Lamar Jackson is evolving in the Ravens’ new offense. Just look at his footwork.

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It almost never happens now, a thousand-plus reps (and counting) into this new phase of his NFL career. But every so often this offseason, the Lamar Jackson of old would resurface.

During organized team activities, the Ravens’ star quarterback would break the huddle. He’d set his feet in a shotgun or pistol look. And then ...

“Switch your feet!”

Oh, right. Old habit. His left foot was behind his right foot. Had to be the other way now, or else he’d hear about it from first-year quarterbacks coach Israel Woolfork.

Of all the ways Jackson could change this season in coordinator Declan Doyle’s new offense, the most important might be the least obvious. Jackson’s footwork is different now, slightly but crucially. He starts in what Woolfork calls a “left foot open” stance — his left foot staggered ahead of his right foot.

In an offense as demanding as Doyle’s, all the details matter. Jackson cannot be completely aligned with his receivers, the Ravens’ thinking goes, if the particulars of his footwork are out of step with the particulars of their routes. Timing is everything.

“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’s old footwork was wrong for this offense. But it was not necessarily wrong for Jackson. He won a Heisman Trophy at Louisville with a “right foot open” stance in coach Bobby Petrino’s shotgun-heavy pro-style offense.

He won his first NFL Most Valuable Player award in 2019 under Greg Roman, a run-first play-caller with an unsophisticated passing attack. Right foot open.

He won his second MVP award in 2023 under Todd Monken, an Air Raid disciple with more exacting demands for Ravens receivers. Right foot open.

Doyle, who never played quarterback beyond the high school level, had a different vision for Jackson. So did Woolfork, a wide receiver in high school and at Grand Valley State. They both had roots in Bill Walsh’s West Coast offense, a timing-based passing scheme reliant on three- and five-step drops.

After taking over as Chicago’s offensive coordinator last year, Doyle asked Woolfork, then the Arizona Cardinals’ quarterbacks coach, to school first-year Bears quarterbacks coach J.T. Barrett in the proper footwork. Quarterback Caleb Williams had been a right-foot-open passer since college. That changed in Year 1 under new Chicago coach Ben Johnson and Doyle.

Williams’ accuracy (58.1%) dipped from his rookie year (62.5%), and from the first half of the 2025 season to the second half. But his 37 “big-time throws” — passes that Pro Football Focus classifies as high-difficulty, high-value completions — ranked second among NFL quarterbacks, behind only Los Angeles Rams star and eventual MVP Matthew Stafford.

“It’s like changing your golf swing,” said Woolfork, who’s also helped the Cardinals’ Kyler Murray, the Cleveland Browns’ Deshaun Watson and other quarterbacks tweak their stance.

After Doyle and Woolfork joined Jesse Minter’s first Ravens coaching staff in February, they envisioned a similar makeover for Jackson. As a right-handed thrower, he was accustomed to lining up in the shotgun and pistol with his right foot forward, as he would on under-center plays, where the setup helped him push off his left foot and away from the center after the snap.

But by having Jackson’s lead foot — his left foot — already pointed forward, he could position himself for throws more quickly. A more comfortable drop, then, would help Jackson find better rhythm. And better rhythm would help him work through his progressions on time.

The early returns, Woolfork acknowledged, were “awkward” for Jackson. But by-the-book footwork would lend Doyle’s passing game a kind of quality control. Starting with the presnap placement of Jackson’s left foot — 4.5 yards behind the center on shotgun snaps, for instance — everything could fall into place. Without consistent drops, Woolfork said, Jackson could not know for certain whether he was “ahead” of a concept in his passing progression, “behind” or on time.

“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, a first-time play-caller, has called his work with Jackson a “process.” He has stressed the value of each rep in OTAs and training camp, explaining in June that “growth happens on the other side” of practice mistakes.

In Jackson, Doyle has found a quarterback at a crossroads. New head coach. New coordinator. New footwork. And a lot of familiar, nagging questions.

“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.”

As Jackson left Owings Mills in June, Woolfork urged him to remain vigilant during his summer hiatus. It didn’t matter whether he was throwing a ball around with friends in his backyard; his left foot needed to be up.

Midway through camp, Jackson no longer needed reminders. His footwork, Woolfork said, was “starting to become second nature.” He was taking the right steps.

“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.”