Tag: Greg Roman

Lamar Jackson says opponents are ‘calling out our plays’ and ‘know what we’re doing’

Baltimore Ravens quarterback Lamar Jackson said the offense is struggling because opponents have been calling out plays before the snap

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.”

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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Ravens vs. Colts final score recap: Baltimore shows sandpaper levels of grit

Here’s everything you need to know about the Ravens vs. Colts final score — from the stars of the game to the biggest post-game quote.

The Baltimore Ravens were 40-grit sandpaper tonight. For the first time this season, the Ravens took a punch square to the jaw and answered back with their own jabs and haymakers. In the end, Baltimore beat the Indianapolis Colts, 24-10, to head to 6-2 on the 2020 season. As the Ravens lick their newest wounds and look to the future, they deserve to bask in the glory for just a little bit before getting back to work.

While not the prettiest win this season, Baltimore did exactly what everyone should have been looking for following the team’s early exit from the playoffs last season. They took the best Indianapolis had in the first half, didn’t get down on themselves or blow up their gameplan, but responded in the second half with the type of team effort everyone expected to see this season. It’d still be nice to see that type of play for a full 60 minutes but it shows that the Ravens are still very much growing into the team they’re going to be, both later this season and in the future.

To help break down all the important bits from Sunday’s win, let’s dive into our Ravens vs. Colts final score recap.

When it mattered most, Ravens abandoned their successful running backs

Despite the Baltimore Ravens’ running backs having a great day, OC Greg Roman screwed up the most important play of the game

It’s 4th-and-3 at the Pittsburgh Steelers’ eight-yard line with two minutes remaining and the Baltimore Ravens down four points, making it touchdown-or-bust territory. Baltimore’s running backs were averaging 6.45 yards-per-carry on the day, so of course, they lined up in a jumbo package and let their young ball carriers feast, right?

Nope.

The Ravens lined up in a spread formation with Jackson as the only player in the backfield. He took the quarterback keeper two yards and fumbled, turning the ball over and all but killing the Ravens’ chances of winning the game.

If you’ve watched Baltimore play at all over the last two seasons, you’ll be all too familiar with this decision. Offensive coordinator Greg Roman has often abandoned the run at the worst possible times. Whether it be early in a game when an opposing offense is capable of putting up big points (even with the score close), or in game-critical moments like this, Roman has left his running backs as little more than spectators.

While Jackson deserves the burden of this loss as a whole, Roman earned a heavy dose of criticism himself. With the game on the line, Roman took out his most effective players on the day to give it to a guy who had three fumbles, two interceptions, and at least one near-interception on what was absolutely the worst game of his professional career.

I could better understand any argument to give it to Jackson if Baltimore’s running backs had been boom-or-bust throughout the game. However, of the 31 rushing attempts Gus Edwards and J.K. Dobbins had on the day, a grand total of seven were for fewer than three yards, including a one-yard touchdown run. If we take out Edwards’ one-yard touchdown, 80% of the Ravens’ runs by running backs in Week 8 would have picked up that first down. Compare that to Jackson’s five designed runs (not counting sacks or this specific run) that went for fewer than three yards (66.66% success rate) and even the analytics make it sound like a poor decision.

Jackson can and undoubtedly will bounce back but he unquestionably had a terrible game in every single regard possible. If you’re Greg Roman, why give it to a guy who had struggled through the air, on the ground, and with turnovers? Going even further, why completely take the option off the table to even make the defense believe it was going to a running back by lining up in a spread set? It’ll be on Ravens’ fans minds until Baltimore either starts winning games against quality opponents, changes that philosophy, or someone answers the question earnestly. But frustrations are quickly mounting against an offense that just can’t get out of its own way this season.

