Lamar Jackson’s biggest adjustment in the Ravens’ new offense isn’t some flashy new wrinkle or a headline-grabbing stat line. It starts at the ground level.
The quarterback’s footwork has changed, and the Ravens believe that small shift can make a major difference in Declan Doyle’s system. Jackson now opens with his left foot staggered ahead of his right foot - what quarterbacks coach Israel Woolfork calls a “left foot open” stance - instead of the right-foot-open setup he’s used for most of his career.
That change took some getting used to. During organized team activities, Jackson would occasionally drift back into the old habit after breaking the huddle and settling into shotgun or pistol. Woolfork would catch it and bark, “Switch your feet!”
The point, from the Ravens’ perspective, is timing. In Doyle’s offense, the details have to line up. If Jackson’s footwork and the receivers’ routes aren’t synced, the whole operation gets out of rhythm.
“If the slant’s going ... and he’s breaking in,” Woolfork said in an interview last week, “that left-right footwork is going to get you timed up with his steps.”
Jackson has thrived before with a right-foot-open stance. He won a Heisman Trophy at Louisville that way in Bobby Petrino’s shotgun-heavy pro-style offense. He used it again while winning his first NFL MVP in 2019 under Greg Roman and his second in 2023 under Todd Monken.
But Doyle and Woolfork came into Baltimore with a different idea. Both have roots in Bill Walsh’s West Coast offense, where timing and structure are everything.
Doyle had already pushed similar work in Chicago, where he asked Woolfork to help first-year quarterbacks coach J.T. Barrett teach Caleb Williams a new footwork setup.
Williams had been a right-foot-open passer since college, but that changed in his first year under Ben Johnson and Doyle.
Williams’ completion rate dropped to 58.1% from 62.5% as a rookie, and it also fell from the first half of the 2025 season to the second half. Even so, his 37 “big-time throws” ranked second in the NFL, behind only Matthew Stafford.
“It’s like changing your golf swing,” Woolfork said, and he has used similar tweaks with quarterbacks including Kyler Murray and Deshaun Watson.
For Jackson, the logic is simple enough: start with the left foot already pointed forward, and he can get into his throws faster. That should help his drop, his rhythm and, eventually, his progressions. Woolfork said Jackson’s early work was “awkward,” but the Ravens view the adjustment as a kind of quality control for the passing game.
Without consistent drops, Woolfork said, Jackson can’t always know if he’s ahead of a concept, behind it or right on time. With the footwork cleaned up, the quarterback can better match his steps to the structure of the play.
“This allows you [to know], like, ‘Hey, I should take three [steps], and I should hitch,’” Woolfork said, referring to the small, controlled step quarterbacks often use before winding up. “And receiver one should be here.
I should plant and throw it. My second hitch should get me here.
My third hitch should get me [to the] back side [of the play]. And then, after that, I can go make a play.
So it’s just creating that rhythm and that timing of playing on time. And I think the footwork is really key with just timing your feet in the progression, too.”
Doyle has described the process with Jackson as exactly that - a process. He has leaned on every rep in OTAs and training camp, saying in June that “growth happens on the other side” of practice mistakes.
Jackson has embraced the work, too. In May, he said he needed to be around the new system and the new terminology, and that meant showing up for most of the Ravens’ voluntary workouts after largely skipping them in previous years.
“We have a new system,” Jackson said in May, after participating in most of the Ravens’ voluntary workouts that he’d largely skipped in years past. “I have to get the terminology down. Knowing where guys are, watching film, getting out on the field with my guys, knowing where guys are going to be with certain routes and certain plays and hearing Coach Doyle call plays - everything is new, so I had to be here.”
Even outside the facility, the footwork message didn’t stop. When Jackson left Owings Mills in June, Woolfork reminded him to keep his left foot up no matter where he was throwing.
By midcamp, the reminders were fading. Woolfork said the new stance was “starting to become second nature,” and Jackson was taking the right steps. Early in training camp, Jesse Minter said Jackson was “unbelievably” ahead of where he had been with the offense’s details during OTAs.
“Obviously, he put in time, looked at stuff,” Minter said early in training camp, calling Jackson “unbelievably” ahead of where he’d started with the offense’s nuances in OTAs. “The coaches have done a great job with him.
So when you get those things down, then your natural ability can take over. That is what we want for Lamar.”
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