How Lamar Jackson and the Ravens use motion to gain an edge
Midway through the second quarter Sunday, Ravens quarterback Lamar Jackson went looking for clues. The Denver Broncos were showing a pre-snap blitz look on second-and-5, and Jackson's best available fact finder was nearby.
So Jackson, surveying the scene from the shotgun formation, motioned running back Justice Hill over to the right. Hill took a couple of steps, Denver's defense reacted, and then he returned. That seemed to always be the plan; Hill would end up running a wheel route down the left sideline. Jackson liked what he saw. He snapped the ball.
"I'll just say I knew where I was going with the ball," he recalled Monday.
Jackson was going to Hill, who — helped by a near-pick from wide receiver Rashod Bateman — sped by dropping outside linebacker Jonah Elliss and ran under a rainbow from Jackson for a 24-yard completion down to the Broncos' 10-yard line. Three plays later, the Ravens were in the end zone, taking a 17-7 lead in a game they'd run away with, 41-10.
If it seemed like their league-leading offense was in perpetual motion at M&T Bank Stadium, well, it kind of was. The Ravens averaged a Week 9-best 7.3 yards per play and scored on all but one of their drives with Jackson at quarterback. But they were active before the snap, too, using motion on 17 of their 22 drop-backs and on 27 of their 33 designed runs, according to the NFL's Next Gen Stats, one of their highest rates all season.
With Jackson, running back Derrick Henry and wide receiver Zay Flowers powering the Ravens' offense, coordinator Todd Monken has a range of easy buttons at his disposal. On Sunday, motion was one of his most effective. Jackson went 12-for-15 for 172 yards and a touchdown while the Ravens rushed for 110 yards (4.1 per carry) and two touchdowns with pre-snap movement.
"It's just more stuff to kind of get a read for what the defense is doing, kind of throwing them off," wide receiver Tylan Wallace said Sunday. "Sometimes we might hand it to the motion guy. Sometimes we might not. Sometimes we'll send the motion guy and he's doing nothing. Sometimes he'll motion over, run a route. It's kind of just doing things to mess with the defense a little bit."
The Ravens haven't needed motion to be a pest this season. On static pre-snap looks, they've posted an NFL-best 6.9 yards per play, with Jackson throwing for 11 touchdowns and one interception, according to TruMedia, and Henry averaging a ridiculous 8.1 yards per carry.
But almost two-thirds of the Ravens' plays this season have featured some kind of changing picture — a running back doing a U-turn, a tight end re-establishing himself elsewhere on the field, a receiver accelerating at the snap — and for good reason. Motion "allows you to have some type of a bead on what the defense is doing," wide receiver Nelson Agholor said Sunday. A linebacker shadowing a running back as he motions out into space is a good hint that the defense is in man coverage. A linebacker bumping over to the slot after a receiver changes sides is a good hint that the defense is in zone.
With those early clues, Jackson has found easy answers and explosive plays. He's completed 73% of his passes with pre-snap motion — up from 59.8% without — for nine touchdowns, one interception and an NFL-best 10.1 yards per attempt.
"If you create some kind of advantage, whether it's a numbers advantage or a blocking advantage, sometimes it shows you if it's man or zone," coach John Harbaugh said Monday. "Sometimes you can create a problem with their coverage and get somebody open. All of those things are part of it. Sometimes it's just to put them on their heels a little bit, just to create a different picture so you can hide a formation and run the same route that you would run, but maybe they have a more difficult time identifying what's coming because there's moving parts in front of it."
The Broncos entered Week 9 with one of the NFL's best pass defenses, but Monken had the upper hand Sunday in his chess match with defensive coordinator Vance Joseph.
One motion that sent Hill into the flat at the snap opened a pocket of space underneath for Bateman and a 15-yard gain. A "cheat" motion for Flowers, which gave him a short runway to accelerate and Denver's defense little time to react as he headed toward the sideline, led to a 28-yard catch. Two other pre-snap shifts by Flowers led to explosive screen plays — one a 27-yarder by Henry after a play-action fake, the other a 16-yarder to Flowers himself.
"With me just studying the bad plays as well, just studying and memorizing everything, what I'm seeing [is] helping the process of the game for me," said Jackson, who finished 16-for-19 for 280 yards and three touchdowns, good enough for his NFL-record-tying fourth career perfect passer rating (158.3) . "Everything's just slowing down."
Motion didn't power up the Ravens' rushing attack Sunday to game-breaking levels, but not for a lack of trying. Henry's two rushing scores — from 7 and 6 yards out, respectively — featured a little window dressing, with Jackson getting a receiver into a cheat motion on both, perhaps in an effort to freeze the Broncos' safeties for a half-second longer than they'd otherwise take.
But on Henry's longest run of the game, the Ravens kept things mostly simple. Early in the third quarter, Bateman relocated inside for a more condensed split. That was as complicated as it got for Jackson, who, after a few more commands to his line and blockers, went back under center. He got the snap, handed the ball off to Henry, then watched him rumble for 20 yards.
"Sometimes it's good to just come out and line up and just play ball," Harbaugh said. "I think Todd does a good job, too, of building off of what you've been doing well. They've seen that they have to defend one thing — now let's give them something off of that."
