-
Welcome to PurpleFlock! Be sure to sign up here so that you can chat with your fellow Ravens fans.
Lamar Jackson
- Thread starter Ice Bowl
- Start date
rmcjacket23
Ravens Ring of Honor
Been healthy most of this year, playing well, and is still pretty cheap next year as well. Certainly cheaper than Averett will be.
Also he plays the slot, which we really don't have another slot corner on the roster.
lol - that was true in october when i said it
Militant X 1
Ravens Ring of Honor
Yep! You are right! And, I keep forgetting that Young plays the slot. Guess, I am just jaded due to his injuries in the past and not being able to stay on the field. Hopefully, he can hold up the rest of the way this season.
I've been trying to think of exactly what to say now for a couple of weeks and I finally have resources to support it and help organize my thoughts.
First off, two good reads:
https://www.theringer.com/nfl/2021/12/16/22838532/ravens-offense-issues-greg-roman-lamar-jackson
https://www.footballoutsiders.com/film-room/2021/whats-wrong-lamar-jackson
I have long been on the fire Roman train (since 2020) because I felt his passing game was too simplistic and too basic to elevate the passing game and Lamar's passing efforts. One of the bigger reasons I had complained about this was because I felt his passing game condensed the field too much and made windows too tight.
As it would turn out, that's not imagination or even a relatively minor issue- it's a major problem that's created by Roman and his desire to commit fully to his run game. It's taking away the passing opportunities.
Also, when people said the Titans figured out Lamar, they were massively wrong, but they did lay the blueprint for how to stop Roman. Roman isn't stretching a defense horizontally or creating space. He's clustering and condensing the field and actively inviting teams to run Cover-0 and to blitz or crowd the box as much as they can. It's asinine that Roman isn't adjusting and spacing out defenses more consistently (the Ravens rank 30th in 11 personnel.)
As the article mentioned, this obviously worked in 2019 with All-Pros at LT and RG, a Pro Bowler at RT, and a third tackle in Boyle.
I opined back in 2020 that the loss of Marshal Yanda would send negative ripples through the offense because of how massive the hole at RG would be. Turns out, that was true.
But back to Roman's passing offense. I've heard people say that Roman's offense allows for players to option their routes (the SI articles seems to disagree with this), but if that's the case, it's piss poor coaching. If that's the case, Roman needs to reign it in and have receivers function within the confines of the offense because they're not making it work when they can free lance. And if it's not the case, what the hell was the point of bringing in two coaches to help assist the passing game? The route concepts are still abysmal. The Ravens aren't creating spacing and levels. They're just bunching into zones and making everything harder.
As for what's up with Lamar? I think he's in his own head too much.
Lamar has had to deal with erratic receiver play (Brown and Andrews, his two most trusted receivers, can certainly run hot and cold), piss poor offensive line play, and play calling that makes passing the ball that much harder.
Lamar has had to play hero ball so many times this season. Chiefs (definitely didn't do all he could to help himself here), Colts, Vikings, Lions. Even the Broncos and Chiefs. Against the Broncos, the Broncos defense sold out to stop the run and asked Lamar to beat them with his arm. He had to be the offense. Against the Raiders, an epic collapse from the defense asked Lamar to go into a shootout and lead the offense with the worst tackle performance you'll sell all year.
I think people forget that for the first seven weeks, Lamar was something dumb like 90% of the offenses yardage. He was the run game and he was asked to carry an archaic passing game.
I think what we're seeing is a byproduct of all of this. Lamar doesn't seem to trust his line so he's bailing early. Lamar doesn't seem to trust the play design and is second guessing himself. He's had tipped passes by his own receivers the ball wasn't intended for get intercepted. He's had interceptions because the play design crowded the field and put several defenders around the receiver. I think Lamar is remembering these things and second guessing his read. Lamar doesn't trust the defense. The defense has collapsed so many times this season and Lamar probably feels he has to score on every drive to realistically win. The interception against the Steelers was very uncharacteristic of Lamar in 2019 and 2020, but Lamar very likely felt he had to force the touchdown at the risk of the defense falling apart.... like they eventually did.
Really quick, let's address the elephant in the room. Huntley played okay on Sunday- certainly no worse than Lamar on his worst days (this should tell you something...) Never mind that fans would crucify Lamar if he fumbled twice, including one inside the 10 yard line.
