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Article Greg Roman: How to improve upon your previous failures

Oldfaithful

Hall of Famer
Greg Roman: How to improve on your previous failures.

The 2019 offseason for the Baltimore Ravens started off with a bang, when Greg Roman was promoted to offensive coordinator, a move that I have been clamoring for since before we drafted Lamar Jackson. Roman's two previous tenures as offensive coordinator had significant highs, but the lows were as terrible as they come. Although most can agree that Greg Roman is a definitive upgrade from Marty, how much of an upgrade is he truly?

The truth is going to be slightly complicated. Lamar Jackson displayed significant promise his rookie season, but his flaws are still very exploitable, and his safety nets will be taken away based off of the gimmick offense we ran in the final half of the season.

I believe Roman to be an upgrade, but an upgrade with flaws. Roman is know to be too run heavy as opposed to pass-happy. He's also been known to depend on a gimmick for too long.

Whether you like, or hate Lamar, it's hard to deny his physical talent and desire to improve. But his development for the next two to three years(at worst) is going to be heavily dependent on Roman's offense. So schematically, how should Greg Roman learn from his shortcomings? Well, I am here to list all the things we should be doing to build this offense moving forwards. This is the ON the field stuff we need to be focusing on, and this is looking at the offense as a whole. Lamar Jackson may be the centerpiece, but he's not the only factor.
  1. Open up the playbook for Lamar, but do so slowly. Not as slowly as we have done it with Marty, that might have hindered his development in the short term. Lamar still struggles at times going through his progressions. It's forgivable, he's a rookie, but even then the offense that was being called was too simplistic. It's one thing to dominate the time of possession, but another thing to dominate on offense. The rushing attack is going to be the focal point, but Lamar should be passing a lot more than he is, otherwise he's never going to grow.
  2. Two tight end sets need to become a staple of the offense. In fact, Hayden Hurst and Andrews should be the two primary focal points in the passing attack. The opposing defenses are going to have a tough time stopping the run regardless, Lamar poses that much of a threat. Tight ends should become the focal point. This includes, screens to them, scheming them open, play action passes to the flat. Having two tight ends with these particular skillset is a new offensive coordinator's ideal situation. However, in San Francisco a massive opportunity was wasted as Delanie Walker was on the roster. Walker was similar to Davis in terms of athleticism and would have been a fellow mismatch nightmare for Colin Kaepernick to have been able to exploit. The passing attack needs to go through Andrews and Hurst in the coming year, and this would be true with both Flacco and Lamar.
  3. Less trickery on the offensive line. If all else fails, Greg Roman will always have a job somewhere simply for his ability to scheme around an offensive line's deficiencies. Roman has proven to be brilliant in scheming for both pass protection and run blocking. But this can only get you so far. For example, against the Broncos, to compensate for James Hurst being a terrible pass protecting right tackle, Roman would repeatedly pull left guard Alex Lewis out to protect Joe. He repeatedly uses trickery in the run game. This can only work for so long. Creativity and trickery is great, but only in moderation, otherwise you're running a predictable scheme. Roman mixes up zone and power concepts, and that alone should be more than enough to confuse teams. This isn't a gimmick, only the Saints with Sean Payton do something similar, and it works beautifully. This obviously would require us to upgrade the offensive line itself, but that's a different article for another time.
  4. Integrate the deep ball more into the passing game: This has been a problem with Roman going back to his San Francisco days with one exception. When he had Sammy Watkins in Buffalo Roman utilized him and his big play ability beautifully with a similar quarterback in Tyrod Taylor. Lamar needs to work more on his deep ball accuracy, but in order to do this we need to attempt this more. It's not like we don't have a plethora of competent deep threat options either. To make Lamar's life easier, more passes simply must be attempted. And this should not be exclusive to wide receivers either. Both tight ends can stretch the field and a couple of our running backs can as well. It obviously should not be the focal point of the team by any stretch but to completely eliminate it from our identity would be asinine. If you force a safety to respect the deep ball and you have Lamar Jackson and a potent passing attack, this offense goes from being good to being impossible to stop no matter how simplistic it is.
  5. Hayden Hurst is your scheme's best friend: Mark Andrews obviously had the bigger impact than Hayden Hurst, and Andrews is going to be Lamar's best friend moving forward. Hayden Hurst is going to be the scheme's best friend. For this of you typing angrily let me explain. Hurst is the tight end with the most potential on the roster and is the absolute dream acquisition for Roman's offense. How Roman uses him is a good indicator, at least for me, as to how effective Roman is going to be. Hurst has a significant amount of experience inline, in the slot, and in the backfield as a fullback, and is far more athletic than Boyle or Maxx could have ever hoped to be. Roman's offense heavily utilizes both the FB position and will rely heavily on a tight end flexing out to the slot. If there is a piece on the offensive roster that has the potential to trick defenses on a consistent basis, Hurst is your man because he is already an established blocker and flashed his potential as a receiver. He's got good yards after the catch ability, he's a good route runner, and a good blocker. A simple FB screen to Hurst when he is the fullback could jumpstart a passing attack as with Hurst's athletic ability that could very well be anywhere from a 10 to 30 yard play. You could flex Andrews out to the slot, and have him abuse any corner that gets in his way by utilizing Hurst from the inline. This leads me to my final point as Hurst can also flex out to the slot receiver.
  6. Rotate your slot wide receiver. Another thing that I did not understand from us was that Andrews was heavily utilized from the slot in college, but less-so at the NFL level. This makes no sense, as slot corners are too small to handle him anyways, and this is before you factor in his superior route running. Hurst and Andrews alike both provide something different, and both could get the opposing team's slot corner two or three different types of headaches. This is before you factor in Willie Snead, or John Brown if we do decide to retain him. The best way to build this offense, whether Lamar comes out is to build an offense that is unpredictable and inspired. If Greg Roman cannot scheme people ala a Sean McVay or a Sean Payton, then he should have the schematic opportunity to create mismatches.
Roman has a prime opportunity to turn this gimmick offense into a well oiled machine. But this offense is going to be risky, with a high ceiling but a very low floor. Most of this is going to depend on how Lamar Jackson develops, but if Marty can learn from his previous mistakes, then Lamar's going to have all the tools he's going to need.

