A closer look at Miles Boykin

[Culex]

I dunno man. That seems like a harsh judgement to me, because:

1. Boykin's first job is to hustle his ass to the catch point. He has to stay ahead of the defender.
2. The ball's at least a third of the way there before Boykin can realize that it's not going where he needs it to.

I think Boykin & Butler both spot the ball at about the same time. But Butler has a much easier job. It's right to him: he just has to jump in place. Boykin is in a full sprint away from where it's intercepted.

Also, this vid one slows down toward the end, as the ball arrives at the catch point. Ed does that with a lot of his catch-gifs. So the vid is deceptive on how much time Boykin had to recover.

We would have to see what the route layout was to truly know for sure where Lamar expected him to be but my concern is that we keep seeing this consistently with Boykin it seems and Lamar avoided him the rest of the game. If Boykin can get it going (not just 1 reception for 1 TD) that can be a real difference between a Lombardi and a divisional round exit. I would have liked to see during one of our blowout wins at least a WR screen to Boykin and see what he does with that

[JimZipCode]

We would have to see what the route layout was to truly know for sure where Lamar expected him to be but my concern is that we keep seeing this consistently with Boykin it seems

I don't see how anyone can look at that play and conclude that Boykin made the mistake there. It was an awful throw, full stop.

[JimZipCode]

I am not making a value judgement against Urban with descriptive negative adjectives regarding Urban and Lamar’s fundamentals.
...
If his fundamentals have regressed and the coach responsible for QB fundamentals is Urban then who else should be responsible?

I think you are making a "value judgement" against Urban, even if you're leaving the blunt part unsaid. To me it seems like you are blaming James Urban for Lamar's lapsed mechanics.

I see that Lamar's fundamentals deteriorated on Urban's watch, same as what you see; but I am not ready to jump to the conclusion that the deterioration is Urban's fault, ie that it's due to what they are or are not focusing on in practice. There are enough other factors present this season, for example:

• OL failures, esp weeks 2 thru 6
• Early effort by Roman to expand the passing game
• Obvious self-imposed pressure on Lamar to "live up to the MVP" and make things happen
• Boykin fucking up a couple audibles in weeks 4&5
• Marquise dropping passes thru the whole month of November
• Low volume passing game anyway: much QB practice time must be spent on running game, rather than dropbacks
• Lamar getting only about 10% of his offseason work with his coach, due to covid restrictions
• Lamar contracting covid and losing weeks to practice, plus some recovery time

That's a perfect storm of stuff. I'm inclined to "blame" those things, rather than Urban, esp given that he earned some goodwill over 2018-19.

It is Urban's responsibility to get it cleaned up. But it seems they have been getting it cleared up, a little at a time, since Lamar returned from covid. That's all I can expect, in-season. You can't really break a guy down and rebuild him, while also prepping for a must-win game that weekend. That's also part of a QB coach's responsibility, not messing up the player before the game.

So, I can’t say when he hit rock bottom.
...
When I say your either coaching it or you’re allowing it to happen means a player/team is repeating mistakes that you can’t or don’t correct.

I know what it means. It's a valuable self-critique when you're looking at chronic team-wide things.

But when trying to apply it to another coach, who we don't get to watch at work with his players, I think we have to be cognizant of that word "chronic".

• Lamar played a perfect game week 1.
• He was a disaster in October, or end of Sept to mid-October, somewhere around there.
• But then he played a near-perfect game again in early November against Indy.
• Then played an imperfect but pretty good game in the monsoon (passer rating of 99).

So – just how chronic or systemic is Lamar's mechanics-deterioration? Cuz one reasonable take is that they caught it and fixed a lot by early November. Just in time for Lamar to get covid a week or two later.

I would love to see Lamar playing with Sharp fundamentals....

Sure, who wouldn't.

But even when he isn’t (like now imho) he’s still makes enough plays with passing (many of them adlib) that his phenomenal playmaking ability can carry the game.

One thing I think you're probably right about: they probably do "let more happen" with a talent like Lamar, than they would with a more conventional QB. They feel some pressure to "preserve his creativity" and not "stifle his talent" or take away his freedom "to make plays". We should be thankful they have that attitude. BUT: they probably could be coaching him a little harder.

The other factor is that thing that Ex bitches about from time to time. They've got to be spending a TON of QB practice time on the run game: mesh points, option reads, bash counters, etc etc etc. It's a zero-sum world: that extra time inevitably means less time on dropbacks and timing routes etc etc. Another thing that mitigates how much "blame" I'm comfortable dumping onto Urban.

