All-22: Titans Defense shut down Lamar Jackson – Analysis, Next-Gen, and More

The Tennessee Titans shocked the world last weekend when they went to Baltimore and dominated the Ravens, 28-12.

The talk all season was about Lamar Jackson. He’s the MVP of the league, he’s the first QB ever with 3,000 passing yards and 1,000 yards rushing, and he’s changing the game alongside Ravens offensive coordinator Greg Roman.

On Saturday night, this was not the case. The Titans forced Jackson to run laterally, forcing him to not be able to use his deadly north and south speed. And that’s why the Titans won. They stopped Jackson, and the Ravens did not know how to respond.

Jackson finished with a 62.7 PFF grade on Saturday night. He threw for 2 INT’s on 59 attempts(!). All regular season, Jackson averaged a 91.1 grading from Pro Football Focus.

Lets take a look at the first drive that ended in a Lamar Jackson interception.

Mark Ingram struggles to find room

Gus Edwards gets shut down

The Ravens were forced to throw the ball down the field due to the Titans steady 4-3 rush defense. A safety in the box allows the Titans to slow Lamar down.

The Ravens WR’s and TE’s struggled with drops all night. On this play, the intended target Mark Andrews, who happens to be Lamar’s favorite target, dropped a catchable ball and it turned into a first quarter interception.

More action:

Lamar Jackson rolls out and fires a ball into a tight window. Incomplete. The Titans were still able to get pressure even when rushing 4.

Lamar Jackson gets flushed out quickly and has to try and get back to the line of scrimmage. Number 54 Rashaan Evans was in charge of containing Jackson all night.

The Titans bring a delayed blitz that forces Jackson to rush a crucial 3rd down throw. The Titans did not blitz all game but did it on big downs. It was an important reason on why they stopped the run.

Jackson keeps it on the read option and gets nowhere. The Titans clearly wanted to keep Jackson behind the line of scrimmage all game long.

Some context on how the #titans upset the #ravensflock thru the lens of data and strategy…

⁦@NextGenStats⁩ #NFLDivisionalRound #NFLPlayoffs #nfl100 ⁦@nflnetwork⁩ pic.twitter.com/7syhuBSNF6
— cynthia frelund (@cfrelund) January 13, 2020

These are just a few examples of the domination the Titans displayed on Saturday night. They will face the Chiefs in Kansas City for the AFC Championship.

If you haven’t yet, take a look at my analysis of the coaching changes around the NFL –

Read: https://thefinalcount.blog/2020/01/09/nfl-coaching-carousel-update-analysis/