ndub
Ravens Ring of Honor
I've said it before but I'll say it again... we will never, ever win a Super Bowl with Greg Roman at OC. I know people will come at me for it, but we just won't.
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Lamar Jackson
- Thread starter Ice Bowl
- Start date
I've said it before but I'll say it again... we will never, ever win a Super Bowl with Greg Roman at OC. I know people will come at me for it, but we just won't.
rmcjacket23
Ravens Ring of Honor
I mean, for me, tell me exactly which part's of the playoff games are his fault?
Like I struggle to put pretty much any blame for the Ravens loss to the Titans on Roman. I think it would be brutally difficult to name the things he could have done differently that would have won us that football game. You'll find poor execution by the offense up and down that game. Lamar making terrible reads, tons of missed blocking assignments and execution by the Oline, countless dropped passes, etc. You can't "scheme" your way out of that. I remember I spent like a month after this game challenging all the people who were like "yeah we abandoned the run too soon" to show me instances where we did, and I never got anybody to provide more than about 2 play calls the entire game they disagreed with.
So from a "we blew it in the playoffs" scenario, you're basically talking Buffalo and that's it.
If I were to compare 2020 to 2021:
2020:
19th in yards, 7th in points, 32nd in Passing Yards, 1st in Rushing yards, 8th in Yards/Play, 25th in offensive plays
2021:
6th in yards, 17th in points, 13th in Passing yards, 3rd in Rushing yards, 18th in Yards/Play, 1st in offensive plays
So I guess I say to myself, OK, tangibly, what does the fanbase expect? What rankings would you say are sufficient for Roman to keep his job? If we're talking about "what was said in the offseason", well, 32nd in passing yards in 2020 was a gigantic criticism. Frankly, it was all anybody talked about. We made a COLOSSAL leap forward in that regard for 2021. And we're still getting a ton of rushing also (although a lot of that is coming from the QBs).
People wanted a big leap in yardage, they got it. People wanted a big leap in passing yardage, they got it. We ran significantly more offensive snaps.
What we lost was efficiency, which I think would be obvious at this point. We sucked in the red zone, and our yards/play dropped significantly. I don't know that Roman is responsible for decreased efficiency within the offense.
What we said last year is we wanted to unleash Lamar in the passing game (hard to argue we didn't this year) and we needed to upgrade our receiving core. Looks to me like we did both. And turns out, that didn't materialize into better offensive output (which I told everybody it probably wouldn't). What we didn't do is address the Oline significantly, and we didn't have nearly healthy enough bodies to overcome our shortcomings.
So I give Roman another year with a very talented group of personnel and an upgrade Oline. We do that, and we falter on offense, I'll throw in the towel like everybody else. I think there's dramatically too much emphasis from many fans on playoff games being the barometer for an entire season. Some of that is just overreactions to the last thing you saw. Others should be noting by now that if you're not good enough in the regular season, who gives a shit what you do in the playoffs, because you won't be there (see 2021). Focus on trying to build a team that can win in the regular season first.
The coach with the biggest scheme issues, and the one that should have been fired, was fired. Wink had virtually none of the excuses that Roman has.
JoeyFlex5
Hall of Famer
I agree with this entirely. If we were gonna get rid of just one, we got rid of the right one. Roman is easy to blame, but a deeper dive shows that the pass protection, struggles from Lamar and a sped up internal clock, and lack of RB talent was what ultimately did our offense in. There’s good reason to believe that doesn’t happen in 2022 as long as Stanley returns and we make strong investment in the OL.
and that's kind of what i mean about lamar having a chance to bring us back into the game even after the pick 6 - because hollywood dusts tre white on that route no matter who's at QB and lamar's not missing that throw like huntley did...