Harbaugh said the Ravens were going to run the same offense, but the thing is... they didn't. The Ravens ran 69 (nice) offensive plays, but you know what was different? Despite being in 11 personnel at the third lowest rate in the league, the Ravens ran 44 plays with four or five wide. That's around 2 in 3 plays being spread.
Now, was that due to Ricard being out? Probably. Was it due to being down 18 at half? Probably.
But the fact of the matter is Huntley got a way different offense than Lamar has the rest of the year. And the result? Huntley had easy, quick completions in space. I don't think Huntley was processing things quickly (I think this tends to be a weak area for him and his pocket awareness reflects this) or reading the defense better; Huntley just had these easy, open throws that Lamar hasn't consistently been afforded. I also don't think it hurt that the Ravens were down 18. The Browns were probably thrilled to give the Ravens 5 yards at a time because that means a touchdown is 15 plays and that's A LOT of time to take off the clock. After scoring 24 in the first half, I'd take my chances with allowing an offense to dink and dunk. Of course, I'd also have expected to score more than 0 points in the second half after scoring 24 as a team, but anyway...
I just really don't know how anyone can watch Huntley and actually say he's a better option for a full game where the score starts 0-0. Huntley showed no ability to push the ball downfield with his Tebow, baseball throw wind up. He can barely push it downfield and has no touch. I mean, shit, his two longest plays came because Andrews went beast mode and dragged three defenders and because Bateman made up for an abysmal throw and went full man mode to make the catch. Without that, Huntley is sitting at 5.5 yards per pass. And the thing is, the play reflected that as do the numbers (Tyler's average air yards and average depth of target were both below Lamar's season averages.)
So, you know what frustrates me a ton about this? LAMAR HAS SHOWN HE'S COMFORTABLE IN A SPREAD OUT OFFENSE. Most hurry up, no huddle offenses spread the defense out and try to create space. When has Lamar arguably been at his best this season? In those hurry up, high tempo situations.
It also makes me irrationally mad that conventional football knowledge says that running from the I or with more blockers is better, but the numbers support that running from a traditional shotgun look yields better DVOA, EPA, and yards per carry. Can we guess why? BECAUSE CREATING SPACE WHERE THERE'S LESS DEFENDERS IS A GOOD THING.
But here's what makes me the most mad- Lamar has dealt with a poor offensive line (and that's being generous at times), inconsistent receivers, old and slow running backs, and piss poor play calling... like Joe in 2013. Except Joe had played poorly ALL season. Lamar went superhuman and flamed out here recently. But the Flacco stans are so quick to jump down Lamar's throat and ask for Huntley when they defended Joe to the death for 2013. Every excuse for Joe could be applied to Lamar now. Except, the Flacco stans won't do that. They'll defend Joe for 2013 and Joe's abysmal 2016 and 2017 (seriously, the excuses were literally never ending), but Lamar can't be off for half a season when the Ravens have the most cap on IR. Seriously, fuck the Flacco stans.
First off, two good reads:
https://www.theringer.com/nfl/2021/12/16/22838532/ravens-offense-issues-greg-roman-lamar-jackson
https://www.footballoutsiders.com/film-room/2021/whats-wrong-lamar-jackson
I have long been on the fire Roman train (since 2020) because I felt his passing game was too simplistic and too basic to elevate the passing game and Lamar's passing efforts. One of the bigger reasons I had complained about this was because I felt his passing game condensed the field too much and made windows too tight.
As it would turn out, that's not imagination or even a relatively minor issue- it's a major problem that's created by Roman and his desire to commit fully to his run game. It's taking away the passing opportunities.
Also, when people said the Titans figured out Lamar, they were massively wrong, but they did lay the blueprint for how to stop Roman. Roman isn't stretching a defense horizontally or creating space. He's clustering and condensing the field and actively inviting teams to run Cover-0 and to blitz or crowd the box as much as they can. It's asinine that Roman isn't adjusting and spacing out defenses more consistently (the Ravens rank 30th in 11 personnel.)
As the article mentioned, this obviously worked in 2019 with All-Pros at LT and RG, a Pro Bowler at RT, and a third tackle in Boyle.
I opined back in 2020 that the loss of Marshal Yanda would send negative ripples through the offense because of how massive the hole at RG would be. Turns out, that was true.