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Lamar Jackson needs to play better or Ravens will start losing games

With inconsistent play and well-known tendencies, QB Lamar Jackson either needs to step up or the Baltimore Ravens will start losing games

Though the Baltimore Ravens picked up another win, beating the Cincinnati Bengals in Week 5, the offense was far from the unit we all saw last season. After a 2019 campaign that broke records and earned quarterback Lamar Jackson an MVP award, Baltimore’s offense has been far more inconsistent in the early part of the 2020 NFL season.

One of the reasons might just be who Jackson turns to first when throwing the football. Astute fans might recognize that wide receiver Marquise Brown and tight end Mark Andrews lead the way in all receiving categories for the Ravens, and by a pretty wide margin. Brown leads everyone on Baltimore’s roster in targets (36), receptions (22), and receiving yards (319) while Andrews tops the charts with five touchdown catches, coming in at a close second in every other receiving category.

Unfortunately, Ravens fans aren’t the only people taking notice of where the ball is going. Following the game, Bengals safety Jessie Bates III and linebacker Logan Wilson both noted it’s the Brown and Andrews show through the air. Though both admitted Cincinnati’s defense didn’t do enough to completely shut both passing targets down, Wilson pointed to a far different second half for Jackson when they were able to slow Andrews and Brown down.

“It’s just as simple as not letting him get the ball,” Bates said about Andrews after Sunday’s game. “We know where Lamar wants to go: either ’15’ [Marquise Brown] or ’89’ [Mark Andrews]. It showed up today as well. That’s all he was really throwing to, was ’15’ or ’89.'”

“He’s Lamar’s go-to target,” Wilson said when asked about shutting Andrews down in the second half. “I think everyone knows that, especially in the red zone. So, we needed to adjust to that, knowing where he’s going to be, Lamar is going to be looking for him. Like I said, I think we adjusted to that in the second half.”

Both Bengals defenders have a solid point and the evidence backs them up. Jackson went 8-of-13 for 76 yards, and two touchdowns in the first quarter (one play into the second quarter really). But things slowed down quickly for Baltimore’s passing attack once Cincinnati was better able to lock up Andrews and Brown beyond that.

After going 6-of-9 for 56 yards and a touchdown in the first half, Andrews didn’t receive a single target in the second half. Brown caught 5-of-7 targets for 42 yards and a touchdown in the first half. But things dramatically switched up in the second half where Brown was targeted just three times, catching two passes for 35 yards, including one catch-and-run that went for 30 of those yards. Meanwhile, after going 16-of-28 for 137 yards, two touchdowns, and one interception in the first half, Jackson went 3-of-9 for 43 yards in the second half.

On the day, Jackson completed just 19 of his 37 targets (51.4%) for 180 yards, two touchdowns, and an interception. While those stats might not seem awful, Jackson’s 4.86 yards-per-attempt for the game is the third-lowest of his 27 career starts. And anyone watching Sunday’s game likely noticed the Bengals could have easily come down with another two or three interceptions if defenders could catch a ball thrown right into their chest.

It’s not as simple as Jackson just pinpointing two receivers, however. Something many young quarterbacks struggle with at the beginning of their careers is throwing outside the numbers. Outside passes have to have a lot more touch, the timing is even more important, and it’s typically where the best defensive backs are going to be.

Bates was on top of that tendency as well. When asked how Cincinnati’s defense tried to force Jackson to throw outside the numbers, Bates said the gameplan was to load up the middle of the field “where all their completions come from.” Taking a quick look at Jackson’s passing chart for the game only proves Bates’ point, with every deep shot and a majority of the outside throws falling to the turf.

Courtesy of NextGenStats

If you’re an opposing defensive coordinator, it seems as though Bates and Wilson just drew up your gameplan against Baltimore until Jackson steps up his game and can beat it.

It might not be fair to put all the blame on Jackson here. Offensive coordinator Greg Roman is also partly responsible, as are the other receiving targets who have struggled to get open, and the rushing attack that has been just average this season. It’s also worth noting that with a condensed offseason and no preseason games due to the coronavirus pandemic, Jackson and this offense are still clearly working on things like timing and chemistry.