[seraph]

We would have to see what the route layout was to truly know for sure where Lamar expected him to be but my concern is that we keep seeing this consistently with Boykin it seems and Lamar avoided him the rest of the game. If Boykin can get it going (not just 1 reception for 1 TD) that can be a real difference between a Lombardi and a divisional round exit. I would have liked to see during one of our blowout wins at least a WR screen to Boykin and see what he does with that

Wut? Who cares what route was run. Good receivers will make route adjustments from time to time. Lamar literally threw it away to Butler.

[QtR Nevermore]

For all the detailed looks at every Boykin target in this thread it's been an incredibly frustrating year for assessing his development.

It seems like he's improved from last season but by how much it's hard to say. Aside from a couple of nice catches, it seems like all his targets have either been wide open or completely uncatchable, with very little in the middle to help us assess where he is.

From what we've seen on the field he could either have developed into a very decent WR who's caught most of his catchable targets or he could be a Ricard-level passing threat, who's only really worth throwing to when the defense have forgotten about him or he's got himself wide open. With so few targets, can anyone say with confidence whether he's either of these things, or somewhere in the middle?

It's the continuing lack of targets, despite getting decent production from the few he gets, that makes me think that he can't be showing the coaches (or Lamar) much in practice.

It's a unimportant side issue but ,if we could just see a few more passes for the rest of the playoff run, it might tell us whether they absolutely have to take a receiver with one of their first 2 draft picks (or bring in a high end free agent) or whether they can let draft fall where it may.

[WNCRavensFan]

For all the detailed looks at every Boykin target in this thread it's been an incredibly frustrating year for assessing his development.

It's like this thread has made Boykin a case study for every young WR that's been through Baltimore.

[JimZipCode]

For all the detailed looks at every Boykin target in this thread it's been an incredibly frustrating year for assessing his development.

It seems like he's improved from last season but by how much it's hard to say. Aside from a couple of nice catches, it seems like all his targets have either been wide open or completely uncatchable, with very little in the middle to help us assess where he is.

From what we've seen on the field he could either have developed into a very decent WR who's caught most of his catchable targets or he could be a Ricard-level passing threat, who's only really worth throwing to when the defense have forgotten about him or he's got himself wide open. With so few targets, can anyone say with confidence whether he's either of these things, or somewhere in the middle?

And that was true last year too.

It's the continuing lack of targets, despite getting decent production from the few he gets, that makes me think that he can't be showing the coaches (or Lamar) much in practice.

That's a reasonable hypothesis.

The weakness with it is that Boykin gets a TON of playing time for someone who isn't showing the coaches much. He started 13 games this year, including the last 7 reg season games, and he started this past wkend. Boykin has had more snaps on the season than Snead; he's had more than ANY RB on the team, from Dobbins to Ricard to Gus. Boykin gets more targets than Duvernay, who most here agree has really flashed. They sure use him a lot. Er, without actually using him, I mean.

I think the simplest explanation is he's the 3rd downfield option in a low-volume passing offense. There just aren't enough targets for him to be feasting.



Matt Waldman wrote something last offseason, that I've been meaning to post somewhere. This was in his post-draft RSP, on Duvernay landing spot:

WR Devin Duvernay (Baltimore): I’m a fan of the Baltimore offense and I’m a fan of its receivers, including Duvernay. However, this offense isn’t an optimal match for its receivers.

Because Lamar Jackson lacks great velocity as a perimeter thrower, the scheme emphasizes throws inside the numbers and doesn’t optimize the route skills of its players on intermediate and deep perimeter routes. This hurts Miles Boykin more than any of the options, but it limits every receiver.

Duvernay, like Boykin and Marquise Brown, has a deep perimeter game that can be unlocked if Jackson develops enough velocity and accuracy to exploit it. It’s unlikely that we’ll see the offense shift its focus and demand this level of improvement from Jackson immediately so it means Duvernay will do most of his work inside the numbers.

I didn't want that to be true when it came out, but with another season in the books it sure seems like there's something to it.

Waldman added this in a podcast a couple weeks later (transcription by me):

https://mattwaldmanrsp.com/2020/07/2...wain-mcfarland

3:16
Then you have Miles Boykin, a personal favorite of mine who played really well in the preseason, but, y'know, two things didn't factor well for him. One is that, he was kind of the opposite of Lamar Jackson. They didn't complement each other at all, because where Miles Boykin was excellent, which was on the perimeter running those timing routes – where Jackson isn't great at being able to target him – he struggled in terms of knowing when to look and anticipate his quarterback in the middle of the field, where he had some issues... [mentions the additions of Proche & Duvernay]
And so you wonder if Boykin's gonna have a shot to really develop in there.

