BALTIMORE – Lamar Jackson has spent the offseason learning an offense that asks him to look different before the play begins without taking away what makes him dangerous after it breaks down.
Now he wants to see how a defense handles the finished version.
“I don’t believe a defense is prepared for what’s in store for them,” Jackson told Adam Schein on SiriusXM this week.
The line has substance behind it.
Baltimore finished first in the NFL in total offense in 2024, then fell to 16th last season. New head coach Jesse Minter hired Declan Doyle to rebuild the system around a two-time MVP whose best football has never fit neatly inside a conventional template.
Doyle’s first months in Baltimore have focused on structure before improvisation.
Jackson has spent more time working from under center after taking more than 80 percent of his dropbacks from shotgun or pistol last season, according to the Ravens. The staff believes the under-center element can hold the appearance of the run longer and improve the timing of play-action concepts.
The Ravens have also changed Jackson’s footwork.
Quarterbacks coach Israel Woolfork said the staff switched Jackson’s lead-foot setup to better match the timing of the new offense’s progressions. New language, motions and cadence have been added to the operation around him.
Those details are part of a larger idea.
Doyle wants different plays to begin from similar pictures. Receivers can move around the formation. The same personnel can present multiple threats. The defense has to process the disguise before Jackson reaches the part of the play where his own instincts become most dangerous.
Jackson described the system as having “a lot of moving parts.”
Doyle’s challenge is not to coach the improvisation out of him. It is to make the first part of the play precise enough that Jackson’s second-play ability becomes an advantage rather than a rescue plan.
The quarterback’s command of the system has grown with the installation.
Doyle said this week that Jackson’s operation has “accelerated exponentially” and that he is beginning to take greater control of the offense in and out of the huddle.
That is the more revealing development.
Jackson is entering his ninth NFL season. Baltimore is not trying to introduce him to the position. It is asking an established quarterback to absorb a different pre-snap structure, alter physical details he has used for years and still play freely once the ball is snapped.
The complete first-unit product has not appeared in a game that counts.
Jackson did not play in the preseason. Pieces of Doyle’s offense were visible throughout camp and joint practices, but Baltimore’s September 13 opener at Indianapolis will be the first regular-season test.
Until then, there are clues: more under-center work, changed footwork, heavier disguise and a quarterback who sounds impatient to show the result.
Soon the Ravens have to prove it.
WATCHING THE RAVENS IN 2026
For Baltimore’s complete schedule, kickoff times and U.S. TV listings, see The Sporting Page’s Baltimore Ravens 2026 TV Schedule.