Steps for the TLDR
1.Open up the playbook for Lamar, but slowly.
2. Make the two TEs the staple
3. Less trickery on the offensive line.
4. Integrate the deep ball more into the passing game.
5. Hayden Hurst is the scheme's best friend.
6. Rotate the slot wide receiver more often.
7. Teach @DeVito52 how to read more than simple picture books.
 

allblackraven

Hall of Famer
Greg Roman: How to improve on your previous failures.

The 2019 offseason for the Baltimore Ravens started off with a bang, when Greg Roman was promoted to offensive coordinator, a move that I have been clamoring for since before we drafted Lamar Jackson. Roman's two previous tenures as offensive coordinator had significant highs, but the lows were as terrible as they come. Although most can agree that Greg Roman is a definitive upgrade from Marty, how much of an upgrade is he truly?

The truth is going to be slightly complicated. Lamar Jackson displayed significant promise his rookie season, but his flaws are still very exploitable, and his safety nets will be taken away based off of the gimmick offense we ran in the final half of the season.

I believe Roman to be an upgrade, but an upgrade with flaws. Roman is know to be too run heavy as opposed to pass-happy. He's also been known to depend on a gimmick for too long.

Whether you like, or hate Lamar, it's hard to deny his physical talent and desire to improve. But his development for the next two to three years(at worst) is going to be heavily dependent on Roman's offense. So schematically, how should Greg Roman learn from his shortcomings? Well, I am here to list all the things we should be doing to build this offense moving forwards. This is the ON the field stuff we need to be focusing on, and this is looking at the offense as a whole. Lamar Jackson may be the centerpiece, but he's not the only factor.
  1. Open up the playbook for Lamar, but do so slowly. Not as slowly as we have done it with Marty, that might have hindered his development in the short term. Lamar still struggles at times going through his progressions. It's forgivable, he's a rookie, but even then the offense that was being called was too simplistic. It's one thing to dominate the time of possession, but another thing to dominate on offense. The rushing attack is going to be the focal point, but Lamar should be passing a lot more than he is, otherwise he's never going to grow.
  2. Two tight end sets need to become a staple of the offense. In fact, Hayden Hurst and Andrews should be the two primary focal points in the passing attack. The opposing defenses are going to have a tough time stopping the run regardless, Lamar poses that much of a threat. Tight ends should become the focal point. This includes, screens to them, scheming them open, play action passes to the flat. Having two tight ends with these particular skillset is a new offensive coordinator's ideal situation. However, in San Francisco a massive opportunity was wasted as Delanie Walker was on the roster. Walker was similar to Davis in terms of athleticism and would have been a fellow mismatch nightmare for Colin Kaepernick to have been able to exploit. The passing attack needs to go through Andrews and Hurst in the coming year, and this would be true with both Flacco and Lamar.
  3. Less trickery on the offensive line. If all else fails, Greg Roman will always have a job somewhere simply for his ability to scheme around an offensive line's deficiencies. Roman has proven to be brilliant in scheming for both pass protection and run blocking. But this can only get you so far. For example, against the Broncos, to compensate for James Hurst being a terrible pass protecting right tackle, Roman would repeatedly pull left guard Alex Lewis out to protect Joe. He repeatedly uses trickery in the run game. This can only work for so long. Creativity and trickery is great, but only in moderation, otherwise you're running a predictable scheme. Roman mixes up zone and power concepts, and that alone should be more than enough to confuse teams. This isn't a gimmick, only the Saints with Sean Payton do something similar, and it works beautifully. This obviously would require us to upgrade the offensive line itself, but that's a different article for another time.
