When asked about how the Bills can prepare for Ravens quarterback Lamar Jackson in practice, coach Sean McDermott could only chuckle.
“There’s only one Lamar Jackson,” the eighth-year coach and former defensive coordinator said. “You do the best you can to try and simulate it. Good luck.”
McDermott initially laughed off the idea that safety Micah Hyde, a star dual-threat quarterback at Fostoria High School in Ohio, could serve as the scout team signal-caller. But the real answer came Wednesday, when the Bills signed former Ravens quarterback Anthony Brown to their practice squad ahead of Sunday night’s AFC divisional round matchup in Orchard Park, New York.
Brown was a dual-threat star in college, passing for 7,891 yards and 61 touchdowns and rushing for 1,121 yards and 15 scores in five combined seasons at Boston College and Oregon. He signed with the Ravens as an undrafted free agent in 2022 to back up Jackson and Tyler Huntley and ended up making a surprise start at the end of the season. After Jackson injured his knee in early December and Huntley was ruled out with wrist and shoulder injuries, Brown was elevated to play a Week 18 game against the Cincinnati Bengals. With Baltimore resting some key starters ahead of a playoff game the following weekend, Brown completed 19 of 44 passes for 286 yards with two interceptions and a fumble in a 27-16 loss.
In bringing back the 6-foot-1, 223-pound Brown, who spent a week with the Bills during training camp in August, McDermott has someone who can at least give the defense the threat of both the run and the pass in practice. Using a better athlete who can’t pass as well wouldn’t have quite the same effect.
“If you just put a mobile person back there when you’re planning on working on the scrambles or the quarterback run game, the defensive players know, ‘Oh, this is one of those plays,’ if you just have to sub out one of our normal quarterbacks for a mobile player like that,” he said. “And so in order to hide that, what Anthony brings to the table is both. He can throw it, he can run it, so there’s a little bit more of a true, honest look down in and down out whether he’s handing it off, dropping back or doing the things, conceptually at least, that Lamar does.”
While starter Josh Allen — who ranks first in postseason history in quarterback rushing yards, just ahead of Jackson — and backup Mitchell Trubisky — who has rushed for 1,174 yards in his eight-year career — could also attempt to mimic Jackson, they are too valuable in their current roles to risk injury in a padded practice. Therefore, Brown gets the nod.
But as McDermott said, there’s only so much Buffalo can do to replicate what Jackson does on the field. The two-time Most Valuable Player became the first NFL player to pass for 4,000 yards and rush for 900 in a single season and surpassed Michael Vick for the most rushing yards by a quarterback in league history. In Saturday’s 28-14 wild-card win over the Pittsburgh Steelers, Jackson passed for 175 yards and two touchdowns while rushing for 81 yards in a dominant offensive performance.
McDermott knows he has his hands full trying to stop the league’s most efficient offense.
“They move people off the line of scrimmage. They outscheme people — I think coach [Todd] Monken is one of the best out there — and what they do in their offense and in the run game in particular,” McDermott said of Baltimore’s attack. “And then you’ve got to be able to tackle Derrick Henry. So, they do a really good job.”
“They present a lot of different challenges with their passing game, but also with Lamar and the combination of Lamar and Derrick. We have a tremendous amount of respect for both of those players. They’re hard to stop; [Henry] was a good acquisition on their part. Just that two-dimensional type of weaponry is tough on people.”
