Miami blitzed Lamar Jackson on 30 of his 50 dropbacks and sacked the signal-caller four times in the Dolphins’ 22-10 win over Baltimore in Week 10 last season.
Jackson said this week that the Ravens are better prepared for the Dolphins blitz and Cover 0 schemes in their Week 2 matchup on Sunday.
“They just caught us off guard, really,” said Jackson, who actually handled the blitz well in the 2021 loss, passing 18-of-25 for 158 yards and an 88.4 passer rating against Miami blitzes, according to Pro Football Focus.
The pressure did get to Jackson for the four sacks, though, and Baltimore was only able to muster 94 yards on the ground in the setback.
“We hadn’t really gone over defenses doing all-up zero against us – like, just all-up flat-out zero,” Jackson said. “But I feel like we’ll have an answer for it this year. We watched film – watched a lot of film on those guys – because we don’t want it to happen again.
“Other teams did zero [blitz], but it was just the way they did it that kind of affected us. But like I said, we’ll have an answer this time around if they do the same thing.”
Miami blitzed New England QB Mac Jones on 10 of his 33 dropbacks in the Dolphins’ 20-7 win over the Patriots on Week 1, sacking him twice, and limiting him to 4-of-7 passing for 53 yards, with one INT and a 41.7 passer rating on those dropbacks.
Baltimore coach John Harbaugh said his offense will be ready for more blitz and more Cover 0 from the Dolphins on Sunday.
“We would have been negligent if we hadn’t worked on it,” Harbaugh said. “It was something we needed to get a lot better at, and we studied it the whole offseason. We’ll have a plan for it and hope it works, because these guys are probably the best in the league at doing it right now. They do it more than anybody, they do it better than anybody and it’s just something they’re committed to.”
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Chris Graham
