Ravens safety Kyle Hamilton has seen enough quarterbacks over his football career to know that Lamar Jackson is, in his words, “one of one.” Jackson’s talent conjures praise easily, especially after nights as dominant as his in the Ravens’ 41-31 win over the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.

Comparisons, though? Those can be more difficult to locate.

“I don’t know if I had to equate it to somebody,” Hamilton said Monday night. “He’s just ... basketball-wise, he is like LeBron out there.”

The legendary James is among those rare breeds known as a walking bucket. Against Tampa Bay, Jackson was a walking first down. When he was on the field at Raymond James Stadium, the Ravens averaged a remarkable 10 yards per play, according to TruMedia, churning downfield on one big gain after another.

Maybe no game this season better epitomized the full breadth of the Ravens’ attack. Their offense, which leads the NFL in both yards per play (7.2) and explosive-play rate (15.7%), ripped the Buccaneers apart on the ground (244 rushing yards) and through the air (281 passing yards). There are no reliable answers for opposing defenses, not when the Ravens have so many ways of getting where they need to.

Running before contact

Jackson’s presence has always created an advantage for the Ravens’ running game, giving defenses another player to account for in the box. Over his first six seasons in Baltimore, leaning on a dynamic read-option attack, the Ravens averaged an NFL-best 2.28 yards before contact per rush when Jackson was on the field, according to TruMedia. No other team in that span averaged more than 1.85 yards before contact.

This season, the Ravens have created even bigger runways. They’re averaging 2.93 yards before contact per carry overall, nearly double the league average (1.56 yards) and almost a yard more than the second-place Philadelphia Eagles (2.06). Incredibly, the Ravens have more rushing yards before contact on designed runs (667) than 13 teams have total rushing yards.

Running back Derrick Henry has been the biggest beneficiary. On several of his longest runs this season, he wasn’t touched until he was 30-plus yards downfield — if he was even touched at all. Henry’s averaging more yards before contact this season than any other running back.

Henry was again cleared for takeoff on his 81-yard sprint down the left sideline in the third quarter Monday. On an outside-zone handoff, tight end Charlie Kolar and left tackle Ronnie Stanley helped overtake edge defender Joe Tryon-Shoyinka before Kolar climbed to the second level to seal off linebacker K.J. Britt. With lead blocker Patrick Ricard wiping out safety Jordan Whitehead behind the line of scrimmage and Buccaneers star safety Antoine Winfield Jr. whiffing on a tackle, Henry got up to speed quickly in the open field. He hit 21.72 mph on the run, the fifth-fastest time by any ball carrier this season, according to the NFL’s Next Gen Stats.

“They do a good job on their edge pressure, and they’re a very aggressive defense,” Kolar said. “And everybody knows, when you play football, usually you can sit back and allow more runs or you can be more aggressive and get more negative plays, but also you give up big plays. Every defense is the same. …

“So when they’re a very aggressive defense, they get a lot of negative plays, but also sometimes we can block them right, which allows for big plays. Ronnie did a great job, and Pat did a great job on that, and it was a good play.”

Running after the catch and after contact

In signing Henry to a two-year, $16 million deal this offseason, the Ravens hoped the 30-year-old could give them a new dimension in their running game, a stiff-arming force multiplier capable of turning 5-yard runs into 50-yard touchdowns.

General manager Eric DeCosta’s bet has paid off handsomely. Henry is averaging 3.36 yards after contact per carry, according to TruMedia, the 14th-highest rate among the 42 running backs with at least 50 carries this season. According to Next Gen Stats, only nine other players this season have more total rushing yards than Henry’s 459 yards after contact.

Most of Henry’s production Monday came before anyone got close enough to touch him, but he did help himself in spots. On his 39-yard run in the fourth quarter, when Jackson turned into a lead blocker after Henry cut back against the grain and found green grass, Henry tacked on 6 yards after contact, according to TruMedia.

Maybe the most surprising prong of the Ravens’ lethal attack, though, has come after the catch. They’re averaging 7.1 yards after their receptions, third best in the NFL and just fractions of a yard behind the league-leading Detroit Lions (7.1). Since 2006, the first year for which such data is available, the Ravens have never averaged even 6 yards after the catch over a full season; their best YAC campaign in that span came last year, when they averaged 5.6 yards.

In this Ravens passing game, almost every skill position player is an open-field threat, especially when every teammate turns into a willing blocker. Running back Justice Hill, who gave the Ravens their first lead Monday on an 18-yard screen pass score, is averaging a team-high 11.6 yards after the catch. On wide receiver Rashod Bateman’s 59-yard reception in the second quarter, he tacked on 27 yards after the catch. Wide receiver Zay Flowers (6.6 yards after the catch) and tight end Isaiah Likely (6.3 yards) are both averaging at least a yard above the league average (5.3 yards).

“You kind of look at our stats, and everybody’s able to touch the ball,” tight end Mark Andrews said. “Everybody’s able to do something. That’s what I think makes us so dangerous, is that we’re spreading the ball around. We have athletes and playmakers all over the board — YAC guys, everything. For us, it’s just about being unselfish, and we have that team, we have that offense.”

Beating the blitz

Entering Week 7, few defenses had blitzed at a higher rate than Tampa Bay’s. That presented an opportunity for the Ravens, because few quarterbacks had been better against the blitz than Jackson.

With their cornerback depth thinned by injury, the Buccaneers didn’t hold back Monday. They sent five or more pass rushers after Jackson on 59.3% of his drop-backs, the fourth-highest blitz rate any quarterback has faced this season, according to TruMedia.

An early blitz ended the Ravens’ opening drive with a third-and-long sack, but that might’ve only handed Tampa Bay false hope. Overall, Jackson went 11-for-15 for 166 yards against the blitz, finding Hill for his 18-yard touchdown catch, Andrews for his 4-yard score and Henry for his 13-yard score.

“I think we just made some plays on long yardage,” coach John Harbaugh said. “Got back on track on second down, some of the screen plays, some of the runs that popped, Lamar made plays, a couple of throws here and there. But we overcame penalties, we overcame things that set us behind, we overcame the score. We just made plays; we made a lot of plays. I want to work on all of the other things that are setting us back and see if we can keep on building on the things that are moving us forward. But I thought they overcame throughout the course of the game.”

Jackson has produced an explosive pass play (a gain of at least 16 yards) on 19.2% of his blitzed drop-backs this year, far ahead of his best single-season rate (15.7% in 2022) and among the league’s top marks in 2024. Jackson’s also scrambled for two explosive runs (gains of at least 12 yards), compounding the misery of blitz-happy teams.

“Our mind is just focused on the drive, focused on the play and just go from there,” Jackson said. “Try to put points on the board. We don’t really look at it like, ‘Oh, we’re clicking. We have them.’ It’s like, ‘We have to score each and every time we’re out there.’”