Colts: What Indy can learn from Steelers in stopping Lamar Jackson

Here’s what the Colts can learn from Pittsburgh in order to slow down Ravens QB Lamar Jackson on Sunday.

Despite a COVID-19 scare from both teams, it looks like the Indianapolis Colts-Baltimore Ravens matchup on Sunday will proceed as scheduled. The latest batch of positive tests for Indy came back negative, meaning that the four players who missed practice on Thursday returned to the facility on Friday.

Baltimore, meanwhile, will be without cornerback Marlon Humphrey and potentially six other high-risk close contact players who have yet to be cleared. We’ll continue to monitor this situation into the weekend, but the matter at hand for the Colts now that the scare is seemingly behind them has to be instilling a game plan to (hopefully) slow down Ravens signal caller Lamar Jackson.

Luckily for Indianapolis, the Steelers have had Jackson’s number over the last two seasons and they are fresh off forcing him to commit four turnovers in Week 8. With every other team in the NFL finding it impossible to slow Jackson down, here’s what the Colts can learn from Pittsburgh’s foolproof blueprint.

For the game, Jackson finished 13-of-28 (46.4%) for 208 yards and two touchdowns and interceptions apiece. He tacked on 65 yards on 16 carries (4.0 YPC) with his legs, but also committed two fumbles. So, what exactly did Pittsburgh do that made the Ravens superstar look like a shell of his 2019 MVP self?

For starters, they did an exceptional job at mixing coverage schemes, which resulted in Jackson second-guessing himself at the line of scrimmage. Last season, he was an expert at assessing how opposing defenses planned to attack him last season and the Steelers continually throwing him different looks created all sorts of pre-snap confusion.

On top of generating chaos at the line of scrimmage, Pittsburgh blitzed all game long and did so in an effective (and organized) manner, sacking Jackson four times, which is an extreme rarity given how often his blazing speed helps him elude would-be tacklers in the backfield.

It obviously helps having a cavalcade of individual star power on defense — including TJ Watt, Cam Heyward, Minkah Fitzpatrick and Bud Dupree, to name a few — who can force a turnover on their own on any given play, but make no mistake about it: the Steelers’ game plan was just as (if not more) important.

We’ve seen the sort of havoc Indianapolis’ defense can wreak when they do blitz, and defensive coordinator Matt Eberflus shouldn’t hesitate in replacing the formula he used against Detroit last weekend, when he ordered blitzes on 42% of drop backs. Prior to that game, the Colts logged an 18.8% blitz rate, which was the fourth-lowest in the entire NFL.

Darius Leonard will be imperative in keeping Indy organized against Jackson’s dual-threat ability, but mixing up schemes and creating pressure on blitzes will be key in not only slowing him down, but potentially stopping him outright like Pittsburgh.

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