Lamar in Rewatch of Ravens-Titans

[JimZipCode]

Ex, I meant to ask this in relation to your comments on 2nd & 4th gifs – were the Titans "squeezing" the options to play them inside-out? Give Lamar a "keep" read, and then immediately bounce out with him?

That would explain the low number of RB carries + high number of QB carries. Normal play-calling, but the read dictated by the D on the field leads to the skewed number of carries.

[JimZipCode]

No typo, just Fahey being an arrogant, no-it-all prick who talks holier than thou

He seems to have a little bit extra of the Irish vigour to take the piss and stick a thumb in the eye of the pompous commentariat.

I like it. You can never believe anyone 100% (except for Filmstudy, of course). Fahey is transparent enough that you can judge for yourself.

Jackson was barely able to step into the throw to Andrews, but he’s supposed to be able to step into a deep throw to Boykin with a lineman closing in on him.

I think you're dead wrong on this one. We've seen Lamar make far more difficult throws this season, with far less space from pass-rushers. This one wouldn't even have moved the needle on throw-difficulty.

[The Excellector]

They zoned in on Lamar. They decided that it was better for Edwards to do damage than Lamar. They were winning in the A gaps the vast majority of the game. Lamar just kept keeping it and the Titans just rolled with it. Played right into their hands.

[The Excellector]

He seems to have a little bit extra of the Irish vigour to take the piss and stick a thumb in the eye of the pompous commentariat.

I like it. You can never believe anyone 100% (except for Filmstudy, of course). Fahey is transparent enough that you can judge for yourself.


I think you're dead wrong on this one. We've seen Lamar make far more difficult throws this season, with far less space from pass-rushers. This one wouldn't even have moved the needle on throw-difficulty.

He was off Saturday night. This same thing happened on a pass attempt to Brown up the deep seam. Jackson was high all game. Especially, when he wasn’t able to step into the throw, much like the throw to Brown I’m talking about where he couldn’t step into it and sailed it out of the back of the end zone.

[JimZipCode]

And one undervalued reason why Edwards only had nine carries was, because Jackson started trying to do everything himself and keep it on the Read options when letting Edwards keep it would have been the better option.

Well that's what I was asking in my follow up, couple posts ago. I think the Titans were playing a D that tried to fool Lamar into a "keep" read, but the keeper run wasn't actually open. I was reading something about this a week or so ago, the standard college defensive tactics against option runs, and there was one like that.

I'll try to find it again.

[BearArms]

4 or 5 plays go differently and its a different game. Saying the run game wouldn't work is saying the record breaking NFL running team of all time wouldn't be able to keep the defense honest is stupid.

Roman shit the bed, plain and simple

[The Excellector]

I mean, they didn’t make Tennessee back up their safeties. They didn’t make Tennessee stop pushing WR routed toward the sideline. They couldn’t even get push up front on fourth and one.

[edromeo]

Ex, I meant to ask this in relation to your comments on 2nd & 4th gifs – were the Titans "squeezing" the options to play them inside-out? Give Lamar a "keep" read, and then immediately bounce out with him?

That would explain the low number of RB carries + high number of QB carries. Normal play-calling, but the read dictated by the D on the field leads to the skewed number of carries.

None of that would matter if Greg wasn't overly reliant on the read-option. They showed power, duo, toss, inside/outside zone all season. Make the defense defend all the concepts. Relied on the fast ball. Lamar save us!

[JimZipCode]

Well that's what I was asking in my follow up, couple posts ago. I think the Titans were playing a D that tried to fool Lamar into a "keep" read, but the keeper run wasn't actually open. I was reading something about this a week or so ago, the standard college defensive tactics against option runs, and there was one like that.

I'll try to find it again.

This! This is the piece I read.

Ted’s Film Room: Stopping the Ravens’ zone read
https://theathletic.com/1489023/2020...ens-zone-read/

Rise is more commonly known as “squeeze-and-pop”. When a defensive lineman rises, he stays square and squeezes the cutback lane to force a keep before exploding back outside to try and play the quarterback from inside out.

https://cdn.theathletic.com/app/uplo...02311/Rise.mp4

In the clip above, the Mississippi State defensive end did a good job of moving toward the mesh while staying low to trick Jackson into keeping the ball before redirecting back upfield to contain Jackson.

With Surf and Rise, the defense is attempting to steal a gap by having the read man play two gaps. This usually requires a very athletic defensive end. When facing the Ravens, there is simply no defensive end that can run with Jackson outside but if the techniques are called at the right time and executed correctly, they could work and if the end can’t actually tackle Jackson, the hope is that he could string him outside until the pursuit catches up.

Were they just playing a shit ton of Rise aka Squeeze & Pop? And executing superbly well?

None of that would matter if Greg wasn't overly reliant on the read-option. They showed power, duo, toss, inside/outside zone all season. Make the defense defend all the concepts. Relied on the fast ball. Lamar save us!

Well – yeah.

The fucked-up thing is, we were up around 6.4 ypc for the game. Lamar & Gus were at 7 between them. It's not like the run game wasn't working. But we got cute on 4th down, had crippling spec teams penalties and killer drops. Suddenly you're down multiple TDs, and the running game has to go out the window.

[WrongBaldy]

That throw into triple coverage is my favorite all year

[burnwood]

Earl got a full sack in the Buffalo game. The week before he got a half-sack against the Niners.

I think he has two and two-half sacks on the season.

