Reopening the Discussion: Perceived or Real Limitations on Lamar as a Passer and its Impact on the Offense

[s.r.genovese]

Generally I agree it's a full team issue with various reasons all combining to make the passing offense is as bad as it is. But brushing off a HOF QB, HOF WR, various other analysts who have played and coached the game at high levels comments about how basic and high school the passing offense is with "they just want us to be the greatest show on turf"? Don't agree with that. You can pass the ball 20 times and still have creative route combos, creative plays to scheme guys open on those limited plays even if they don't understand the finer points of playing WR just yet.

He's not going to throw his guys under the bus in the postseason presser.

[GreatWhiteNorthRaven]

You don't need to be the 1999 Rams or 2011 Patriots to implement good route combinations and concepts in your offense.

But do we have some concepts? Do we have some creative combinations?

I would argue we do. This is the play before hte pick 6:
https://twitter.com/Yoshi2052/status...83775475318784

If the pass protection does its job (we ran the same slide protection 2 plays before this on a completion to Snead - Dobbins his his block) that's 6. The route concept is what grabs that safety and opens Brown up on his break.

I'm not a big G-Ro guy, but some of these film reviews are exhausting. Very few show any of the positive designs that were executed. Things like the deep ball misses that were well opened and Lamar missed Brown 4 times in the first 5 weeks. Say 2 of those go for scores to be conservative, that's a damn different spin on the start of the year. There's a ton of execution issues that plagued this passing attack this year, including Lamar's indecisivness and shit interior pass protection. I'm not sure how much a 'better scheme' fixes some of those.

I'm not saying it's all on Lamar. It's football. It's complex AF. But this whole 'there's no creativity' is just exhausting. There was creativity above that is a 14 point swing (10-10 instead of 14-3). We failed ot execute it.

[seraph]

You don't need to be the 1999 Rams or 2011 Patriots to implement good route combinations and concepts in your offense.

None of the people critical of the scheme are asking for more complex concepts but it's understandable that Harbaugh needs to defend his coaches. I've seen effective concepts from the Ravens offense they just don't it enough. Their concepts asks his WRs to run the perfect routes on his concepts and for Lamar to throw with anticipation. You can definitely tell Lamar is still learning WCO drop step timing and reads and they are notorious for taking a few years to master.

[HbgPARavenfan]

I was concerned as well. I remember getting into a debate with a certain poster over how Harbaugh would use Lamar.

Basically, Harbaugh didn’t suddenly gain a new sense of energy in developing a Quarterback or passing offense. He fell in love with Lamar, because he saw an opportunity to put together a run heavy offense that could zag, as he always wanted, while the league zigged. Harbaugh has never cared about the pass. A couple of seasons our attempts were high, only because we couldn’t run.

He saw a QB he could run into the ground and that’s what he’s doing.

I believe my exact quote after the draft was "I'd be terrified of lamar with billicheat. But I worry barbs will run him into the ground"

Lamar and roman together are only going to make the meme of lamar is a running back a reality. This offense doesn't promote growth at qb, only maximizing athleticism at the qb and trying to occasionally get big chunk plays when the defense over commits and someone is wide open.

[The Excellector]

Or he was referring to Lamar's indecisiveness comparable to 2019. It was the #1 biggest difference in his passing game this year. That extra bit of hesitation.

What makes Lamar so special is his field awareness. When he pulled the trigger on that run against TEN that was Lamar being who he was. He made a ton of those plays in the air.

Look no further than IND 2nd half. He was decisive and got the ball out before a break. Completed 90% of his passes.

A bunch of things need to improve, but Lamar did not play the same and throwing with anticipation and being decisive were the two biggest differences. IMO that's what he was referring to.

We’ll agree to disagree on that one.

[The Excellector]

The Ravens coaching staff and front office know way more than ANYONE posting on a message board. They are way more qualified to determine who Lamar really is and the best way to win with him. If the franchise QB is capable of winning and MVP and going to the playoffs every year, I hardly think that is running him into the dirt.

Cam Cameron has forgotten more football than any of us will ever know.

[The Excellector]

This is not in a vacuum guys. We can’t just look at plays and say, ‘Well, if they’d executed’ or ‘They just need to execute better’. There is human element and psychology to this.

How can they improve in their execution when they get so few reps in practice and so few reps in games?

The focus seems to be on the mistakes and the lack of execution. Maybe it should be on HOW that improvement is actually manifested.

If Lamar goes and works with Jordan Palmer, but then still gets so few reps in practice compared to how much time they spend on their running game, and gets so few reps in games, and that hard work and emphasis on passing from working with Palmer is not reinforced in practice and in games, does anyone truly believe that Lamar will see significant progress?

