Five days after their season ended, Lamar Jackson met with coach John Harbaugh to talk about change. Specifically, the Ravens’ star quarterback wanted more power to enact it.
Adjusting pass protections, calling hot routes, protecting run calls, checking into better plays — Jackson was days away from being named the NFL’s Most Valuable Player, a well-earned reward for all he’d done after the snap in 2023, but still he felt there was more he could do before it.
“Those are things that are on his mind, and those are things that he’s going to be involved with the staff talking about,” Harbaugh said in early February. “I’m excited about that. He wants to do it. He’s just into it. He’s really into it.”
The Jackson who takes the field Thursday night for the Ravens’ season opener promises to be the most empowered version yet. A full offseason with coordinator Todd Monken has endowed him with greater understanding and control of the offense, as Harbaugh hoped it would. He is not just the driver but more and more its maker, too.
Jackson’s first real test drive will come inside Arrowhead Stadium, against a Chiefs defense that sent his Super Bowl dreams careening into a ditch seven months ago. In their AFC championship game matchup, Kansas City held the Ravens to a season-low-tying 10 points, pestering Jackson and his offense with heavy blitzes, press coverage and a resolute run defense. If Jackson has better answers, NBC’s NFL Kickoff Game would be a good place to show them.
“We’re always looking, from the day I got here, to empower the quarterback,” Monken said Monday. “I think that’s the only way you get the most out of a player. ... In terms of when you’re game-planning, what you do on the field and the tools you give them, we’ve had a great offseason to streamline that, to really wrap it up and make it better. We’re about to see if all the things that we did in the offseason and the way that we practiced come to fruition.”
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Jackson was not powerless at the line of scrimmage last year. In the loss to Kansas City, for example, he was fairly active before the snap — in the first half, anyway — gesturing here, motioning players over there. Sometimes the gesticulating worked out; running back Gus Edwards had a 15-yard run in the first quarter after Jackson moved fullback Patrick Ricard to the right side of the offensive line and appeared to signal an audible.
Other times, though, the Ravens couldn’t find their way out of trouble. On their first play from scrimmage, Jackson sent Ricard and then tight end Isaiah Likely in motion before a handoff. One-yard gain.
On the offense’s third drive, Jackson had an apparent run-pass option, with the Chiefs crowding the box and daring him to throw a screen out wide. He handed the ball off instead. Two-yard gain.
On the offense’s fourth drive, with Kansas City threatening to blitz on third-and-long, Jackson appeared to check into a quick-hitting screen for wide receiver Zay Flowers. Incomplete pass, batted down by defensive lineman Chris Jones.
“We were learning,” quarterbacks coach Tee Martin said in June. “We were growing at the same time. We had the opportunity to have a full season of film to see how we were defended and what we possibly could look for [and what] people [were] doing to Lamar. We could build from there, and that’s what we decided to do.”
Jackson said Sunday he feels “like I’m way ahead than when I first got in the system last year.” So does the rest of the offense. There were growing pains in Year 1 under Monken, even as the offense finished fourth in the NFL in efficiency, according to FTN. Blown assignments, missed blocks, communication snafus.
But, with more self-assurance in the offense, Jackson has become more vocal and intentional about his expectations for his surrounding cast, according to teammates. Tight end Mark Andrews said Jackson is “taking control of this offense, telling everybody what he wants to be done.” Wide receiver Tylan Wallace said Jackson “knows what to expect” from certain play calls and will alert players to defensive tendencies. During training camp, quarterback-receiver confabs, with Jackson and a teammate reviewing plays on a tablet during offense-versus-defense periods, were as regular as water breaks.
Harmony is essential, wide receiver Nelson Agholor said, even when it can look inharmonious. “No one wants to be in the wrong play,” he explained. “At the end of the day, it also is like, ‘If we’re all wrong, we’re all right,’ right? As long as we all do the same thing.”
The Ravens hope Jackson can get the offense to more of the right thing, too. Wallace said Jackson was more opportunistic this offseason and during camp with his decisions to “can” or “kill” play calls against an unfavorable look and get the offense to the second play Monken radioed into Jackson — and sometimes another play altogether.
“If it’s not in there, he’s getting us to the best play for us, even if it’s not in the ‘can,’” Wallace said. “So I think that’s a big thing for him that he’s been doing. If he sees a look that he likes, he’s going to get to a play that he likes, no matter if it’s in the call or not in the call.”
“He’s able to just take a lot more stress off his shoulders,” tight end Isaiah Likely said. “Just really understanding everything that we want to get done in our offense, from where pressures are coming, where he wants to slide the line, where he wants to send route combinations, even if he wants to run the ball — having that power, understanding a lot more in Year 2 in the offense, just gives him the viability to always be right.”
Martin, a former quarterback himself, said this summer that the Ravens needed to continue to push Jackson, as a teacher would challenge a gifted student in the classroom. “You can’t allow them to get bored, right?” Martin said. From a deeper dive into Monken’s offense — understanding, say, the nuances of a certain blocking scheme or which passes work best against certain coverages — Jackson would emerge with greater clarity on what a successful play looked like at the line of scrimmage.
Change will come Thursday night, teammates and coaches believe. Not just to Ravens plays but also to the idea of how impressive Jackson’s “football IQ,” as Likely called it, really can be.
“He’ll be able to show everybody that he’s not, like, a get-it-done-by-any-means scramble quarterback,” Likely said. “He has to show that he can be the quarterback everybody needs — the quote-unquote, I guess, ‘quarterback-y,’ as everybody wants to say — and be himself as well.”
