Does Lamar Jackson Reach His Peak in Year 2 With Todd Monken?

As we get set for training camp, we’re exploring five questions this week surrounding the team.

Today’s question: Does Lamar Jackson reach his peak in Year 2 with Offensive Coordinator Todd Monken?

There’s only one significant milestone left for Jackson to achieve – winning a Super Bowl.

Capturing a Lombardi Trophy may require the 27-year-old Jackson to have his best season, even better than his two MVP seasons.

Entering Year 2 with Monken and Year 7 in the NFL, Jackson’s evolution goes beyond just his throwing and running. Coaches will be watching Jackson’s pre-snap decision making during training camp, monitoring how often he makes successful audibles and varies his cadence to keep pass rushers off balance.

It’s part of the process for all great quarterbacks. The better Jackson becomes at orchestrating the offense and controlling what will happen before the snap, the better he will become at controlling the game after the snap.

“How can we push that even further and give him more responsibilities within the offense and doing more things that he likes to do and listening to him and things that he likes and building around that,” Quarterbacks Coach Tee Martin said at mandatory minicamp. “We’re off to a good start, and [I’m] looking forward to training camp to really get to the identity that we want to have before the first game.”

Jackson had enormous success in his first year directing Monken’s system and led Baltimore to the best record in the NFL. Given more freedom to change plays and route concepts at the line of scrimmage, Jackson set career highs in completion percentage (67.2) and passing yards (3,678).

Every opponent focuses on stopping Jackson, and he has spent his entire career facing a myriad of strategies designed to stop him. He’ll be challenged again by creative blitzes and coverages, but a year under his belt in…