Ravens Had 'Offense Other People Hadn’t Seen' With Lamar Jackson

Ravens QB already has multiple records.

OWINGS MILLS, Md. — The Ravens were confident they had a special player when they drafted Lamar Jackson in the first round of the 2018 draft.

In fact, the team believed they could revolutionize the NFL, and to a certain extent, they did with the schemes developed by offensive coordinator Greg Roman. 

"When you have a quarterback like Lamar, it was almost like Greg could go to the lab – he was like a mad scientist – and it allowed us to create an offense that other people hadn’t seen," Ravens GM Eric DeCosta said. "Now, that doesn’t last forever. Other teams spend a lot of time in the offseason trying to find ways to beat you – that’s just the nature of this business. 

"But when we saw Lamar, we saw a unique talent who we felt was underrated, undervalued, and there was an opportunity for us to get him at a point where we thought we would get outstanding value and then craft an offense around his unique skills.”

Baltimore is 37-12 in the regular season with Jackson as its starter. Since his first NFL start in Week 11 of 2018, his 37 wins are tied with Josh Allen for fourth-most among quarterbacks, trailing only Aaron Rodgers (41), Patrick Mahomes (40) and Tom Brady (40). 

Jackson ranks seventh all-time in rushing yards (3,673) among NFL quarterbacks His 10 career performances with 100 or more rushing yards are tied (with Michael Vick) for the most by a quarterback in NFL history.

Jackson has 16 career games with two or more passing touchdowns and 50 or more rushing yards, joining Allen, Russell Wilson, Steve Young, Michael Vick, Randall Cunningham, and Cam Newton as the only players with 10-plus such games since 1950. 

Last season, Jackson became the first quarterback in league history to reach 35 career victories before the age of 25

Jackson also joined Newton as the only quarterbacks in history with at least 500 rushing yards in each of their first four seasons

DeCosta always saw the potential with Jackson

First, we had some scouts that thought he was a very special player, kind of unorthodox and not your traditional quarterback that we’ve seen over the years," DeCosta said. "We were blessed, I think, as an organization, to have [quarterbacks coach] James Urban coaching with us and also [former offensive coordinator] Marty Mornhinweg, as well, and both guys had been around Michael Vick, and so they had seen a player like Lamar in the past. 

"One of the challenges sometimes you have in scouting is when you don’t have a reference or a memory or somebody that reminds you of that particular player. So, we were blessed to have that, because those guys had been around Michael Vick, and they knew how he would fit with us, and they knew how we could build things out."