Should Tyrod Taylor be included more often?

[wickedsolo]

3) hand it off

Which takes the ball out of Flacco's hands.

That's dumb.

[wickedsolo]

yup some folk like to twist words to fit their argument..smh

That's exactly where this conversation is headed.

More often than not, the back up QB is the most popular player on the team.

[Rayvens52]

For The Record: I never mentioned a dual-threat system in the article. I haven't seen anyone else suggest it. The point of this thread is to use Tyrod with creativity. If we can START thinking of things to use him with-- I'd imagine the folks getting paid a lot of money to do so can too. It's time to see what Taylor has as an ATHLETE.

And the point the rest of us are making is we are positive the guys getting paid a ton of money have thought of this and it is about putting the best 11 on the field for any given play, Tyrod is not one of the best 11, ever! The reason his 18 yd play worked was not because it was Tyrod and the D was shocked to see him, they called the right play at the right time. Watch one winning drive where that play is talked about, our own players on the bench were quoted as saying " I was like who is #2" He lined up at WR and the play worked, if our own guys forgot who #2 was I can all but guarantee the D just thought it was a receiver.

If you want to have fun and make a thread about what you would do have it, but if you truly believe that Tyrod is going to help this team in any fashion whatsoever you are sadly mistaken. He is a below avg Qb, a subpar RB and a bad WR, so how any part of the combo makes you think he will help is beyond me? You are calling for a wildcat package that league figured out years ago and does not work and those teams that were running back in the day had much better options than Tyrod Taylor!

[iggyman555]

Which takes the ball out of Flacco's hands.

That's dumb.

lol youre missing the point. back to fitting square pegs into round holes

[iggyman555]

That's exactly where this conversation is headed.

More often than not, the back up QB is the most popular player on the team.

i believe you brought up the point of a dual qb system, which was not the OP point...this has nothing to do with flacco sucking or tyrod being awesome, his point is to throw some creativity into our shitty offense

[JAB1985]

Flacco may be underrated as a runner, but he still cannot run like Tyrod. Especially if we are talking about shiftiness and not straight away speed.

But as to your point, I agree, we should use Flacco's athleticism more as well. More roll-outs, naked boot-designed runs, even QB draws from shotgun-spread formations (though our interior line may not be able to handle that even against 3 man fronts, lol).

The main point I am making is that this "idea" proposed by the OP is not one that is being proposed for a team that is marching down the field with ease. The same idea proposed for the Broncos or Saints, or Packers or Lions would be infinitely more questionable.

As it stands, it is hard to see much downside to such a suggestion, even if we stipulate the upside may not be what some are imagining. Because our offense currently sucks and is losing us games.

Id agree with your first 3 paragraphs. the downside may be minimal but I wouldnt think the upside is much more than minimal either. Im fine with it once were mathematically eliminated. I wont care much what they do at that point. right now, i just dont see the upside being high enough to warrant it, even if the downside is minimal.

[wickedsolo]

i believe you brought up the point of a dual qb system, which was not the OP point...this has nothing to do with flacco sucking or tyrod being awesome, his point is to throw some creativity into our shitty offense

And I think if they really want to be creative then they should implement more of the route tree than what they are doing.

Don't you find it is strange that a majority of the passes are going to the middle of the field?

The Ravens (even going back to Cam's days) completely limit areas of the field from their playbook. I don't know why this is, but other than the playoffs, the Ravens just don't use the whole field at all. Even during the playoffs they didn't use the entire field.

It limits their offense and makes it easier for defenses to defend.

[JAB1985]

i believe you brought up the point of a dual qb system, which was not the OP point...this has nothing to do with flacco sucking or tyrod being awesome, his point is to throw some creativity into our shitty offense

maybe thats where im confused? i dont see lesser talent being put into unfamiliar positions "creative", i call it something else, but i dont want to offend anybody.

[Captain Silver]

Creativity?

Put the best 11 men on the field as was mentioned above. Joe Flacco gives us the best shot at winning any game, and possession, any downs. Any tinkering with him for Taylor undermines his leadership as the starting quarterback for this team. Period. You don't invest $120 Million in a franchise quarterback who's performance is less than his check when his O-Line and RB suck right now.