Likewise, with the WRs. If you are asking them to spend so much time blocking, you are focusing more on that than anything else in practice and in games, how are they actually going to develop and learn to execute better.?

This is not some ten year established offense that is just taking a year off from throwing a ton to run the ball due to lack of WRs. This is an offense that has always been about running the ball, and will always have issues at WR because of it. The WRs on this team are very frustrated. And we’ve seen no significant growth from any of them.

It’s not as simple as to say that Roman called a good play and they didn’t execute. There is a way that execution improves and when the team is focused so much on running the ball, on top of the reality that there are not open guys every other play (Which means when Lamar doesn’t see one, it’s glaring and a magnified mistake), I just don’t see how anyone can honestly and confidently expect that improvement with the current approach.

This is not a case of them having to do this, because they don’t have the WRs or because Lamar can’t handle more. He handled more at Louisville. This is what Harbaugh and Roman want to do.

[WrongBaldy]

“We have every route in football and we have every route concept in football. We throw it less than most teams do because we run it so well. I know Kurt would probably love to see us be a drop-back passing team who gets the ball out on time in the West Coast-type style or the ‘Greatest Show on Turf’ type style, but that’s not the offense that we run,” Harbaugh said.

“We’re not going to change an offense because it doesn’t fit his eye. … We’ll build the passing game around our players and our talent and around our quarterback and around our running backs and around our offensive line to suit our players and to play winning football and score points. I think we were the seventh or eighth scoring offense in the league last year. We can talk about the other 24 or 23 of those teams and talk about what they’re not doing to fit somebody else’s eye.”

Best coach in football

[GreatWhiteNorthRaven]

We’ll agree to disagree on that one.

I mean the tapes out there. But k.

[GreatWhiteNorthRaven]

This is not in a vacuum guys. We can’t just look at plays and say, ‘Well, if they’d executed’ or ‘They just need to execute better’. There is human element and psychology to this.

How can they improve in their execution when they get so few reps in practice and so few reps i games?

The focus seems to be on the mistakes and the lack of execution. Maybe it should be on HOW that improvement is actually manifested.

If Lamar goes and works with Jordan Palmer, but then still gets so few reps in practice compared to how much time they spend on their running game, and gets so few reps in games, and that hard work and emphasis on passing from working with Palmer is not reinforced in practice and in games, does anyone truly believe that Lamar will see significant progress?

Likewise, with the WRs. If you are asking them to spend so much time blocking, you are focusing more on that than anything else in practice and in games, how are they actually going to develop and learn to execute better.?

This is not some ten year established offense that is just taking a year off from throwing a ton to run the ball due to lack of WRs. This is an offense that has always been about running the ball, and will always have issues at WR because of it. The WRs on this team are very frustrated. And we’ve seen no significant growth from any of them.

It’s not as simple as to say that Roman called a good play and they didn’t execute. There is a way that execution improves and when the team is focused so much on running the ball, on top of the reality that there are not open guys every other play (Which means when Lamar doesn’t see one, it’s glaring and a magnified mistake), I just don’t see how anyone can honestly and confidently expect that improvement with the current approach.

This is not a case of them having to do this, because they don’t have the WRs or because Lamar can’t handle more. He handled more at Louisville. This is what Harbaugh and Roman want to do.

So they executed with no issues in 2019 with the same run-pass balance? Where was the human psychology then?

You’re introducing an argument that is purely Subjective and you know it. Joke.

[The Excellector]

I mean the tapes out there. But k.

Different people can look at tape, and feel that they're seeing what they're seeing for different reasons. Thus, the "tapes" don't automatically mean that's what Harbaugh meant when he made that statement.

[The Excellector]

So they executed with no issues in 2019 with the same run-pass balance? Where was the human psychology then?

You’re introducing an argument that is purely Subjective and you know it. Joke.

I would think that you're being rather disingenuous yourself. It is clear that defenses were taken aback by the offense in 2019, and focused in on the Ravens as one of the teams they had to deal with in 2020. There wasn't much tape to go off of and teams didn't really understand their tendencies. This year, teams had a much better understanding of their tendencies, those tendencies were glaring, and now they have to work on changing those tendencies. Which means more emphasis on it. That comes in practice and then in the gameplan.

Yes, what I'm suggesting is largely subjective. However, the, I guess philosophy, I am expressing, is not something exclusive to football. It's universal to life. To improve on aspects of certain things, you need to spend more time on those things and give them more focus. Otherwise, you may see some initial improvement (Though, not a given), but any improvement will be difficult to retain over time. If Jackson works with Palmer, but is not met with the same emphasis on those issues by the coaching staff and offense as a whole, is he really going to retain what he learned from Palmer, to the point of being able to execute it in a game at a moment's notice?