like hollywood put up 87 yds in that game even with the wind and the weather and dusted an all-pro corner in a big spot but didnt get the right ball - people dismiss him all the time for the drops against the lions but he's been the most consistent "big game" player on the team and that always seems to get lost in conversations about him - he already averages over 100 yds/game in the playoffs... imagine what it would look like with that huntley bomb on top lol
just want to quibble with this slightly - because that did materialize into better offensive output... for the whole first half of the season...
at the midpoint in the season, the offence was top 3 in big plays, lamar was leading the league in ADOT and YPA through the air as well as keeping teams somewhat honest on the ground albeit only so much could be done there with the missing backs
until miami, lamar was a legit MVP candidate again and the team was the 1 seed on the back of that offensive output
you're right that efficiency killed us, but it killed us much more down the stretch with huntley and in the 2nd half of the season generally than it did earlier because we didnt threaten big plays - early in the year we struggled in terms of getting into favourable down and distance but were exceptional in converting in unfavourable situations and were best in the league in finding "yards above success" and were 3rd best in the league in success rate...
with huntley we were actually great at getting in favourable down and distance and staying on track with regards to the sticks - but we were bottom 5 in the league in terms of yards above success and dropped to the middle of the pack in general success rate
ultimately we were a great 1st and 2nd down offence for most of the year, but we were not great on 3rd down (even with lamar... albeit for very different reasons why) - but especially with huntley we were the 3rd worst team in the league in success rate on 3rd and 4th down
all this to say that - the early season offence with the "unleashed" lamar was actually a very effective and explosive offence despite a lack of run game help to keep us on schedule in down and distance terms
it's so crucial that we get stanley back on the field - watched back the raiders game the other day and it was painful watching him be unable to put much weight through his ankle but still fighting on every snap to protect lamar
but going back to 2020 and 2019 (and earlier too tbh), just the fact that we literally never had to worry about whoever was rushing on his side of the ball no matter who they were... he'd just deal with them
BoredMarine13
Ravens Ring of Honor
Roman still has no answers for these extremely aggressive defenses. We could improve the passing game but that would require Roman to strip down his run game. Aka get out of the phone both. There are only so many pass concepts you can go to when there are three or four players in the backfield on the large majority of snaps. We’re still seeing the same problems that have afflicted this passing game for three years now: poor spacing, timing, and a lack of coverage-based adjustments built into play designs. Our WR's just seem to saunter in the direction of zone defenders with no option to adapt their routes to find open space.
Worst of all this guy is wasting Lamar’s prime. This offense is a detriment to his growth and skill set.
Worst of all this guy is wasting Lamar’s prime. This offense is a detriment to his growth and skill set.
JoeyFlex5
Hall of Famer
Some of this is flat out false, especially the “with no option to adapt their routes”. A big chunk of our offensive gameplan is centered around the chemistry between Lamar, andrews, and Hollywood, these 3 improv constantly and break routes in different directions based on the coverage, if that’s not an option to adapt their routes idk what is.
I do wonder if the reason we had slow starts in almost every game this year was due to Roman not scripting the usual 10 to 15 plays anymore.
I'm ok giving Roman another year, but I'm hoping this is his last chance. No more excuses.
It’s also the reason why we sometimes have spacing issues - you can criticise the team for that but not also for lack of adaptation... because the 2 things are connected
and Andrews does it at as high of a level as anyone in the league - might even be better at it than kelce at this point (albeit chemistry is important to its success) - but the mic’d up segment from the pro bowl shows you just how special and rare was Andrews does is - Herbert was literally in awe of how and why Andrews did what he did when he just changed his route on the fly on that first TD
that’s definitely an interesting idea given that he notably did stop scripting plays (or at least he said he did) to begin games
BoredMarine13
Ravens Ring of Honor
Joey i think your referring much more to improvisation. Which Lamar and some of the WR's are fantastic at. This is the special trait Lamar possesses that has bailed out Romans weak scheme. The spacing and ability to adjust routes sucks. These guys are limited in what they can run based on alignment.
