Lamar Jackson to change one thing about his game in 2024
A three-time Pro Bowler and two-time NFL MVP, it doesn’t seem like there’s much that Baltimore Ravens quarterback Lamar Jackson needs to improve about his game.
As the 27-year-old signal-caller heads into his second year in offensive coordinator Todd Monken’s system, though, there is one thing the Ravens would like to see Jackson do more of in 2024: call audibles.
According to ESPN’s Jamison Hensley, the Ravens have given Jackson the freedom this offseason to alter anything pre-snap including play calls, blocking schemes and his cadence.
Baltimore’s 17-10 loss to the Kansas City Chiefs in the AFC Championship game reportedly was the final straw. In that game, the Chiefs brought pressure on Jackson, disguised their play calls and created enough confusion to stagnate the Ravens’ high-octane offense.
Jackson was pressured on 35% of his dropbacks in that contest, with Kansas City limiting him to using play-action just 26% of the time and screens 6.5% of the time, per Pro Football Focus. He was sacked four times, hit seven times, forced to scramble five times and had three turnover-worthy plays.
The Ravens believe had Jackson been empowered to switch things up more at the line of scrimmage, he could have chosen plays that had a higher success rate against what the Chiefs defense was showing him.
“From us watching film and getting into games, teams changing things up on us, we just want to add extra layers to all of our calls,” Jackson said of the benefits of using more audibles during minicamp last week.
Of the 1,035 offensive plays the Ravens ran last season, only one time did they draw the defense offside. The coaches believe they can get that number up higher by having Jackson use his voice more, incorporate additional hard counts and switch up his cadence.
“It has been a tool in the past, and we’re just going to continue to take it to the next level,” quarterbacks coach Tee Martin told reporters. “Lamar is outstanding at it, whether we’re going non-verbal on the road or whether we’re going verbal at home. We have a lot of different ones that gives us an advantage so that people don’t know when we’re snapping the ball and slowing them down a little bit.”