  4. Integrate the deep ball more into the passing game: This has been a problem with Roman going back to his San Francisco days with one exception. When he had Sammy Watkins in Buffalo Roman utilized him and his big play ability beautifully with a similar quarterback in Tyrod Taylor. Lamar needs to work more on his deep ball accuracy, but in order to do this we need to attempt this more. It's not like we don't have a plethora of competent deep threat options either. To make Lamar's life easier, more passes simply must be attempted. And this should not be exclusive to wide receivers either. Both tight ends can stretch the field and a couple of our running backs can as well. It obviously should not be the focal point of the team by any stretch but to completely eliminate it from our identity would be asinine. If you force a safety to respect the deep ball and you have Lamar Jackson and a potent passing attack, this offense goes from being good to being impossible to stop no matter how simplistic it is.
  5. Hayden Hurst is your scheme's best friend: Mark Andrews obviously had the bigger impact than Hayden Hurst, and Andrews is going to be Lamar's best friend moving forward. Hayden Hurst is going to be the scheme's best friend. For this of you typing angrily let me explain. Hurst is the tight end with the most potential on the roster and is the absolute dream acquisition for Roman's offense. How Roman uses him is a good indicator, at least for me, as to how effective Roman is going to be. Hurst has a significant amount of experience inline, in the slot, and in the backfield as a fullback, and is far more athletic than Boyle or Maxx could have ever hoped to be. Roman's offense heavily utilizes both the FB position and will rely heavily on a tight end flexing out to the slot. If there is a piece on the offensive roster that has the potential to trick defenses on a consistent basis, Hurst is your man because he is already an established blocker and flashed his potential as a receiver. He's got good yards after the catch ability, he's a good route runner, and a good blocker. A simple FB screen to Hurst when he is the fullback could jumpstart a passing attack as with Hurst's athletic ability that could very well be anywhere from a 10 to 30 yard play. You could flex Andrews out to the slot, and have him abuse any corner that gets in his way by utilizing Hurst from the inline. This leads me to my final point as Hurst can also flex out to the slot receiver.
  6. Rotate your slot wide receiver. Another thing that I did not understand from us was that Andrews was heavily utilized from the slot in college, but less-so at the NFL level. This makes no sense, as slot corners are too small to handle him anyways, and this is before you factor in his superior route running. Hurst and Andrews alike both provide something different, and both could get the opposing team's slot corner two or three different types of headaches. This is before you factor in Willie Snead, or John Brown if we do decide to retain him. The best way to build this offense, whether Lamar comes out is to build an offense that is unpredictable and inspired. If Greg Roman cannot scheme people ala a Sean McVay or a Sean Payton, then he should have the schematic opportunity to create mismatches.
Roman has a prime opportunity to turn this gimmick offense into a well oiled machine. But this offense is going to be risky, with a high ceiling but a very low floor. Most of this is going to depend on how Lamar Jackson develops, but if Marty can learn from his previous mistakes, then Lamar's going to have all the tools he's going to need.

Steps for the TLDR
1.Open up the playbook for Lamar, but slowly.
2. Make the two TEs the staple
3. Less trickery on the offensive line.
4. Integrate the deep ball more into the passing game.
5. Hayden Hurst is the scheme's best friend.
6. Rotate the slot wide receiver more often.
7. Teach @DeVito52 how to read more than simple picture books.
@DeVito52 Nothing to see here...
 

cdp

Ravens Ring of Honor
Great points.
Roman, Urban and Harbaugh need to take the same approach Andy Reid took with Mahomes. Fix only the stuff you really need to fix. Andy Reid lets Mahomes be who he is and doesn't force him to be a standard qb. Reid can life with the ints because of the big play potential Mahomes offers on every play.
But I'm afraid our current coaching staff isnt willing to do that.
 
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