Lamar Jackson is sprinting into open space and past a frozen tackler … toward the end zone … closing in on the all-time quarterback rushing record.
But did you notice the lead block from unselfish Mark Ingram? How about the lateral quickness from 305-pound pulling guard Marshal Yanda? Or the confusion stemming from packaging three tight ends and sending one in motion?
Jackson quarterbacks the NFL’s most dangerous offense — the Jets’ problem Thursday night, assuming he plays through a quad injury — but he isn’t the favorite for NFL MVP just because of his legs and increasingly accurate arm. The Ravens built a run-heavy, tight-end-based scheme that creates pre-snap personnel mismatches and post-snap missed tackles in unexpected lanes.
“It’s not a gimmick offense. It’s a true offense that has answers for anything a defense poses,” Chris Simms of NBC Sports’ Pro Football Talk said. “They have a lot of creative ways to screw you over.”
While others wanted Jackson to move to wide receiver during the 2018 NFL Scouting Combine, the Ravens saw an unlikely successor to pocket passer Joe Flacco. Jackson took over Week 11 of his rookie year, but is blossoming in Year 2 under coordinator Greg Roman, who was Colin Kaepernick’s 49ers play-caller.
The Post sought to find out what the Ravens are doing to magnify Jackson’s abilities in an offense averaging 408 yards per game, including 200 on the ground in a pass-happy NFL. With jet motion and other types of deceptive movement around a sweeping, bootlegging or scrambling Jackson …
“You’ve stretched the defense at four different gaps,” NFL Network’s Brian Baldinger said. “Other teams will do that, but they won’t do it with a quarterback as talented as Lamar. It makes you pause and think because he is also very good at putting the ball in the belly and hiding the ball in the option game. You are not really sure who has it.”
And that’s before considering Jackson might stop, plant and throw a dart across his body, like he did to set up the walk-off field goal to beat the 49ers’ NFC-best defense. Jackson is a superior passer, especially off play-action fakes, than most dual threats before him.
“I don’t think Lamar is Deshaun Watson [as a passer] yet, but he has a really good idea of what he’s looking at,” Baldinger said. “There are days when he is staying in the pocket and going right through his progressions. He does a lot of things on the run as well, but he’s got his eyes up and knows where to go with the ball.”
With an immobile quarterback, football can feel like 10-on-11, advantage defense. As Dan Reeves, who drafted Michael Vick in 2001, was one of the first to figure out: “With a quarterback like that, it’s like you’ve got 12 guys. A quarterback plus one more.”
The Ravens use the pistol formation — Jackson in shotgun and a running back lined up directly behind him — for more than 40 percent of their snaps and more often than the other 31 teams combined, according to Sportsradar.
It offers a better vantage point for surveying blitzers and field balance so a play could go to right or left without tipping strong side and weak side. The Ravens get trickier by putting backup quarterback Robert Griffin III as another fast runner in the “Heisman package.”
“I think that offense just fit Lamar perfectly,” former Ravens teammate Buck Allen said. “It’s easy [to be his running back]. As soon as the defense gets out of their lane, Ingram is going to hit it, Lamar is going to hit it. They have to stay on the backside in case he does a boot.”
A franchise whose identity is tied to Ray Lewis, Ed Reed and defense used its first four 2018 draft picks on offense: Jackson, versatile tight ends Hayden Hurst and Mark Andrews, and right tackle Orlando Brown.
“If a bar fight broke out between the 32 teams in the NFL, I promise you the Ravens are going to be in the final four: They have more big bad [guys] than any other team in the NFL,” Simms said.
“They basically go, ‘We are going to run the ball, run the ball, run the ball, until you start giving us a look so unbelievable that we would be crazy not to throw it here. They abuse you with their power and size up the middle. Lamar is their edge speed guy. The tight ends are big but can still be a pain in the [butt] to have to cover one-on-one.”
The 2019 additions of free agent Ingram as a power runner who can act as Jackson’s fullback and deep-threat rookie Marquise Brown completed a perfect puzzle mostly void of All-Pros.
As Jets coach Adam Gase watches Ravens film, he notices targets running wide open at an alarming rate. It is a sure sign of overcommitting to stop the run against high-low pass concepts.
“We really are built comprehensively around Lamar,” coach John Harbaugh said. “We’ve got guys around him that definitely enhance his skills.”
Jackson needs 23 rushing yards to break the record held by Vick (1,039). The two often are compared, and Reeves sees some of his crossing and two-back concepts in the Ravens offense.
“Make some planned situations to get him outside,” Reeves said. “It would time him up for those routes coming across. With scrambles, you really don’t have anybody helping you. Now you have the five offensive linemen blocking for him, a back blocking for him, another back that is receiving on the back side and coming across late.”
If there is a difference? Vick was inclined to run if his first read was not open.
Jackson shows more patience. Simms is one of the few analysts who ranked Jackson as the No. 1 quarterback in the 2018 draft class — ahead of four top-10 picks.
“We’ve never really seen an offense totally built around a guy like this,” Simms said. “Defenses become simpler when you face Baltimore.”
Fear of being the next victim of one of the Ravens’ 40-yard passes (eight) or 20-yard rushes (17) is real. Very real.
“It’s a lot,” Baldinger said. “But it’s not difficult for Lamar. It’s just difficult to stop.”
For more on the Jets, listen to the latest episode of the “Gang’s All Here” podcast: