Eisenberg: Ravens Should Double Down on Who They Already Are

[StalkRavenMad]

Almost every play is a big exaggeration.

There were a some occasions where a receiver came across the middle that he missed. Lamar's at fault for that, but so is the OC who has never really asked or wanted him to make those kind of plays.

Then there were a lot of those "WR out in the flat, with no blockers, screen but not a screen" type of passes available that Roman hastily added to the offense as the game unfolded. Lamar rejected those because they'd already proven to be hopeless in that game and he was trying to keep the offense on the field by finding something better.

That was a terrible game from Lamar but it was also some chickens coming home to roost for the OC and the simplistic deep shot to scramble passing offense he'd been trying to run.

There are multiple options on every play. If a guy is running underneath he's doing so for a purpose. Most plays you look deep to shallow. If the deep shot isn't there you come back to the check down. Plays are designed to put players in conflict. And the QB is supposed to read the defense to determine where to go with the ball. There isn't an OC from the high school level on up that draws up a play and says this is where you have to go with the ball. To think that Roman has guys running underneath routes for S &Gs is funny. Those routes are there for a reason and he absolutely wants his QB to take those . Now the underneath may not be the 1st or 2nd option but if those aren't there he absolutely is telling him that's you safety valve. I love Lamar and think he and GRo will lead us to where we all would like to go, but he gets himself in trouble when he locks on to MAndrews and Hollywood as evident by his 4 interception performance at the Bank against the Browns. All four interception were on balls thrown to MAndrews and like 6 straight interceptions over 2 games were on balls thrown to MAndrews. Now unless GRo is saying to Lamar, throw the ball to MAndrews, those are all on Lamar and not GRo.

[StalkRavenMad]

What do you think would be so scary about a "normal" offense? Lamar would still be able to run and the Ravens would therefore have a top 5 running game for the passing game to work off, but that passing and play action game would likely be significantly better. That doesn't sound too scary to me.


I'm the opposite. I've got a lot of faith in Lamar. I think he's so good he could even win in the post-season with Roman as OC.

If Roman could wed the quick passing stuff he did with Huntley to a dominant run game and if he could take some advice on the passing game from Martin and Williams, and then add in Lamar's ability to buy time for deep shots and scramble, then this offense could be good enough to win. (If he took some advice about the predictability and sequencing of his play calls)

It wouldn't be optimal but it could be good enough to win. I'd rather see a change because I don't have faith that Roman could juggle all those balls. Later in games, or when things get tight, Roman seems to freeze and focus too narrowly on one or two things, so I think he'd drop one or more of those balls in big moments.

I think the offense was humming along earlier in the season and both the pass game and Lamar's ability to run the ball were both reasons for this. However teams decided not to be worried with the run game and started sending the house at Lamar which put even more pressure on Lamar. Now one place where the offense has to be better is getting the play in. Far to many times the Ravens would break the huddle with under 10 sec on the play clock. This does not give Lamar enough time to read the defense and get his pre snap reads in. I think this is when he either locks MAndress or Hollywood. In the earlier part of the season I kept saying imagine if we had one of our top 3 backs. I think with Gus and JK this offense would give teams fits because they could beat you more than 1 way.

[jonboy79]

What do you think would be so scary about a "normal" offense? Lamar would still be able to run and the Ravens would therefore have a top 5 running game for the passing game to work off, but that passing and play action game would likely be significantly better. That doesn't sound too scary to me.


I'm the opposite. I've got a lot of faith in Lamar. I think he's so good he could even win in the post-season with Roman as OC.

If Roman could wed the quick passing stuff he did with Huntley to a dominant run game and if he could take some advice on the passing game from Martin and Williams, and then add in Lamar's ability to buy time for deep shots and scramble, then this offense could be good enough to win. (If he took some advice about the predictability and sequencing of his play calls)

It wouldn't be optimal but it could be good enough to win. I'd rather see a change because I don't have faith that Roman could juggle all those balls. Later in games, or when things get tight, Roman seems to freeze and focus too narrowly on one or two things, so I think he'd drop one or more of those balls in big moments.

From what we have seen, the less he runs the worse he plays. If he doesn’t have the number one rush offense I don’t think he can be good at all. As a passer he is league average at best, without the benefit of his run game. 2019 showed he can be an efficient effective passer, when it is disguised in this bruising offense that defenses have to sell out to stop. If that’s not the case, I think he will be quite meh… in a “normal” offense we may see Jalen Hurts.

If Lamar wouldn’t ignore the short passing stuff and his footwork necessary to it, I think we would be better off.


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[QtR Nevermore]

There are multiple options on every play. If a guy is running underneath he's doing so for a purpose. Most plays you look deep to shallow. If the deep shot isn't there you come back to the check down. Plays are designed to put players in conflict. And the QB is supposed to read the defense to determine where to go with the ball.

You're talking about standard offensive football. I was talking about Roman's offense, which sometimes lacks that high school level of complexity.

There are multiple options on every play but, on too many passing plays this season, every option was downfield, the other eligible receivers were either blocking or selling a run fake. There was no possibility of going deep to shallow because there was no shallow, no matter how well the QB read the defense. It showed up when we were blitzed early in the season but it was never treated like a problem until Miami.

There isn't an OC from the high school level on up that draws up a play and says this is where you have to go with the ball. To think that Roman has guys running underneath routes for S &Gs is funny. Those routes are there for a reason and he absolutely wants his QB to take those . Now the underneath may not be the 1st or 2nd option but if those aren't there he absolutely is telling him that's you safety valve.

The underneath routes were not there for no reason but sometimes they were meant to draw the defense's eyes or draw defenders away from scramble lanes. The Ravens spent years asking Lamar to pass it deep or run the ball, with the checkdown de-emphasized and quite often non-existent.

To say that Roman had a developed short passing game that Lamar was just failing to see isn't entirely true. We saw in Miami that Roman had so few effective short passes in his playbook that he had to go back to the pass to the WR on the sideline at the LoS again and again and again.

That lack of emphasis has meant that Lamar's game is underdeveloped in that aspect. He's not good at it, but that's on him and Roman both. Roman can't suddenly start incorporating more check downs and get a pass for those struggles he helped to create.

[QtR Nevermore]

From what we have seen, the less he runs the worse he plays. If he doesn’t have the number one rush offense I don’t think he can be good at all. As a passer he is league average at best, without the benefit of his run game. 2019 showed he can be an efficient effective passer, when it is disguised in this bruising offense that defenses have to sell out to stop. If that’s not the case, I think he will be quite meh… in a “normal” offense we may see Jalen Hurts.

If Lamar wouldn’t ignore the short passing stuff and his footwork necessary to it, I think we would be better off.

Maybe the example of Siriani and Hurts in Philadelphia will help you be less scared of Lamar without Roman.

Siriani is just another NFL coach, he's no run game specialist, but Philadelphia finished the season in the playoffs as the NFL's top rushing team, because that's the advantage that a QB fast enough to be part of the designed run game can give you.

Siriani started the season trying to run a drop back passing game with Hurts. That didn't work at all and it was only about halfway through the season, when he was favorite to be the first coach fired, that Siriani went to the QB run game and Philly started winning.

Lamar is a much better runner, passer and decision maker than Hurts, so it seems like any coach could turn a Lamar offense into the number 1 rushing team without much trouble, so why not get a coach who can build a much more sophisticated passing game around Lamar too, knowing we'd always have that fallback?

If a coach as bad as Siriani, ( who tried to make the limited Hurts a drop back passer in the first place, and who goes run heavy without using his best RB, Miles Sanders, nearly enough ) can do it, anyone can. But what any coach we hire could do, that Roman can't, is build a viable NFL passing game, so that we wouldn't have to run Lamar that much.

Lamar can move around the pocket and throw off platform to anywhere on the field about 20x better than Hurts, so we'd have a real chance to get the passing game working, which would remove the need to run him so much. You said yourself he'd be average as an NFL passer - in average NFL passing game with some QB runs, that would be pretty deadly.

[jonboy79]

Maybe the example of Siriani and Hurts in Philadelphia will help you be less scared of Lamar without Roman.

Siriani is just another NFL coach, he's no run game specialist, but Philadelphia finished the season in the playoffs as the NFL's top rushing team, because that's the advantage that a QB fast enough to be part of the designed run game can give you.

Siriani started the season trying to run a drop back passing game with Hurts. That didn't work at all and it was only about halfway through the season, when he was favorite to be the first coach fired, that Siriani went to the QB run game and Philly started winning.

Lamar is a much better runner, passer and decision maker than Hurts, so it seems like any coach could turn a Lamar offense into the number 1 rushing team without much trouble, so why not get a coach who can build a much more sophisticated passing game around Lamar too, knowing we'd always have that fallback?

