In the Film Room With Lamar Jackson and T.J. Watt: Breaking Down the Ravens Failed Two Point Try

Nick Farabaugh |

Updated: May 25, 2022

PITTSBURGH — There was nothing easy about the pass. However, Lamar Jackson, T.J. Watt, and others now find themselves engulfed in the fabric of the Steelers-Ravens rivalry forever. After a failed two-point conversion that Jackson sailed a little bit too far for Mark Andrews, the Steelers walked away from the game with a 20-19 nail-biting victory. However, the play itself was well-designed, and it is hard to blame anything from a play-calling perspective. The execution, rather, was poor.

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The play itself makes a lot of sense. They use the threat of the running game and Jackson himself as a weapon. With it, they have two levels to read. There are the middle crossers, and then Andrews cutting across from his H-Back spot. Andrews is wide open here, and Jackson sees it immediately. The issue is that it leaves Watt unblocked, thus forcing Jackson to throw without a set base and off-platform. While that is something Jackson can do, the way plays this also forces his arm into this low angle. Since his wrist is not level, his elbow drops, and that can force passes to sail, even slightly. That seemingly is what happened to Jackson here. It is a throw he should make, but it is not a simple toss. Either way, Watt knew the crazy arm angles that Jackson was using would show up.

“I don’t know, he throws from crazy arm angles all the time,” Watt said. “You can never tell how he’s going to throw it. I’m not going to take credit for it or anything like that. He’s been throwing off of different angles his whole career. That’s something coming into this game we knew, and I’m just glad he didn’t catch it.”

For Jackson, he knows Watt is a ‘great edge rusher’, however, he has to chalk up this issue to simply execution. There is nothing more to it than that.

“We just have to execute,” Jackson said. “We just didn’t execute. We weren’t on the same page. It’s a mishap… I just had to make something happen. That’s it.”