Lamar Jackson is a superstar and an inner-circle MVP candidate. He's on pace to smash the all-time record for quarterback rushing yards in a season, and he has a 106.3 passer rating to boot -- with two perfect ratings on the season.

Of course, there were a lot of circles where Jackson was not considered a sure thing, both before the draft and before this season. There's a reason he lasted until the No. 32 pick of the first round, where the Ravens traded back up to grab him. According to former NFL general manager Mike Lombardi, who hosts The GM Shuffle podcast, former Ravens offensive coordinator Marty Mornhinweg was among the crowd that wanted to move Jackson to receiver.

"Here's what happened," Lombardi said on the podcast. "The first time he comes in, Marty Mornhinweg -- remember, we're building the team around (Jackson) -- Marty says to the coaches, this is a fact, 'When are we gonna move him to receiver.'"

But Mornhinweg said "that didn't happen."

"Never said that," Mornhinweg said in a statement the Ravens released on Mornhinweg's behalf. "My thoughts before the draft, and even more when we started working with Lamar, was that this young man was going to be a special quarterback. Very early we saw that along with all of his throwing and escape abilities, he reads the field as well as any young quarterback I ever worked with."

Ravens head coach John Harbaugh added: "Organizationally, we were on the same page with Lamar, and I thought Ozzie (Newsome) and Eric (DeCosta) did a great job to take him where we did. Marty was excited from the beginning to coach Lamar and was instrumental in helping him progress through his rookie season."

Mornhinweg served as the Ravens' offensive coordinator for three years (2016-18) after joining the team as quarterbacks coach in 2015. He opted to leave the Ravens at the end of the 2018 campaign.

The Ravens promoted assistant coach Greg Roman to the position. Roman, as has been widely noted, had experience coaching run-heavy offenses featuring mobile quarterbacks like Colin Kaepernick and Tyrod Taylor. The rest is well on its way to being NFL history.