Green Bay’s Path To Slowing Lamar Jackson Starts At the Line Of Scrimmage

Baltimore Ravens quarterback Lamar Jackson’s availability should be firmly in question for Week 17 against the Green Bay Packers. Jackson suffered a back injury in the second quarter of Baltimore’s Week 16 matchup against the New England Patriots and did not return to the game. Reports from Baltimore’s locker room afterward noted that Jackson was grunting in pain and had difficulty putting on his socks and shoes, making his status something to monitor closely this week.

The Ravens must win their final two games and get help from a Pittsburgh Steelers loss at Cleveland to have a chance at winning the division, so expect Lamar Jackson to push to play on Saturday night. Green Bay will likely game-plan for both Jackson and Tyler Huntley, much like John Harbaugh and his staff will prepare for Jordan Love, who is in concussion protocol, Malik Willis, who is dealing with a shoulder injury, and possibly Clayton Tune.

Today, the focus is on Lamar Jackson. To slow down the two-time MVP, a defense has to play close to a perfect game. Still, the Packers must look outside the box to ensure No. 8 is uncomfortable whenever he takes the field at Lambeau Field. With that in mind, I asked Gabriel Pequeno, a specialist in Baltimore’s history and a Ravens fan, for insight into what Green Bay could do to take Jackson out of his comfort zone.

“There isn’t a magic recipe for stopping the Ravens’ offense,” Pequeno said. “But if someone hired me as a scout with the sole purpose of disrupting it, the starting point would be obvious. The biggest issue is the offensive line, specifically Daniel Faalele. He has arguably been the worst player on the Ravens’ roster this season. A quick search of his name on X shows plenty of clips of him struggling in both pass protection and run blocking.”

The data highlights Faalele’s issues. He ranks 11th in total pressures allowed and 13th in hurries allowed among qualified guards and is tied for the second-most sacks allowed in true pass sets. Typically, this would be a week to slide the pass rush away from Faalele’s side, forcing Baltimore to allocate help elsewhere and leaving him isolated in one-on-one situations against Micah Parsons on the inside.

However, with Parsons done for the year, that approach will likely change. Green Bay will need to create the same isolations through alignment and simulated pressures, rather than relying on a dominant individual matchup, while still trying to collapse the pocket from the interior.

“Four-man rushes work very well against Baltimore’s offense,” Pequeno noted. “Blitzes work as well. If you are the Packers, you need to generate pressure as often as possible because the Ravens’ offensive line has struggled this season.”

That poor offensive line play shows up in Lamar Jackson’s numbers under pressure. This season, he has four touchdowns and three interceptions when pressured, along with a 1% big-time throw rate and a 3.9% turnover-worthy play rate. When kept clean, he has thrown 14 touchdowns with just three interceptions.

Even Jackson’s occasional off-script, highlight-reel plays have not been enough to offset Baltimore’s issues at the line of scrimmage consistently. For context, last season he threw 14 touchdowns and only two interceptions when facing pressure. The drop-off this year is significant and reflects both the decline in offensive line performance and the cumulative effect of injuries, which have limited Baltimore’s ability to protect him and sustain an efficient offense.

Whether Lamar Jackson suits up on Saturday and how mobile he would be are open questions, but Green Bay’s plan has to start at the line of scrimmage. Winning there means attacking protection and eliminating escape lanes to prevent Jackson from extending plays. The goal is to force him to operate from the pocket, which is still a difficult assignment. Jackson is one of the best passers in the NFL, and any attempt to reduce him to a running back in 2025 is flat-out ignorance. If Green Bay can consistently limit his legs, it has a chance to neutralize the league’s most dangerous dual-threat player.