You want to use a trick play? Do it when your offensive line can actually fucking block.

[Haloti92]

Id agree with your first 3 paragraphs. the downside may be minimal but I wouldnt think the upside is much more than minimal either. Im fine with it once were mathematically eliminated. I wont care much what they do at that point. right now, i just dont see the upside being high enough to warrant it, even if the downside is minimal.

The upside is the potential of a big play.

The purpose of doing this would not be to get Tyrod some work. The purpose would be to win games. Games we are currently losing with our "standard" offense's ineptitude.

The downside is close to zero. In fact it probably is zero assuming we can drill into Tyrod's head not to throw the ball into coverage on plays where we give him a pass option.

And since a gain of 5 yards, let alone 18, would be an improvement over our current offense, the upside almost has to be more than the downside. More or equal, not less.

The one play we already ran gained 4 times our average gain. So I don't see how anyone can try to argue there is no upside. When I said the upside is probably less than some people imagine, I meant that I don't expect multiple TDs on these kinds of plays (of we start running 2-3 per game), but rather a bunch of modest gains with the occasional big play (18 yards, 20 yards, etc.) when the defense makes a mental mistake defending the play.

[JoeWedra]

Creativity?

Put the best 11 men on the field as was mentioned above. Joe Flacco gives us the best shot at winning any game, and possession, any downs. Any tinkering with him for Taylor undermines his leadership as the starting quarterback for this team. Period. You don't invest $120 Million in a franchise quarterback who's performance is less than his check when his O-Line and RB suck right now.

You want to use a trick play? Do it when your offensive line can actually f****** block.

So you are saying that trying something in a game and essentially giving Flacco another weapon/option is a huge mistake?

[lobachevsky]

He can throw better than Rice or Pierce, and he can run better than Flacco. Which is why people are making the "creativity" stipulation and not arguing he should enter the game for Flacco and play drop-back QB.

No argument on Tyrod's strengths--but hold that thought...

Obviously the 'best' way to improve the offense is to have the O-line play better, the WRs play better, the RBs play better, and the QB play better. But while we perpetually keep wishing that will happen starting the next play, we could also attempt to improve the offense by changing things up, making it mentally harder for the opposition to defend, and perhaps catching them napping for a single random big play.

So when Tyrod enters the game, replacing a WR (probably the slot), the Ravens gain the possibility for an end-around option. Anything else? Statue of Liberty option pass, I guess but that's pretty much the same thing. Direct snap if they line him up in the backfield. Anything else?

It seems to me that all the possible plays with Tyrod handling the ball in an option-type format can be successfully defended in pretty much the same way.

What do they lose? Suppose they want to run a different sort of play out of that package, with Tyrod as a decoy. In theory that would make sense. But it prompts a few questions: (a) Can he catch anything but a pitchback? Say, a flare out of the backfield as a safety valve or screen? (b) Can he catch Joe's fastball on a slant? (c) Can he run a more complicated route--or more importantly, sell it as a legitimate possibility that has to be defended? (d) Can he block downfield effectively? (e) Can he pick up blitzers?

I suspect the answers to those questions are (a) Probably, (b) No, (c) Probably not, (d) Vs a DB, maybe, (e) Probably not. Note that all of those possibilities involve capabilities not normally part of a QB's skill set which would cost practice time & reps getting him up to speed.

Anything that Tyrod is asked to do other than handle the ball is not going to get done as well as the player he replaces would have done it. Essentially they'd be playing 10-1/2 on 11. In fact, more like 10 on 11, because most all of his positional assignments on those other plays would expose the only backup QB on the roster to getting lit up, so they'd have to be crazy to risk it (especially since Tyrod isn't built to "take a licking & keep on ticking"). (For dogsake, is there anyone else who's taken a snap under center since HS??)

Once or twice a game, in the right situation, maybe. More often than that would IMHO be nuts. The risk/reward equation is all wrong.