Lamar Jackson’s Newest Superpower: Sack Avoidance

It is no secret that Lamar Jackson is playing the best football of his career. The two-time MVP has reached a new level of dominance and is the current favorite to take home the award for the third time. But as great as his development throughout his career has been, the biggest change between this year and last has been his sack avoidance – an incredibly unusual development. And with the monster that is T.J. Watt looming this weekend, Jackson must continue his remarkable pressure response.

Quarterback Pressure Response

The way a quarterback responds to pressure is perhaps the hardest thing to develop. They can tweak their mechanics to improve accuracy, or gain enough experience and study enough film to a better job of reading defenses pre- and post-snap (another area Jackson has grown by leaps and bounds), but there is no drill to simulate the split-second decision-making a QB’s brain makes when a bunch of large men are collapsing around him and trying to bring him to the ground. And by the time a quarterback reaches the NFL, they have been responding to that scenario in a certain way for over a decade. Quarterbacks can get better or worse within their own play style, but a tiger doesn’t change its stripes, and sack avoidance is a fundamental tenet of how a signal caller plays, which is borne out in the data.

One of the most stable quarterback statistics that exists is pressure-to-sack rate (P2S%), a metric that looks at the percentage of pressures a quarterback faces that turn into sacks. Importantly, this stat is not dependent on the quality of offensive line play, because in all these plays the quarterback is already facing pressure (the role a quarterback plays in creating pressure is another discussion for another time). And just like most quarterbacks, Jackson’s has remained remarkably stable, posting P2S numbers between 19.1% and 21.8% (according to Pro Football Focus) in each of the previous four seasons. While those numbers are slightly below league average, they are not debilitating, and he has also been operating on a different prism than all other quarterbacks. Jackson’s once-in-a-century creation ability meant that he was also creating explosives out of tight situations, which is why he still finished fifth in EPA/Play (Expected Points Added) in 2023 when pressured. While we have all spent years talking about his development as a passer, his pressure response was never much of a question. He was always going to be a quarterback who took a few too many sacks, something everyone was willing to put up with because of the explosives that resulted from that same mentality.

But in 2024 that has all changed.

Lamar’s Development

Lamar Jackson has not stopped creating explosive plays this season; whether it be his remarkable stiff arm and touchdown pass in Week 5 or his incredible scramble to the one yard line in Week 10, he has provided his usual set of highlight reel plays. But incredibly, he has also taken far fewer sacks, despite the inconsistent play of his offensive line. His P2S% is down to 11.7%, good for second best in the NFL among quarterbacks who have taken at least 50% of his team’s drop backs. Along with the great plays, he has also been keeping the offense from falling behind the sticks, and he is doing it in every way possible.

He has a greater understanding than ever of when to just get rid of the ball…

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— Josh Siegel (@_joshsiegel_) November 15, 2024

…and of when to bail and create on his own.

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— Josh Siegel (@_joshsiegel_) November 15, 2024

The Ravens’ game-winning touchdown drive in Week 10 against Cincinnatiwould not have been possible without the slight pocket adjustment he made to buy extra time and find Rashod Bateman for a third and six conversion early in the drive.

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— Josh Siegel (@_joshsiegel_) November 15, 2024

As simple as some of these adjustments seem, I cannot emphasize enough that this just does not happen in the NFL. These are all things that Jackson has always been physically able to do, but his improvement in these situations is a result of a change in his mental response to a split-second situation that is impossible to simulate.

As good as Jackson’s overall pressure numbers have generally been, they have gone up a whole new level this year. He posted -0.21 EPA/Play under pressure when he finished fifth in that metric last year, with Dak Prescott’s league-leading figure being -0.09. But this year, he leads the league with a whopping -0.01 EPA/play when pressured. In other words, Lamar Jackson’s average pressured drop back is producing a near-neutral result. Considering that pressure is supposed to be, you know, bad for an offense, this is just not how football is supposed to work. Any basic trade-off in sports includes a greater risk to gain a greater reward. But right now, Lamar Jackson is still creating explosive plays while dramatically reducing his negative play creation.

If it seems like he is breaking football right now, it is because he kind of is.

The Steelers Game

Whether this is the quarterback Jackson is from now on is hard to forecast. There is not a lot of statistical precedent for a quarterback improving their pressure response to this degree this deep until their time in the league – but a good test will come this weekend against the Steelers.

While last year’s drop-a-palooza in Pittsburgh was an experience that no Ravens fan will soon forget, a major part of the reason for Jackson’s struggles against the Steelers has simply been that he has taken too many sacks. He has gone down 20 times over four career starts against them, with T.J. Watt being responsible for 8.5 of those. Given the struggles this offensive line has had this year against elite pass rushers, we can expect Watt to be in Jackson’s crosshairs for much of Sunday’s game. It is very possible that this game will come down to Watt’s sack finishing vs Lamar’s sack avoidance. The result will not only help determine the game, but give us even more insight to who Jackson has become as a player. He has come pretty close to maxing out how good a quarterback can become within his play style. But if he truly has reduced his sack rate for the good, he may reach a level of quarterback play beyond anything we ever imagined.

The post Lamar Jackson’s Newest Superpower: Sack Avoidance appeared first on Russell Street Report.

Source: https://russellstreetreport.com/2024/11/16/street-talk/jackson-sack-avoidance/