Ravens quarterback Lamar Jackson has been adept at escaping defenses over the course of his career, but there was no escaping the Lions in the second half of Monday night’s game.
After being sacked once and running for 25 yards in the first half, Jackson was limited to 10 rushing yards while being sacked six times in the second half of Detroit’s 38-30 win. Al-Quadin Muhammad had 2.5 sacks while filling the role Marcus Davenport played before going on injured reserve, and Jack Campbell, Derrick Barnes, Alex Anzalone, Trevor Nowaske, and Aidan Hutchinson got in on the fun as well.
Hutchinson, who also forced a key fumble by Derrick Henry, said after the game that the Lions’ pass rush took off once they simplified their approach to dealing with Jackson.
“I think we were running too many games, and he was cutting up those games a little bit that we were running,” Hutchinson said, via Benjamin Raven of MLive.com. “And I think we kind of went to, ‘Let’s just run straight and let’s go win.’ And that’s what we did. Big shoutout to the coverage. That’s what happens when good coverage marries good rush — you get sacks, and that’s the name of the game. Today was that. We didn’t even start out that hot with the sacks; it was something that just kept picking up steam as we went.”
Scheme tweaks helped, as did taking a lead that forced the Ravens into passing more often in the fourth quarter. That opened the door for the pass rush to do exactly what Hutchinson said they wanted to do, and the results spoke for themselves by the end of the night.
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