But back to Roman's passing offense. I've heard people say that Roman's offense allows for players to option their routes (the SI articles seems to disagree with this), but if that's the case, it's piss poor coaching. If that's the case, Roman needs to reign it in and have receivers function within the confines of the offense because they're not making it work when they can free lance. And if it's not the case, what the hell was the point of bringing in two coaches to help assist the passing game? The route concepts are still abysmal. The Ravens aren't creating spacing and levels. They're just bunching into zones and making everything harder.
As for what's up with Lamar? I think he's in his own head too much.
Lamar has had to deal with erratic receiver play (Brown and Andrews, his two most trusted receivers, can certainly run hot and cold), piss poor offensive line play, and play calling that makes passing the ball that much harder.
Lamar has had to play hero ball so many times this season. Chiefs (definitely didn't do all he could to help himself here), Colts, Vikings, Lions. Even the Broncos and Chiefs. Against the Broncos, the Broncos defense sold out to stop the run and asked Lamar to beat them with his arm. He had to be the offense. Against the Raiders, an epic collapse from the defense asked Lamar to go into a shootout and lead the offense with the worst tackle performance you'll sell all year.
I think people forget that for the first seven weeks, Lamar was something dumb like 90% of the offenses yardage. He was the run game and he was asked to carry an archaic passing game.
I think what we're seeing is a byproduct of all of this. Lamar doesn't seem to trust his line so he's bailing early. Lamar doesn't seem to trust the play design and is second guessing himself. He's had tipped passes by his own receivers the ball wasn't intended for get intercepted. He's had interceptions because the play design crowded the field and put several defenders around the receiver. I think Lamar is remembering these things and second guessing his read. Lamar doesn't trust the defense. The defense has collapsed so many times this season and Lamar probably feels he has to score on every drive to realistically win. The interception against the Steelers was very uncharacteristic of Lamar in 2019 and 2020, but Lamar very likely felt he had to force the touchdown at the risk of the defense falling apart.... like they eventually did.
Really quick, let's address the elephant in the room. Huntley played okay on Sunday- certainly no worse than Lamar on his worst days (this should tell you something...) Never mind that fans would crucify Lamar if he fumbled twice, including one inside the 10 yard line.
Harbaugh said the Ravens were going to run the same offense, but the thing is... they didn't. The Ravens ran 69 (nice) offensive plays, but you know what was different? Despite being in 11 personnel at the third lowest rate in the league, the Ravens ran 44 plays with four or five wide. That's around 2 in 3 plays being spread.
Now, was that due to Ricard being out? Probably. Was it due to being down 18 at half? Probably.
But the fact of the matter is Huntley got a way different offense than Lamar has the rest of the year. And the result? Huntley had easy, quick completions in space. I don't think Huntley was processing things quickly (I think this tends to be a weak area for him and his pocket awareness reflects this) or reading the defense better; Huntley just had these easy, open throws that Lamar hasn't consistently been afforded. I also don't think it hurt that the Ravens were down 18. The Browns were probably thrilled to give the Ravens 5 yards at a time because that means a touchdown is 15 plays and that's A LOT of time to take off the clock. After scoring 24 in the first half, I'd take my chances with allowing an offense to dink and dunk. Of course, I'd also have expected to score more than 0 points in the second half after scoring 24 as a team, but anyway...
I just really don't know how anyone can watch Huntley and actually say he's a better option for a full game where the score starts 0-0. Huntley showed no ability to push the ball downfield with his Tebow, baseball throw wind up. He can barely push it downfield and has no touch. I mean, shit, his two longest plays came because Andrews went beast mode and dragged three defenders and because Bateman made up for an abysmal throw and went full man mode to make the catch. Without that, Huntley is sitting at 5.5 yards per pass. And the thing is, the play reflected that as do the numbers (Tyler's average air yards and average depth of target were both below Lamar's season averages.)
So, you know what frustrates me a ton about this? LAMAR HAS SHOWN HE'S COMFORTABLE IN A SPREAD OUT OFFENSE. Most hurry up, no huddle offenses spread the defense out and try to create space. When has Lamar arguably been at his best this season? In those hurry up, high tempo situations.
It also makes me irrationally mad that conventional football knowledge says that running from the I or with more blockers is better, but the numbers support that running from a traditional shotgun look yields better DVOA, EPA, and yards per carry. Can we guess why? BECAUSE CREATING SPACE WHERE THERE'S LESS DEFENDERS IS A GOOD THING.