If a coach as bad as Siriani, ( who tried to make the limited Hurts a drop back passer in the first place, and who goes run heavy without using his best RB, Miles Sanders, nearly enough ) can do it, anyone can. But what any coach we hire could do, that Roman can't, is build a viable NFL passing game, so that we wouldn't have to run Lamar that much.

Lamar can move around the pocket and throw off platform to anywhere on the field about 20x better than Hurts, so we'd have a real chance to get the passing game working, which would remove the need to run him so much. You said yourself he'd be average as an NFL passer - in average NFL passing game with some QB runs, that would be pretty deadly.

See, I don’t think Lamar is much better than Hurts and I don’t think of Siriani as poorly as you.

But if Greg Roman was their OC they may have won a game in the playoffs.

It’s not about rankings, #1 isn’t what Roman strives for, it’s #1 by such a degree that the entire league has to step back, take notice and game plan differently than they do other teams. Philly was not close to that level.

Philly is exactly what scares me about moving on from Roman, because THAT is what we will be.

There is a massive divide in where you and I view Lamar’s passing ability…. You seem to think he is only a step behind Mahomes and Allen if you take away his running ability, I don’t think it’s remotely close…. I do NOT think he would be good enough if not used primarily as a runner.


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[HbgPARavenfan]

Earlier in the year people on here were talking about how Roman opened up the passing game. One we started losing that was forgotten and he was blamed for everything.

We did come from behind multiple times this year from large deficits. If you get back to bully ball 2019 style and still keep that late game comeback ability you had in 2021, you are a Super Bowl team. We will never know if that was going to happen last year because of the key injuries, especially in the RB room.

Let them take another ride in 2022 to see if they put it all together, and if not, fire Roman and start over.

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I believe in Roman when I see his scheme get back to the superbowl.

There's no one on this board who in their heart of hearts thinks this offense could have or would have showed up like the bills and kc or Tampa/rams did winning the game from the pocket with seconds left

[Mmcclend]

See, I don’t think Lamar is much better than Hurts and I don’t think of Siriani as poorly as you.

But if Greg Roman was their OC they may have won a game in the playoffs.

It’s not about rankings, #1 isn’t what Roman strives for, it’s #1 by such a degree that the entire league has to step back, take notice and game plan differently than they do other teams. Philly was not close to that level.

Philly is exactly what scares me about moving on from Roman, because THAT is what we will be.

There is a massive divide in where you and I view Lamar’s passing ability…. You seem to think he is only a step behind Mahomes and Allen if you take away his running ability, I don’t think it’s remotely close…. I do NOT think he would be good enough if not used primarily as a runner.


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You could be right. I mean, my girlfriend feels the exact same way even if she likes Lamar a lot. She doesn’t think he will ever be that great of a thrower. But the point is we NEED to find out. We need to see him in a normal offense or we will never know. God forbid he goes elsewhere running a normal offense and balls out. That would be devastating for this franchise.

[QtR Nevermore]

See, I don’t think Lamar is much better than Hurts

Seriously? You're in a very small minority then.

Do you think Lamar is just Roman's creation?

[QtR Nevermore]

You could be right. I mean, my girlfriend feels the exact same way even if she likes Lamar a lot. She doesn’t think he will ever be that great of a thrower.

How can anyone think that way after they watched him throw us to all those wins earlier in the season?

[Mmcclend]

How can anyone think that way after they watched him throw us to all those wins earlier in the season?

Differences in opinion. Who knows. What we see might be different than what others see. The biggest point is we need to find out for sure and we never will with Roman calling the plays.

[jonboy79]

You could be right. I mean, my girlfriend feels the exact same way even if she likes Lamar a lot. She doesn’t think he will ever be that great of a thrower. But the point is we NEED to find out. We need to see him in a normal offense or we will never know. God forbid he goes elsewhere running a normal offense and balls out. That would be devastating for this franchise.

But he was unanimous MVP leading us to the top scoring offense and 14-2 in THIS SYSTEM. I know I keep harping on this but it’s like you all forgot that happened when we were healthy and he was still too young f to understand what all was happening.

If he bucks up, drops the Willie Beamon shit, listens to coaching, works on his fundamentals and lives in the film room, why couldn’t he be even a bit better?

What you are saying is basically we need to do is pretend 2019 didn’t happen, start over and ALSO do my list.


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