Baltimore Ravens quarterback Lamar Jackson had a dynamic rookie campaign, taking over for an injured Joe Flacco midway through the season and leading the Ravens to an AFC North division title.
However, while Jackson is a freakish athlete capable of taking over a game with his speed and athleticism, his ability to actually throw the football leaves a lot to be desired.
In seven starts in 2018, Jackson threw for 1,201 yards, six touchdowns and three interceptions while completing just 58.2 percent of his passes and registering a passer rating of 84.5.
He also struggled mightily during Baltimore's Wild Card Round playoff loss to the Los Angeles Chargers.
But, the 22-year-old is working to get better.
Ravens head coach John Harbaugh says that Jackson is down in Florida working with a private coach and mentioned that some wide receivers have gone down to work with him, as well:
“A number of the receivers have gone down to work with him,” said Harbaugh, according to Charean Williams of Pro Football Talk. “He’s got other receivers, other places — I don’t know who they are — but he’s been throwing regularly, and I think he’ll ramp that up even more as he gets closer.”
Jackson was certainly phenomenal in the ground game, racking up 695 yards and five scores while averaging 4.7 yards per carry, so if he can nail down a solid passing attack? Forget about it.
“The most important step is all of it. It’s everything,” Harbaugh said. “A quarterback can’t just focus on one thing. We’ve got to work on everything at the same time. I think the bottom line is we have an offense that we’re building. We’re building it around Lamar, but we’re also building it around all of our guys. We’re building the offense that we want to run, and we’re building it from the ground up – nuts and bolts, scratch. And I think we’re building it really, really well in a way that’s going to allow us to do a lot of different things, be in a lot of different worlds.”
With an improved Jackson under center, the Ravens will be tough to handle.
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