10th percentile of passes thrown at or behind the line of scrimmage since 2019. In 2024, buoyed by the Ravens’ improved receiving corps and revitalized screen game, he ranked in the 50th and 48th percentiles, respectively. Forty-seven percent of Jackson’s passes were thrown outside the numbers, and 21.9% were aimed at or behind the line of scrimmage. He was among the NFL’s more efficient quarterbacks in both categories.

“I feel like I’m improving because each year … I’m critiquing myself,” Jackson said in December. “I’m seeing what teams are doing to me, and I’m seeing all the types of defenses they’re trying to throw at me. I’m just studying those, and after that, it’s like, all right, so when I’m going into games, I’m getting a feel for what they’re doing to me, and that’s just making my job a lot easier.”

Jackson has also been adaptive to play-calling philosophies. In 2019, according to RBSDM.com, no offense had a lower early-down pass rate in “neutral” game scripts than the Ravens (43.4%). And no offense was better in the regular season.

In 2023, only six offenses had a higher early-down pass rate than the Ravens (57.8%). And only three teams finished the season with a more efficient attack, according to FTN.

2024 was a Goldilocks season. The Ravens were among the NFL’s most balanced offenses, ranking 24th in early-down pass rate (48.7%). And, again, no offense was better.

As the pieces around Jackson have changed, the Ravens haven’t needed to wed him to a particular lineup, either. In 2019 and 2023, Jackson’s offenses majored in 11 personnel (one running back, one tight end and three wide receivers), using the NFL’s most popular grouping about 45% of the time both seasons, according to TruMedia. In 2024, the Ravens were the league’s only team to lean primarily on 12 personnel (one running back, two tight ends and two wide receivers), featuring it on 32.1% of Jackson’s plays.

Over his career, Jackson’s mere presence has been the reliable advantage their offense needs. Especially now, with Jackson more empowered than ever to check the offense out of unfavorable play calls and into more advantageous looks.

“He understands what we’re trying to accomplish,” Monken said last month. “And with every week, with every month, with [every] year, he becomes more comfortable with being involved. It’s a rarity that I don’t agree with what he’s thinking or what [quarterbacks coach] Tee [Martin] brings to me, or someone says, ‘Hey, what about this with the running back? What about this, in terms of our spacing? What about this?’ …

“When you get that from your coaches and your players — you get this collaboration — it gives you a chance to really shine. It’s not a one-way street; we’re doing this together. And he’s become more and more comfortable that way, and it’s just going to continue to grow.”

The next step will have to come in the playoffs. Jackson has nothing left to prove in the regular season. The hope in Baltimore is that Jackson’s intangibles — his improved presnap command, his more vocal leadership style, his growing understanding of modern defenses — will get the Ravens into another Super Bowl groove.

With Jackson and a talented Ravens roster set to return in 2025, there’s always next time. Beyoncé knows that better than perhaps anyone. She had five albums nominated for the Grammy Award for Album of the Year before her sixth, “Cowboy Carter,” was finally honored on Sunday.

No wonder Jackson was so eager to see her in Houston. There’s no greater authority on how to put a ring on it.