BALTIMORE — Declan Doyle didn’t wait long to suggest one of the more significant changes Lamar Jackson has made going into what is his ninth NFL season.

The first time Doyle spoke with the two-time NFL Most Valuable Player, Jackson wasn’t even sure yet that Doyle would be the Ravens’ offensive coordinator. It was late January, and the two were on a Zoom interview. Doyle had an idea he wanted to put in front of him.

Doyle wanted Jackson to play with his left foot forward when lining up in the shotgun.

“It was like, ‘Hey, this is something that I believe in, what do you think?’” Doyle recalled. “And he was like, ‘I am totally open to trying that.‘”

Jackson told Doyle that he’d done it in college before (though multiple reviews of his career highlights indicate it was rare at best). Still, after a few days, Doyle said it started to look natural.

There were reasons for the change.

The stance aligns Jackson’s feet with the timing of the playbook, helping ensure that he is synced up with the routes his receivers are running. It allows him to progress through his reads faster, without wasted motion. And it keeps him from hanging on his back foot too long, encouraging a cleaner weight shift and, ultimately, a quicker and more accurate throw.

“I feel like it’s helped a lot,” Jackson said Tuesday. “The footwork fits this system. If you’re on one route too long, your footwork will tell you.”

Added Doyle: “We studied a lot of tape around the league of people that did it that way.”

It is not the first time Doyle has done this.

Last year in Chicago, he had Caleb Williams switch his stance as well. Williams went on to post career highs in passing yards (3,942) and touchdown passes (27). His passer rating also increased, and he was sacked far less often — 24 times, compared to 68 the year before. The Bears finished 11-6 and reached the divisional round of the playoffs for the first time since 2010.

For Jackson, though, the stance is only one piece of what has become an entirely new offense.

Doyle has also had him operating from under center much more frequently than in previous years. There is a “mind-blowing” attention to detail, Jackson said, from how to huddle to the mechanics and timing of his throws. There are tweaks to cadence and eye movement, and a more nuanced approach to structure — all without handcuffing the improvisational ability that has always made Jackson so difficult to defend when things go awry.

The goal, to a man, has invoked an oft-repeated descriptor: an explosive offense.

The Ravens will find out just how explosive they are when they open their season Sunday in Indianapolis against the Colts. But the early returns have been promising this summer.

Baltimore is expected to have one of the league’s better defenses under first-year coach Jesse Minter, who similarly turned around the Los Angeles Chargers’ defense the past two years as their coordinator. He’ll continue to call the plays in Baltimore, where he also has Pro Bowl and All-Pro talent at every layer of the defense.

So what does safety Kyle Hamilton see from the other side after months of going against Jackson and the Ravens’ offense?

“You gotta be really good with your eyes playing this offense,” he said. “I feel like it’s very much run until you can stop it, and then maybe run a little more and then off that they can open up the playbook.”

That is the point of all these changes.

The Ravens aren’t simply trying to recapture the lost brilliance of an offense that was historically great just two seasons ago after a disjointed 2025. They are trying to build something that can help take them somewhere they haven’t been since 2013: the Super Bowl.

There is urgency, too, for Jackson, who has a career 3-5 record in the postseason, has only once reached the AFC championship game and whose current contract runs through only the 2027 season.

It’s a point that Hamilton and others are acutely aware of.

“We made all these changes, brought a bunch of people in, brought a whole new regime in,” he said. “It’s not to just be mediocre.

“We’ve been close in the past, but I definitely think there’s a heightened sense of urgency the longer you go without doing so with the teams that we’ve had in the past.”

But that’s in the past.

Jackson is more concerned with the present and the future. And in this offense, the details matter and are what will make it go.

“That is why Dec’ is always on us about the small things — the small details,” he said. “That is what makes the offense. If one guy is off with something, it can pretty much screw up the whole dynamic of the offense, or whatever play we have drawn up.

“The detail, the detail, the detail — that is all he has been coaching us pretty much.”

It hasn’t always been perfect, Hamilton said.

It will likely take time to gel, too. The interior of the offensive line is new, and Jackson is also breaking in some new pass catchers with rookie wide receivers Ja’Kobi Lane and Elijah Sarratt, along with two rookie tight ends, Matthew Hibner and Josh Cuevas. He also has a new center in Jovaughn Gwyn, who will make his first NFL start Sunday.

“He’s been very critical of himself,” Hamilton said of Jackson. “Installing a new offense, there’s timing and spacing you have to get used to.

“In practice, he’ll mess something up and, hand up, that’s on me. Him and Declan will have a conversation. I think they have a good dynamic going on.”

Time will tell, beginning Sunday.

For now, Jackson sees something different around him. He’s not necessarily a different player, but has a different way of trying to get to the same place.

“From what I see, a lot of moving parts,” he said of the offense, which will likely feature a good deal of pre-snap motion and other wrinkles to stress the opposition. “We can put guys in different positions to win. I feel like the success rate should be high. That is what I am expecting, but we will see.”

Minter is as curious as he is excited to see what it looks like once it counts for real, too.

‘It’s new, it’s kind of energized the guys just from it being new and some of the challenges and the way Dec’ demands a standard that we operate,” Minter said.

After months of preparation and looking at it through the lens of his own defensive playcaller eyes, Minter now gets to watch Jackson and company do it against another opponent like everyone else.

As for Jackson?

“I believe we have a lot in store,” he said. “New season, it feels like a new breath of fresh air.”

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