Lamar Jackson may be the master of a lot of things, but he’s not exactly a master of disguise — at least, when it comes to deciphering the disguised coverages opposing defenses throw at him. Jackson has always been more of a “see it and throw it” quarterback than a guy who’s going to read disguised or spun coverages from pre-snap to post-snap, and his second interception against the Chiefs was one such example.
Lamar Jackson with a DIME into triple coverage pic.twitter.com/UobK7KGi0N
— PFF (@PFF) September 20, 2021
Pre-snap, the Chiefs made this look like Cover-0, with man across the board, no deep safeties, and most likely a blitz. But it was actually a two-deep coverage, with defensive backs Tyrann Mathieu and Chris Lammons dropping into coverage, and linebacker Ben Niemann dropping into deep middle coverage out of what originally seemed to be a double B-gap blitz setup with Niemann and defensive end Michael Danna (who also dropped into the short middle, along with nose tackle Jarran Reed).
So, Jackson wound up with a completely different defense than the one he expected. The deep post to Marquise Brown would have been a great call against a Cover-0 blitz as long as Jackson could stay upright long enough to throw it, but against a four-man rush with a completely different coverage, Jackson got triple coverage deep.
If you want to know how Jackson wound up throwing into triple coverage and giving Mathieu his second interception of the day, that’s how it happened. It was a brilliant coverage switch by defensive coordinator Steve Spagnuolo, and the Chiefs executed it perfectly.