After a record-setting performance last season, the Baltimore Ravens’ offense has taken quite a big step backward in 2020. There are a multitude of reasons why Baltimore’s offense has been inconsistent this season, failing where they succeeded last year. But according to quarterback Lamar Jackson, one of the biggest problems has been opponents knowing their plays.
On the Rich Eisen Show, Jackson was asked about the offense’s woes and gave a very transparent answer. According to Jackson, defenses are calling out their plays before the snap.
“I feel, it’s a lot of with schemes — we’re going against defenses, they’re calling out our plays, stuff like that. They know what we’re doing.”
Lamar Jackson tells the @RichEisenShow that defenses sometimes “are calling out our plays, stuff like that. They know what we’re doing.”
The optics on this: not great. pic.twitter.com/5Z16ysa4Ls
— Jonas Shaffer (@jonas_shaffer) November 11, 2020
No matter how you want to look at what Jackson said, you’ll be hard pressed to find a positive there. If teams were simply guessing where the ball was going to go, Jackson confirmed they’ve been right often enough to warrant talking about it. If opponents do indeed know where the ball is going on a significant number of plays, it’s a massive indictment of offensive coordinator Greg Roman. Regardless, you better believe the rest of the teams on Baltimore’s schedule just booted up some film on the Ravens and are studying a little closer now.
Eisen asked Jackson about how the team was trying to solve this issue and Baltimore’s franchise quarterback pointed to halftime adjustments. That’s a fairly telling answer considering the Ravens’ offense was dreadful in the first half of last week’s game against the Indianapolis Colts, gaining just 55 total yards through two quarters. However, Baltimore came out after halftime with an up-tempo attack that was able to consistently drive down the field and scored 17 of the team’s 24 total points in the second half of the game.
Roman was lauded last season for his work integrating Jackson’s skill set into the offensive playbook and find success with a different style of attack. The Ravens set several franchise records as well as a few NFL records last season as a result of that unique offense. Unfortunately, the offensive success hasn’t carried over to this season, seeing Jackson and the passing offense rank 31st in yards while the rushing attack has been hot-and-cold as well.
If Baltimore can truly be Super Bowl contenders this season, the offense is going to have to change things up and find a way to be more consistent. Based on what Jackson said to Eisen, they might need to completely revamp the playbook or find some new pages in it.
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