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BoredMarine13
Ravens Ring of Honor
But there are always built in excuses. We're like the desperate girl who keeps going back to the dude cheating on them. “He has definitely changed, it will be different THIS time..... “. Making Lamar play in a phone both is frustrating to watch.
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they build the ability to adjust and improvise with routes into the offence - it’s not separate to route adjustments (but is different to designed choice routes)
Nobody takes credit away from Andy Reid for allowing the structure for kelce to improvise in - the ravens and Roman have modelled a lot of their passing attack on similar principles to the chiefs
yes there is improvisation involved but it’s part of the structure of the offence - not separate to it
the ability to adjust routes is the most dangerous and dynamic part of this offence
gtalk12
Ravens Ring of Honor
I have to reserve judgment until I see early last year Lamar with the prolific running game/healthy O-line.
I feel like the tools are already there. We just got unlucky with injuries
BoredMarine13
Ravens Ring of Honor
Improvisation is very different from pre play route adjustments based off coverage. We don't give Roman scheme credit when the play breaks down and Lamar rips off a 30 yard scramble or Hollywood goes for 50 after adjusting on a curl route. The WRs and Lamar do a great job improvising based off their own natural feel. The last Cleveland game is filled with examples of how terrible this offense for our guys.
This is a play action pass. Two RBs, in the back field and Andrews in motion.
We end up running Andrews to the flat. The WRs run a curl and shallow post into the defense which easily covers down on the assignment. Lamar saves the day by scrambling for a first.
This is only one play but a continuous trend for Roman. His scheme allows teams to bring the safeties down which forces Lamar, possibly the most athletically gifted player in the NFL, to play in a phone booth with minimal options in the passing game.
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Improvisation is very different from pre play route adjustments based off coverage. We don't give Roman scheme credit when the play breaks down and Lamar rips off a 30 yard scramble or Hollywood goes for 50 after adjusting on a curl route. The WRs and Lamar do a great job improvising based off their own natural feel. The last Cleveland game is filled with examples of how terrible this offense for our guys.
This is a play action pass. Two RBs, in the back field and Andrews in motion.
We end up running Andrews to the flat. The WRs run a curl and shallow post into the defense which easily covers down on the assignment. Lamar saves the day by scrambling for a first.
This is only one play but a continuous trend for Roman. His scheme allows teams to bring the safeties down which forces Lamar, possibly the most athletically gifted player in the NFL, to play in a phone booth with minimal options in the passing game.
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im not arguing with you about motion - i agree that we use too many tight formations and then reduce our pass route depth further again with motion and that we should be opening up teams by spreading them out where possible with 11 personnel and maybe even going empty in that personnel with JK if we can match him up on a LB
what im talking about is a combination of pre-play and mid-play route adjustments (not scrambles) - it's improvisational by andrews and hollywood when they do it because it's not pre-ordained... they're given licence to find the space on the field and lamar has to read their intentions... but they're not designed choice routes and they're not scrambles - it's times when andrews or hollywood break off from their designed route based on the coverage they experience and find the space
What fucked that play up is probably the formation cause in theory, flats with curls and post on backend usually opens up vs a zone. 100% needs to stop running those kind of sets so often, along with scrambling to the right and passImprovisation is very different from pre play route adjustments based off coverage. We don't give Roman scheme credit when the play breaks down and Lamar rips off a 30 yard scramble or Hollywood goes for 50 after adjusting on a curl route. The WRs and Lamar do a great job improvising based off their own natural feel. The last Cleveland game is filled with examples of how terrible this offense for our guys.
This is a play action pass. Two RBs, in the back field and Andrews in motion.
We end up running Andrews to the flat. The WRs run a curl and shallow post into the defense which easily covers down on the assignment. Lamar saves the day by scrambling for a first.
This is only one play but a continuous trend for Roman. His scheme allows teams to bring the safeties down which forces Lamar, possibly the most athletically gifted player in the NFL, to play in a phone booth with minimal options in the passing game.
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