Seems that a short-area burst guy (like say Antonio Brown) would be a better fit with Lamar than a down-the-field perimeter guy. Note that Boykin has shown real improvement this year in running "thru the catch point" on middle-of-the-field routes. But note also that almost all of his catches from Lamar have been on those kinds of routes: crossers and overs and the like.

So again it seems like there is something to Waldman's point. Dammit.

Boykin, Miles....the tiger in tall grass

Ha! Thanks for "stacking" your sig. I personally think that looks better. Hope you like it that way too.

[edromeo]

I think you are making a "value judgement" against Urban, even if you're leaving the blunt part unsaid. To me it seems like you are blaming James Urban for Lamar's lapsed mechanics.

I see that Lamar's fundamentals deteriorated on Urban's watch, same as what you see; but I am not ready to jump to the conclusion that the deterioration is Urban's fault, ie that it's due to what they are or are not focusing on in practice. There are enough other factors present this season, for example:

• OL failures, esp weeks 2 thru 6
• Early effort by Roman to expand the passing game
• Obvious self-imposed pressure on Lamar to "live up to the MVP" and make things happen
• Boykin fucking up a couple audibles in weeks 4&5
• Marquise dropping passes thru the whole month of November
• Low volume passing game anyway: much QB practice time must be spent on running game, rather than dropbacks
• Lamar getting only about 10% of his offseason work with his coach, due to covid restrictions
• Lamar contracting covid and losing weeks to practice, plus some recovery time

That's a perfect storm of stuff. I'm inclined to "blame" those things, rather than Urban, esp given that he earned some goodwill over 2018-19.

It is Urban's responsibility to get it cleaned up. But it seems they have been getting it cleared up, a little at a time, since Lamar returned from covid. That's all I can expect, in-season. You can't really break a guy down and rebuild him, while also prepping for a must-win game that weekend. That's also part of a QB coach's responsibility, not messing up the player before the game.


I know what it means. It's a valuable self-critique when you're looking at chronic team-wide things.

But when trying to apply it to another coach, who we don't get to watch at work with his players, I think we have to be cognizant of that word "chronic".

• Lamar played a perfect game week 1.
• He was a disaster in October, or end of Sept to mid-October, somewhere around there.
• But then he played a near-perfect game again in early November against Indy.
• Then played an imperfect but pretty good game in the monsoon (passer rating of 99).

So – just how chronic or systemic is Lamar's mechanics-deterioration? Cuz one reasonable take is that they caught it and fixed a lot by early November. Just in time for Lamar to get covid a week or two later.


Sure, who wouldn't.


One thing I think you're probably right about: they probably do "let more happen" with a talent like Lamar, than they would with a more conventional QB. They feel some pressure to "preserve his creativity" and not "stifle his talent" or take away his freedom "to make plays". We should be thankful they have that attitude. BUT: they probably could be coaching him a little harder.

The other factor is that thing that Ex bitches about from time to time. They've got to be spending a TON of QB practice time on the run game: mesh points, option reads, bash counters, etc etc etc. It's a zero-sum world: that extra time inevitably means less time on dropbacks and timing routes etc etc. Another thing that mitigates how much "blame" I'm comfortable dumping onto Urban.

I might have time later to go over all your points but overall this is my take.

Blame has a negative connotation.
If you want to call it ‘blame’ as opposed to Urban being responsible for or accountable for Lamar’s fundamentals in the rhythm drop back passing game that’s fine by me.

If you were Urban, I would tell you that Lamar is capable of much better and that *you*/Urban have to raise Lamar’s level of fundamentals when it comes to the rhythm drop back passing game.

Keep an eye out for it this game.
Number of drop backs, number that require or don’t require precise footwork, number of pure rhythm drop backs, and how often the execution (particularly fundamentals) are on point.


And I think this discussion is better in the other thread.

[Culex]

Can we get a gif of him getting cut

[Maximus]

It's like this thread has made Boykin a case study for every young WR that's been through Baltimore.

Thread has acquired legendary status

[edromeo]

I might have time later to go over all your points but overall this is my take.

Blame has a negative connotation.
If you want to call it ‘blame’ as opposed to Urban being responsible for or accountable for Lamar’s fundamentals in the rhythm drop back passing game that’s fine by me.

If you were Urban, I would tell you that Lamar is capable of much better and that *you*/Urban have to raise Lamar’s level of fundamentals when it comes to the rhythm drop back passing game.

Keep an eye out for it this game.
Number of drop backs, number that require or don’t require precise footwork, number of pure rhythm drop backs, and how often the execution (particularly fundamentals) are on point.


And I think this discussion is better in the other thread.

Did you track it? Or keep an eye out for it?

[edromeo]

Did anyone post or discuss Boykin from the Bills game?