Ravens Owner Steve Bisciotti: Lamar Jackson Will Run Less This Season

Lamar Jackson helped turn around the Baltimore Ravens' season last year with his legs, but team owner Steve Bisciotti doesn't envision his quarterback scrambling around as frequently moving forward.

"I think you'll be pleasantly surprised that Lamar is not going to be running 20 times a game," Bisciotti said Wednesday, according to ESPN.com's Jamison Hensley. "That's not what this offense is about."

Baltimore drafted the 2016 Heisman Trophy winner 32nd overall last year, and with Super Bowl XLVII MVP Joe Flacco starting the 2018 season under center for the Ravens, Jackson was used almost exclusively as a runner early on, as he had just 12 pass attempts through the first nine games.

Jackson assumed the starting role in Week 11 when a hip injury sidelined Flacco. At that point, the Ravens centered the offense around their dual-threat quarterback's legs—and it paid off in a big way.

The Jackson-led Ravens wound up finishing with the second-ranked rushing attack, running for 152.6 yards per game. The rookie quarterback piled up 695 yards and five touchdowns while carrying the ball 147 times, an NFL single-season record for a quarterback.

He averaged 17 carries per game in his seven starts.

Baltimore went from 4-5 with Flacco to finishing the season 6-1 with Jackson en route to winning the AFC North. That midseason turnaround helped the Ravens snap a three-year playoff drought.

While the results of having Jackson use his legs can't be ignored, Bisciotti and Co. don't want their 6'2", 212-pound quarterback being put in harm's way by running the football nearly 20 times per game. Instead, they want the running backs to carry the majority of the workload on the ground and have Jackson use his arm more to move the football.

The knock against Jackson coming out of Louisville was his accuracy throwing the football. He wound up completing 58.2 percent of his passes as a rookie, which is a figure the Ravens would like to see improve as he develops into an NFL passer.

Jackson took the league by storm last year, so much so that Baltimore traded Flacco to the Denver Broncos earlier this offseason. Now, the future of the franchise is in the 22-year-old's hands.

"Everything falls to Lamar," Bisciotti said. "We believe in him. We believe he's going to be great. He desires to be great. We will continue to build the team around his strengths, and he'll continue to work on his weaknesses."