But here's what makes me the most mad- Lamar has dealt with a poor offensive line (and that's being generous at times), inconsistent receivers, old and slow running backs, and piss poor play calling... like Joe in 2013. Except Joe had played poorly ALL season. Lamar went superhuman and flamed out here recently. But the Flacco stans are so quick to jump down Lamar's throat and ask for Huntley when they defended Joe to the death for 2013. Every excuse for Joe could be applied to Lamar now. Except, the Flacco stans won't do that. They'll defend Joe for 2013 and Joe's abysmal 2016 and 2017 (seriously, the excuses were literally never ending), but Lamar can't be off for half a season when the Ravens have the most cap on IR. Seriously, fuck the Flacco stans.
ndub
Ravens Ring of Honor
Thank you for your excellent analysis. That was a great read. I loved the 69 part btw.... that was epic lol
I thought my thoughts were a bit all over, but I've just been so furious to see all these Flacco stans that defended 2013, 2016, 2017, and 2018 with an endless amount of absurd excuses turn so fast on Lamar. You have to wonder if they feel resentment that Lamar turned around a team that Joe couldn't, but I'm not going to make accusations like that.
marklar
Pro Bowler
I missed that. Has someone here actually said that? I would not put that past posters on another Ravens board that starts with "R", but here I expect more from people.
that Ruiz article is excellent (although it kept bugging me that he was talking about keith williams as the passing game coordinator... which he's not - mostly frustrated me because it's definitely not Dubb's fault that at all - he's the route-running coach and when asked to run routes the receivers have all been way better at it this year)
until about 4 weeks ago i was firmly in the roman's fine camp - but the last few weeks i've completely come around - there's just too many concepts that fundamentally don't work in their design, too many cases of play designs just not making sense
they went to no huddle to start the game but it was all wrong - our success there is about spreading out the defence and getting the ball in the hands of athletes and mismatches but we went no huddle with 22 personnel and kept it tight - what's the point at that point you're only limiting yourself
it's almost like right now the best thing to do (especially when at home) is to change the scoreboard so that it shows the ravens as down by 20 in the 2nd half when we're at 0-0 at the game start so that Roman's forced to spread us out and put our passing weapons on the field at the same time
it's why our offence suddenly woke up against the vikings and colts etc. - put the game in lamar's hands and in lamar's brain with the game spread out
it genuinely might have been better for us offensively if the dolphins had managed to extend their lead earlier in that game so that we stopped wasting early downs on wasted plays that put us behind the chains (the easiest way to beat an aggressive defence is to stay on time and not to get behind the chains which we consistently did with runs and other dumb stuff on 1st and 2nd down)
SaltyDog
MVP
I have literally seen no one who has turned on Lamar. I haven’t posted on here much lately so maybe I’ve missed it.
You can look back in this thread or the post Browns thread- there are people who legitimately want Huntley over Lamar because they think Lamar has been that bad these last few weeks.
They exist. They're few and far between, thankfully, but you kinda can guess who they are.
already been posted in this thread lol
JAAM
Hall of Famer
My b!
ravenslord
Ravens Ring of Honor
I've seen Lamar play at a level in many games that Flacco could only dream of.
RaineV1
Ravens Ring of Honor
Okay, seriously, where the hell are you all seeing Flacco fans coming out of the wood work to talk shit about Lamar? No, seriously, I want to know. It sure as hell isn't on this site. Between here and reddit I've seen like two at the most. Not nearly enough for people to be bitching about it and giving those couple people more attention.
If you're on Reddit and you think you've only seen two, you're not looking hard enough. And they're in this thread and in the Browns post game thread. Not necessarily to talk shit, per say, but just the general disrespect. I'm not going to call people out by name or post, but I could find many posts right now from people just by name.
Ellicottraven
Ravens Ring of Honor
Simple. Lamar Jackson is the only mega star player the Ravens have drafted in their history. I love Ray, JO, Reed, Suggs and the rest a whole lot. They were all super stars and perhaps a few were the best at their positions to ever do it. Lamar though is a whole different animal. He could take over the sport and transcend it. Such is his talent. I'll leave the naysayers to object, but, I'm more than convinced.
OURavensFan
Ravens Ring of Honor
4th down ran backwards about 20 yards and took a sack falling down