Lamar Jackson and the Ravens finally return home after a long three-game road trip. After narrowly escaping the Browns in Cleveland last week, how can the Ravens avoid falling to an opponent where they are double digit favorites?
1) The Return of La-MVP
We can be honest. Lamar Jackson hasn’t been sharp since his return. A second-half performance against Miami is about it. There are a multitude of reasons for this, including health, poor O-line play, and some questionable play-calls. But Jackson himself hasn’t looked his sharpest,
either. That doesn’t mean he’s no longer the best quarterback in the NFL. It just means he’s in a slump and needs a get-right game. And you couldn’t ask for a better one. This is Jackson’s first game at home since Week 3 in September, and it’s against a defense that’s allowed 27 or more points in seven of their 10 games.
The biggest point here in favor of Lamar Jackson is how the Jets blitz. We know by now that over the last three years with Todd Monken as the offensive coordinator, Jackson has transformed in arguably the best quarterback against the blitz. The numbers say he is the best. The Jets are blitzing at a top 10 rate in the NFL this year. More importantly, when they do blitz, according to Sharp Football Analysis, they play man coverage over 60% of the time. And, of course, the Jets’ record this year indicates they aren’t very good at man-blitzing, either.Think back to the Miami game mentioned above. That was also a team that man-blitzed a lot and wasn’t effective at it. It’s a perfect time for Jackson to lock back in. If the Ravens are going to make noise come January, Jackson has to be playing at an elite level to nullify this bad offensive line.
2) Convert in the red zone
We all know this issue. There’s no reason to continue to rehash it. The only thing that actually matters is whether can they fix it. The answer is yes, because the Ravens have Lamar Jackson. If it sounds simple, that’s because it is, because that’s how good he is when he plays at his best. But in the meantime, what can the Ravens do to fix it?
The first answer is to stop running Henry up the middle in shotgun. My answer would be to just stop running Henry up the middle entirely, but you can’t just completely abandon that. So if the Ravens are going to do that, it should be from under center, with Patrick Ricard playing fullback, leading the way. Other than that, I’d like to see the Ravens spread it out. They seem to condense their formations, then either run Henry or run that sprint-out play. That play used to work all the time, but teams are wise to it now, and with Lamar Jackson’s legs clearly limited, teams simply don’t feel the need to leave their spots to crash on him. If the Ravens aren’t going to pull the trigger on Jackson’s legs to fix the red zone issues (they shouldn’t until January), then you’ve got to find other solutions.
Here’s mine: pread it out. Use guys like Andrews, Likely, Bateman, Hopkins, successful red zone targets who have scored touchdowns their entire careers in that area of the field. Get Keaton Mitchell moving laterally, use more screens around the 10-yard line area, incorporate more motion, use trickery, maybe not to the level of hurricane trickery, but my point stands. Break the tendencies and go a new route.
3) Make a play on the deep ball
One of the largest reasons for head coach Aaron Glenn making the switch from Justin Fields to Tyrod Taylor is aggressiveness. For many Weeks, Glenn has expressed a desire to take shots down the field and criticized Fields conservative play in the passing game. Glenn even expressed how he was happy about a particular interception Fields threw against Cleveland because it was an attempt at aggressiveness, and Fields pushed the ball down. Still, Glenn wants more out of his offense, so he made the call to go to Taylor over Fields this week.
Now with Taylor in the game, you can bet that Glenn and the Jets have been working on some shot plays all week. The Ravens, meanwhile, have been excellent at limiting deep shots this season, even when the defense was bad to start. Potentially to their detriment early in the season, as they refused to adjust from two-deep shells to limit shot plays with Kyle Hamilton and Malaki Starks both deep. Things are different now that Alohi Gilman is in the building, and they’ve moved Hamilton up. More recently, they’ve been turning opponent deep shots into interceptions. The Ravens have to be ready for multiple big play plans from the Jets and be ready to take advantage of Taylor potentially forcing the down the field, maybe if the look still isn’t open. The Ravens could also try and bait some of these throws by giving pre-snap looks and then rotating out of it.
4) Make them one-dimensional
As with any offense, the easiest way to make a defense effective is to know what’s coming. The Jets are top five in rushing yards per game and yards per carry, fueled by Breece Hall and Justin Fields. But they are a bottom-10 team in rushing EPA, according to Sumer Sports. They are a team that sticks to the run, no matter what. That could potentially be a confidence indicator in Fields more than anything, but either way, they are going to run the ball.
The Ravens have struggled as a run defense in 2025, but their recent success on defense has come from forcing teams out of run situations. A heavy rotation at defensive line with Travis Jones, John Jenkins, Brent Urban, C.J. Okoye, and Taven Bryan has helped keep the bodies fresh and focused on creating negative plays in the run game for opposing offenses. If the Ravens can get Taylor and the Jets offense into clear passing situations, they should have massive success. Taylor is a great vet, but the Ravens have put quarterbacks like Matthew Stafford and Caleb Williams under the average game numbers during this run. Taylor shouldn’t pose any more of a challenge than those quarterbacks did.
