How Lamar Jackson can end his postseason curse — and become a complete quarterback

Well, at least Lamar Jackson was able to help the Ravens win a playoff game this time around. Sort of. Jackson has made the postseason in each of his three NFL seasons, and Baltimore’s 20-13 win over the Titans in the wild-card round was the first time he was able to advance. In that game, Jackson completed 17 of 24 passes for 179 yards, no touchdowns, and one interception.

Thus, coming into the Ravens’ divisional round game against the Bills, the 2019 NFL MVP was trucking along with these postseason numbers: 62 completions in 112 attempts for a 55.4% completion rate, 738 yards, three touchdowns, and four interceptions. The Chargers flustered Jackson in the 2018 wild-card round by doing what they did to him in the regular season of his rookie year — they threw all kinds of coverage concepts at him with a heavy helping of seven defensive backs on the field. Jackson completed 14 of 27 passes for 194 yards, two touchdowns, one interception, and seven sacks. Jackson rallied late after a first half that was so bad, he was almost benched in favor of Joe Flacco.

Postseason nightmare No. 2 came in the divisional round of the 2019 playoffs, when the 14-2 Ravens and their unanimous NFL MVP were expected to cruise by the 9-7 Titans with very little trouble. But Tennessee defensive coordinator Dean Pees bewitched Jackson with late coverage switched, Jackson completed 31 of 59 passes for 365 yards, one touchdown, two interceptions, four sacks, and another early postseason exit.

After a revenge wild-card win over the Titans this season that was more about Baltimore’s defense than anything else, it was on to Buffalo. The Bills looked like a decent matchup for Jackson, as they play a ton of zone defense and Jackson had played exceedingly well against certain kinds of zone in the regular season.

Per Sports Info Solutions, Jackson led the league with nine touchdown passes against Cover-4 (“Quarters”) coverage, and overall, against Cover-2, Cover-3, Cover-4, Cover-6, Tampa-2, and combo coverages, Jackson completed 167 of 254 passes in 309 dropbacks for 2,582 yards, 1,287 air yards, 18 touchdowns, and seven interceptions. Only Tom Brady and Russell Wilson threw more touchdown passes against zone coverage in the 2020 regular season, and this seemed to be the ideal counter to opposing defenses realizing that they couldn’t play man against Jackson because he’d kill them in the run game.

The Bills came into this game thinking that if zone coverage was now like ice cream for Jackson, they were going to give him a tour of the ice cream factory. Per ESPN’s Seth Walder:

As has been the case throughout his career, Jackson missed a lot of meat on the bone — he had open shots to his receivers and either threw the ball in ways that reduced the potential efficiency of the catch, or missed the open shots outright. We can blame offensive coordinator Greg Roman all we want (and blaming Greg Roman has become its own sport these days), but when we look ahead to what Jackson can learn from these negative experiences, it’s clear that as dynamic as he is, he’s got a lot of work to do as a pure passer.

If we’re creating an offseason shopping list for A Better Lamar Jackson (and it appears that we are), here it is.

Trust what is there, and eliminate what isn't.

Greg Cosell of NFL Films, the executive producer of ESPN's NFL Matchup show, has a great way of describing how quarterbacks can improve their processing speed. As Greg puts it, you have to isolate what's there, and eliminate what isn't. There's so much clutter in any coverage, you have to reduce the possibilities on the fly and hone in on what is open, and when that happens. It's clear from even a cursory look at Jackson's game that he's still struggling with processing what isn't there. His interception against the Bills to cornerback Taron Johnson, which became a back-breaking 101-yard pick-six, is a perfect example. https://twitter.com/BuffaloBills/status/1350645256543473672 Here, the Bills are playing "Red 2" -- as ESPN's Matt Bowen explains it, a five-across red zone coverage in which the cornerbacks open and sink to carry the outside routes, the safeties shuffle through their run-pass keys and drop down on any shorter routes, the Mike linebacker opens to the passing strength and matches to the inside vertical seam, and the nickel defender (Johnson) reads the quarterback.

The quarterback's response to "Red 2? Ideally, it's not this. Jackson's best response here may have been to tuck and run. Johnson is breaking to the ball right away... never a good sign. You can blame Roman for "no open receivers." but this is just Red 2 the way it was meant to be played.

https://twitter.com/SageRosenfels18/status/1350817797476069376 When your opponent is playing coverage perfectly, eliminate what isn't there, and focus on what is.

Anticipation is your friend.

Jackson has the arm talent to make any throw in the playbook, but he's often affected by his inability to throw with anticipation in the timing of the down -- in football parlance, he's still a "see it and throw it" quarterback a lot of the time. This takes some throws out of the playbook entirely, and eliminated the ideal result on others. Roman's system has a ton of crossing routes to create openings at the short and intermediate levels, but the results aren't always ideal. On slants and drag routs in the regular season, Jackson completed 35 of 53 passes for 345 yards, 209 air yards, one touchdown, and two interceptions. By comparison, Ben Roethlisberger spent most of the 2020 season affected by a constricted passing game and a half-dead arm, and he threw seven touchdown passes and no picks on slants and drags. Whatever issues affect Roethlisberger at this point in his career, he knows how to throw guys open, or at least throw them "possible" in the ultimate direction of the route. This 21-yard pass to Marquise Brown in the second quarter against the Bills is a perfect (or imperfect) example. Yes, it's a big-play completion, but on the replay, watch how Brown has to hold up and jump for the ball. If Jackson throws this in stride, Brown may have six points.

Work the progressions.

Per Pro Football Focus, Jackson has thrown seven touchdown passes and five interceptions on plays in which he has less than 2.5 seconds in the pocket. With more than 2.5 seconds in the pocket, he's thrown 19 touchdowns to five picks. What does this tell you? Jackson is obviously a highly dangerous second-reaction passer because he can move around and make defenses fear his rushing ability, but he's also a frustratingly limited progression-reader at times, and this shows up more than it should. Let's travel back to Baltimore's 23-17 loss to the Patriots in Week 10, because there are three examples of potential big plays left on the bone because Jackson couldn't unclench and see what was opening up. This is a three-man concept with Brown, tight end Mark Andrews, and receiver Miles Boykin. Roman has created opportunities here, and Jackson does not avail himself of them. https://twitter.com/NFL_DougFarrar/status/1329103279465304064 Here, Jackson wants the deep boundary go to Brown, and he never sees Andrews with the capability to make a huge play in the middle of the field, because Patriots rookie safety Kyle Dugger is toast on this one. https://twitter.com/NFL_DougFarrar/status/1329106240992137217 And here… well, this is an easy first down if it’s a quick pass to Andrews, but alas. Result: Nobody goes nowhere. https://twitter.com/NFL_DougFarrar/status/1329113140768935936 Jackson’s 18-yard touchdown pass to Willie Snead late in the third quarter is more what you want to see — the Patriots are playing single-high zone, Snead simply runs through the coverage, and Jackson picks him up against a dime secondary. This is a good anticipation throw into converging coverage. You’d like to see more of it.

Work with your coaches to create better opportunities.

When we say that this isn't all Greg Roman's fault, that doesn't absolve Roman of responsibility. And it's not as if Roman is the second coming of Bill Walsh. Right around the time of that Patriots game, Mike Renner of Pro Football Focus wrote an excellent article in which he detailed some of the ways in which opposing defenses were keeping Jackson in check as a passer. As Renner pointed out, Baltimore’s usage of shifts and motion (71.1% in 2019 vs. 68.8% in 2020), play action (35.2% vs. 32.4%) and heavy sets remained relatively unchanged from 2019 to 2020. It was how defenses were matching up with those ideas that made the difference. Instead of staying in base personnel to counter the Ravens’ multi-faceted run game, teams shifted to heavy sub-package and added man coverage. One of Renner's conclusions was that Jackson was wildly efficient throwing on first down against base personnel aligned to try and stop Baltimore's multi-faceted run game. Indeed, first down was Jackson's most efficient down as a passer, unless you want to include his six attempts and one touchdown pass on fourth down. On first down in the regular season, per Pro Football Reference, Jackson completed 92 of 134 passes for 1,102 yards, 11 touchdowns, three interceptions, and a passer rating of 111.6. On third down -- the "obvious passing down" -- Jackson completed 54 of 97 passes for 676 yards, eight touchdowns, and four picks. The tape shows that the threat of the run and motion, and the complementary threat of tight end Mark Andrews over the middle, allows Jackson's receivers to work the seams and post area for bigger plays. Not that the Bengals' defense is an ideal example of anything, but this 43-yard touchdown to Boykin in Week 17 against a three-linebacker look is something to consider. Boykin is wide-ass open because two linebackers bite on the motion and the run fake, and Cincinnati decides to play "box-and-one" on Andrews. Cornerback LeShaun Sims is doing goodness knows what in the weeds, and that's all she wrote.

What's the endgame for Lamar? Pick Vick.

It's not that Jackson is a hopeless case. He led the NFL in touchdown passes in 2019 with 36, he's thrown 68 regular-season touchdowns to 18 interceptions, and he's the only quarterback in NFL history with two 1,000-yard rushing seasons. There's every tool in the toolbox, and this is a guy with the potential to destroy the league for years to come if the architecture matches up. That has to come from both player and coaches, and the ideal template for Jackson in the long term would be Michael Vick with the Eagles in 2010. Vick completed a career-high 62.6% passes that season for 3,018 yards, 21 touchdowns and six interceptions. Head coach Andy Reid and offensive coordinator Marty Mornhinweg did a brilliant job of buttressing Vick's limitations against his attributes in a West Coast system with vertical elements and embryonic spread concepts. The Falcons had done two things during Vick's time there -- they either treated him as a runner with little thought to his progression as a passer, or they square-pegged him into a boilerplate West Coast passing plan with no chance of consistent success. Lamar Jackson is already ahead of that game in many ways. The full picture of his future remains unknown until we see how much of a quarterback he's willing and able to become -- with the coaches able to ease the progression.