Yes I remember that first sack and the celebration afterwards. Still it's fitting a round peg into a square hole.

[JimZipCode]

Hee:

How to Talk to a Lamar Jackson Hater (if You Absolutely Must)
by Mike Tanier – Jan 13, 2020
https://bleacherreport.com/articles/...al-four#slide5

Swarms of Lamar Jackson skeptics, deniers, trolls and haters took to the internet, airwaves and neighborhood sports taverns in the wake of the Ravens' 28-12 upset loss to the Titans on Saturday night. These pesky, incessant folks are sure to spread their joyless, wrongheaded arguments about Jackson, the Ravens and the future of NFL offense for weeks and months to come.

But don't despair! Gridiron Digest is here with a few simple, no-nonsense talking points to combat the laziest and most common of the anti-Jackson opinions. We can't promise to change any minds, but we can at least offer some relief from the non-stop buzzing and itching.


Argument: Lamar Jackson stinks.

Response: OK, boomer. Do you wanna at least try to sound like you have an informed opinion?


Argument: Lamar Jackson got "figured out" by the Titans.

Response: Really? So the secret formula is to turn a tipped pass into an interception, stuff two 4th-and-short attempts, pin the Ravens deep in their own territory on every punt, and generate your own touchdowns on Odell Beckham Jr.-worthy catches and trick plays so you roll up a commanding lead and run for over 200 yards? If that's a repeatable "formula" at all, it's one that would also have probably worked on the 2007 Patriots.


Argument: Lamar Jackson "cannot win big games."

Response: This anti-Jackson crowd has been saving this one for a relaunch since it was proved wrong in the second half of the Patriots game. Jackson was hardly helpless when forced to abandon the option and throw from the pocket. He led several long drives, delivering some jaw-dropping passes to a very ordinary corps of receivers, during his failed comeback bid. Jackson looked far superior as a passer and decision-maker in his comeback effort to how, say, Kirk Cousins looked Saturday or (whispers) Tom Brady did against the same defense last week.


Argument: Lamar Jackson doesn't deserve the MVP award after Saturday's loss.

Response: The MVP award has always been a regular-season award, which is how Peyton Manning won five of them despite so many playoff heartbreaks. Lots of past MVPs have played for teams that came up short of expectations in the playoffs; not everything that happens in the NFL must be seen through the lens of who wins the Super Bowl.


Argument: Read-option offenses remain doomed to failure in the NFL.

Response: Twenty teams failed to make the playoffs with conventional offenses this season (19 if you count the Cardinals as unconventional), and roughly 31 teams fail to win the Super Bowl with conventional offenses every year. Meanwhile, a handful of option-flavored offenses have resulted in some of the most exciting moments (and successful seasons) of the last decade: Tebow Mania, Colin Kaepernick's Super Bowl run, the Seahawks' Super Bowl victory, Cam Newton's MVP year, this Lamar Jackson season and so on. Yet for some reason, option-heavy offenses are deemed "failures" at the first sign of any setback, even if it happens in the playoffs or Super Bowl.


Argument: Option offenses aren't built to play catch-up.

Response: This is true. Navy is always in real trouble if it falls two scores behind. And the Ravens could use more firepower at wide receiver for when they have to shift into catch-up mode. Now go back and watch Saturday's Vikings loss. The coordinator who orchestrated that masterpiece was rewarded with a head coaching job. Watch any Jets game from this season. Their head coach will be running (or ruining) NFL offenses for the next 25 years. Are conventional offenses, with their 2nd-and-15 draw plays and 3rd-and-20 checkdowns, really built to overcome 21-6 deficits against playoff opponents?

At least the Ravens system is built to take and hold onto huge leads. The NFL is full of systems that aren't even well-designed to do that, but no one takes much notice of them when they fail.


Argument: Forget Lamar Jackson. The real problem is analytics. The Ravens would have won if they didn't keep gambling on 4th-and-short.

Response: Saturday's game was reminiscent of the 24-2 Falcons loss to the Giants in the 2011 playoffs, in which Matt Ryan was stuffed on a pair of fourth-down sneaks deep in field-goal range. It's easy to remember a decade later when a team loses a huge game on some fourth-down stops. Meanwhile, teams lose every single week because they settle for punts and field goals.



All of these "arguments" boil down to how easy it is to criticize something new and different. The same anti-Jackson arguments would have sprung forth if he led a comeback this week but lost next week—or in the Super Bowl, or if he had won two Super Bowls and then suffered a high-ankle sprain while scrambling in October 2022. They're ad hoc, bad-faith arguments that hold Jackson and the Ravens to a standard that even the best quarterbacks and teams would struggle to reach.

That's why the Jackson skeptics are best ignored, not engaged with. Jackson and the Ravens will be back to silence the naysayers themselves in nine months.

Bonus glimpse at the future for the 4 eliminated teams:

Baltimore Ravens

Nearly every contributor of note is under contract for next season or can be easily replaced by an in-house successor. So while $34 million in cap space doesn't sound all that impressive, it's mostly real spending money. Wide receiver should be a top offseason priority; even if the Ravens are banking on Hollywood Brown and Miles Boykin to develop into Pro Bowl performers in their system, Saturday's loss revealed the need for better third or fourth options on obvious passing downs.

The Ravens generated such buzz this season that they could also become a popular destination for aging mercenaries hoping to both be part of something and win a ring: the kind of player we used to assume would just sign with the Patriots.