Baltimore Ravens: Lamar Jackson comes back down to earth

After two hot starts to begin the season, Lamar Jackson and the Baltimore Ravens weren’t able to find the same success in Week 3.

Lamar Jackson and the Baltimore Ravens went down, 33-28, at Arrowhead Stadium in Week 3 for their first loss of the season, a game in which Jackson came back down to earth in a sense. The second-year quarterback threw for just 267 yards while completing 51.2 percent of his passes (22 for 43). He also rushed for 46 yards on eight attempts with a touchdown.

Just for comparison, Jackson threw for 324 yards and five touchdowns in Week 1 against the Miami Dolphins while completing 85 percent of his passes (17 for 20). Then he threw for 272 yards and two touchdowns in Week 2 against the Arizona Cardinals while completing 65 percent of his throws (24 for 37) and also rushing for 120 yards.

It would appear Lamar Jackson’s numbers returned to normal this week given that he faced a legitimate opponent in the Kansas City Chiefs. Kansas City has a serious pass rush, led by Frank Clark, that was able to bring Jackson down three times in this game for three sacks.

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Last year, the Chiefs’ pass defense was 31st in passing yards allowed, in front of only the Bengals. Week-in and week-out, whoever went against the Chiefs was almost certain they would throw for over 300 yards and put up at least 400 yards of total offense in any given game.

This year, it’s not a complete 180 for the Chiefs’ pass defense, but we can see the small improvements they’ve made to their secondary with the additions of Tyrann Mathieu and Juan Thornhill at safety.

At the current moment (with Chicago and Washington still to play on Monday), the Chiefs are right in the middle of the pack in passing yards allowed with 774 passing yards surrendered (20th in the league). Again, by no means are we seeing a Legion of Boom form in Kansas City, but it’s clear the pass defense has improved from what it was last season.

That brings us back to Jackson and the Ravens. They went up against a team that could actually shut them down to a degree in the passing game, a facet of the game they had not seen the previous two weeks against Miami and Arizona.

Jackson’s two favorite and most reliable targets, Marquise Brown and Mark Andrews, both had bad showings on Sunday. Brown went for just two catches on nine targets after playing the most snaps he’s played all year (62; 75 percent of the offensive snaps). Andrews wasn’t much better registering just three catches for 15 yards playing a little over 50 percent of the offensive snaps.

The Chiefs shut down this hot Ravens offense and reverted Lamar Jackson and the team to their old style of run-first, clock management offense. Mark Ingram went off for three touchdowns, but the Ravens offense, as a whole, that we saw the previous two weeks was nowhere to be seen.

Another point of contention is that this is the second team that Jackson has seen for a second meeting. Meaning, though he’s 8-3 as the Ravens’ starting quarterback, the only teams he’s seen twice have been the Chiefs and Chargers. Both teams have been able to get the better of him the second time around (the Chargers were able to knock him out of the playoffs last year on their second crack at him).

What this shows is a Ravens offensive game plan that can be adjusted to defend and find success against. Hopefully, for Lamar Jackson’s sake, he and the Ravens can figure out a way to beat teams multiple times. A Week 4 matchup against the Browns is a prime opportunity to do so.