My problem is I don't see an OC who will dramatically improve it, because Lamar is just missing too many easy throws and not hitting the routes he should. An OC won't fix that.
Lamar got called out directly like a half dozen times yesterday for simply not throwing the ball to the right read, or just missing the read entirely. Again, that's not coaching. I have zero doubt Roman and various other coaches are showing him on film where that ball is supposed to go. He's just not doing it.
He had several missed throws that need to be executed that could have altered the game. None more important than the 2 point conversion. The people putting that on Andrews are basically saying "yes, we expect you to make juggling one handed catches routinely", because the ball placement was anywhere in the stratosphere of being able to get two hands on it. And that's on the thrower, not on the receiver.
Roman has bad weeks like everybody else, but yesterday wasn't one of them. When I see Lamar executing simple throws and reads and progressions more consistently, and we see the offense get stymied, then I'll look to what the OC is doing. I didn't come out of yesterdays game thinking that Roman was the issue at all.
I think Lamar arguably played worse yesterday than Cleveland.
Like I said- I've hated Roman dating back to last season, so my frustrations do not stem from what I consider to be a bad game called today.
Sure, the broadcast froze half a dozen times to point out where the ball should have gone, but...
1. I know for a few, the ball was already out or coming out. It does no good to point out that the ball should have gone elsewhere when the ball is out. Did the ball coming out peel back the coverage? Maybe, maybe not. But in any case that assumes that...
2. Lamar feels like he has time to work through his progressions. As Romo would know, a quarterback has a natural progression. Like I said, with how poor the offensive line is, does Lamar feel confident that he has time work deep into his reads? Also, it's cute to point out when a player is open in a freeze frame and say it'd be a better option, but if that player is read four and Lamar saw read two was open, he's going to take read two, even if read four would net more yardage because Lamar hasn't worked there to know that. And that's every QB- no quarterback is going to hold the ball longer because a further read
might be open and a better option than the open read they're currently on.
But again, I just have issues with the play calling. Roman doesn't scheme players open; instead he schemes them on top of each other consistently (looking at the interception off Bateman's hands against Cleveland...) and doesn't create these easy throws.
I said this elsewhere, but on the Johnson touchdown, the Steelers executed such a simple concept that just blew the Ravens coverage out of the water and it was a WIDE OPEN touchdown. When's the last time the Ravens had a touchdown that easy? The one I can think of was Brown against the Browns last year. I was listening to the Chiefs game and there was a play where it sounded like the Chiefs had three receivers run pick plays to scheme open another receiver and Collingsworth said something like, "How do you even defend that?" When was the last time we heard that about a Roman called play? Never?
And really, while the broadcast showed maybe half a dozen times where Lamar may have missed a read (refer to above for my issues with this freeze frame analysis that shrinks the view), we also saw half a dozen or more times where the broadcast showed the Ravens receivers were absolutely blanketed and couldn't get open.
Does Lamar need to play better? Sure. But Roman and the line aren't doing him favors.
And as far as the last play of the game is concerned, Andrews absolutely pulled up. Could the throw have been better? Sure. But given that Lamar had to make that throw while jumping to the side to avoid Watt, I thnk it was a good throw. Lamar seemed to expect Andrews to keep running full speed and if Andrews does, it's a walk in. On the other hand, more loft and Andrews still runs under it, so I'm not totally absolving Lamar, but it was on both.
