[Baltimore Sun] Ravens QB Lamar Jackson had struggled vs. the blitz. Now he’s ‘locked in.’
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Lamar Jackson doesn’t think much about the high praise for the Ravens’ success on offense this season.
“In one ear, out the other,” the star quarterback said Wednesday night in Owings Mills. “Early in the season, they were saying we were one of the worst teams in the league. Each and every week, we’ve just been worried about proving ourselves right. That’s pretty much what we’ve been doing.”
Still, the results are impossible to ignore: Baltimore is on pace for 7,844 total yards, which would break the 2011 New Orleans Saints’ NFL record for the most in a season.
A big reason: Jackson’s performance against the blitz. By any number of metrics, it’s been the best of his career.
Last year, he had a passer rating of 62 and plus-0.04 expected points added per play against the blitz, which ranked 16th in the NFL. This year, those numbers have skyrocketed to 88 and plus-0.27, which ranks third.
Monday night in Tampa, Florida, the Buccaneers blitzed Jackson on 61.5% of his dropbacks, according to Next Gen Stats. Jackson responded by completing 11 of 15 passes for 166 yards and three touchdowns for a passer rating of 148.9 — and, more importantly, a 41-31 victory, the Ravens’ fifth straight.
In a 30-23 win at home against the Commanders a week earlier, he completed 9 of 10 passes for 150 yards with a plus-0.47 EPA per attempt and a 90% success rate against Washington’s blitz. And in Week 5 in Cincinnati, Jackson threw for a season-high 348 yards along with four touchdowns to lead Baltimore to a 41-38 overtime win over the blitz-happy Bengals.
READER POLL: How would you grade the Ravens’ season so far?
“I think we’ve been intentional about it,” coach John Harbaugh said about Jackson’s dominance against opposing blitzes this season. “That has been a big one; how we attack people who are gonna blitz us in various ways and play various coverages behind it.
“Lamar’s been the most intentional about it. He’s been locked in on it since Day 1.”
And performing the best compared with any point in his six-plus year career.
“That’s pretty much what I study,” he said. “That’s the main thing. … Blitzes is one of the main things we go over the most and knowing the protections and pickups and stuff like that.”
How Jackson, 27, has been responding to them is also a departure from earlier in his career.
“When I was younger, I would see the blitz happening and I would pretty much just try to beat the blitz without flipping the protection,” he said. “Sometimes I had to pay for it.
“My biggest thing over the last few years was getting my line to go where they should be going, and if a guy is gonna be free, I’m gonna know how to navigate the ball to get it away from him and get us in a positive situation.”
“My biggest thing over the last few years was getting my [offensive] line to go where they should be going,” Ravens quarterback Lamar Jackson said.Of course, Jackson isn’t doing it all alone.
The offense, which is in its second year under coordinator Todd Monken and has three new starters along the line, has adjusted in scheme and play-calling. Running backs — Justice Hill in particular — have been adept in picking up rushers. And the once much-maligned offensive line has improved significantly, particularly in pass protection.
“It starts from the top,” said veteran lineman Patrick Mekari, who started the season at right tackle before switching to left guard. “From the coaches’ schemes, from Lamar seeing it, checking it, getting us to the side he wants us to go to, all the backs picking it up, the receivers realizing the blitz is coming and getting open and then the O-line doing their job and picking up the blitz too.
“We knows there’s holes to be exposed when they blitz us.”
As a result, the yards and points have added up. The Ravens’ 31.1 points per game rank first in the NFL. Ditto their 461.4 yards per game, which is nearly 50 more than the second-place Detroit Lions.
Unsurprisingly, Jackson is also putting up career numbers and is on pace to surpass 4,000 passing yards in a season for the first time.
Likewise, the Ravens are benefitting from it.
From 2020 through 2023, Jackson was a below-average quarterback against the blitz in terms of EPA per attempt. When teams blitzed more than 37% of his dropbacks during that span, Baltimore was just 12-10, per Sharp Analytics. When they blitzed at a lower rate, Baltimore was 29-8.
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READER POLL: How would you grade the Ravens’ season so far?
This week, the Ravens and Jackson, who is the early favorite to be named NFL Most Valuable Player for the second year in a row and third team in his career, will face another team, the Cleveland Browns, that likes to blitz often.
Defensive coordinator Jim Schwartz is known for an aggressive style. He has the edge rushers to turn up the pressure with Myles Garrett and Za’Darius Smith, among others.
But they’ll be doing so perhaps at their own peril.
“He’s got a high IQ. He’s an elite player,” said Ravens running back Derrick Henry, who comfortably leads the NFL with 873 rushing yards in his first year with Jackson. “That’s ‘L.’ He’s a high IQ player and a great player and he’s playing through the roof. He’s been better than his previous years playing. MV3, as they say.”
Have a news tip? Contact Brian Wacker at bwacker@baltsun.com, 410-332-6200 and x.com/brianwacker1.
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