But at the same time, Jackson is the Ravens’ franchise quarterback and is fresh off an MVP season. We all know he can play better football than this but it’s up to him to actually do it. In Week 5, Jackson missed a few wide-open receivers, instead, trying to target his favorites or looking for a deep ball that wasn’t within a country mile of his intended target. Whether it’s a knee injury that is hampering him more than anyone is letting on, or a desire to try and prove his toughest critics wrong, Jackson isn’t playing smart or consistent football right now.

The Ravens got lucky the last two weeks and they’ll face another relatively easy opponent in Week 6 in the 1-3-1 Philadelphia Eagles. But with a schedule that quickly gets tougher following that, Jackson has very few weeks to either improve as a passer or get smarter about where he’s throwing the ball, or Baltimore could start chalking up losses.

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How much motion did the Panthers use Week 1?

So, how much did Brady try it in his first game in the NFL?

One reason we were excited about the Panthers hiring Joe Brady as their offensive coordinator was the hope that he would embrace analytics and new ideas in his playcalling like utilizing more motion. Last year, the offensive playcallers for the Ravens, 49ers and Chiefs all had tremendous success using more motion compared to their opponents. Other teams seem to be joining the trend based on the early numbers for the 2020 season.

So, how much did Brady try it in his first game in the NFL? According to Seth Walder at ESPN, not a whole lot. Here’s a look at his motion stats across the league from Week 1.

It’s only one game, so we can’t look too much into that percentage. Hopefully we see that number tick up as the season develops, though.

Brady has several very interesting offensive weapons and if he’s not consistely putting them in motion then he’s leaving points on the field. Receiver Curtis Samuel in particular is a player who will put stress on defenders when he’s on the move.

In any case, Brady’s offense looks and feels relatively modern and will get a lot of people involved.

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Emotions in Motion: Why almost everything in the NFL happens before the snap

More and more, NFL offenses are using pre-snap motion to set defenses on edge. Here’s how it works.

In Part 1 of the “Emotions in Motion” series, Touchdown Wire’s Doug Farrar takes an in-depth look at the NFL’s increasing use of pre-snap motion, and how it’s changing the ways in which offensive and defensive football are played. 

One of the biggest plays in the 49ers’ 26-21 Week 17 win over the Seahawks last season was a 49-yard pass from quarterback Jimmy Garoppolo to fullback Kyle Juszczyk. On the play, tight end George Kittle motioned from left to right pre-snap, which gave Garoppolo the indicator that Seattle was playing zone defense in its usual base (three-linebacker) alignment. Juszczyk was aligned in the right slot — fullback displacement has been a hallmark of head coach Kyle Shanahan’s playbooks for years — and as the ball was snapped and Kittle moved back to the left side for a backside blocking assignment.

Garoppolo was able to spot a weakness in Seattle’s defense that he could exploit — Juszczyk covered by linebacker Mychal Kendricks, who was preoccupied to a point by Kittle’s presence aligned to the right side of the formation. Because of that preoccupation, Juszczyk had a free release to head upfield, and though he certainly wasn’t going to challenge Tyreek Hill in any footraces, he was able to run free against a defense that had been forced to react late as a result of Shanahan’s ability to design and implement motion and displacement concepts to the detriment of every defense he faces. Kendricks followed Juszczyk outside, but it looks as if the intention was for Kendricks to cover the flat, while the 49ers extended Juszczyk downfield. Kittle motioning back to the left side also took linebacker Bobby Wagner out of the picture — as a hook/curl defender, he had nothing to defend. Whenever you can remove your opponent’s best defensive player from the equation, you have an obvious advantage.

“I would say that Kyle’s the best at that right now,” former NFL quarterback and current ESPN analyst Dan Orlovsky recently told me. “Kyle takes people out of the play without doing anything other than motion and alignment. I’ve said this – Kyle’s the best mathematician in the NFL.”

Of course, the 49ers took Shanahan’s brilliant offense and Robert Saleh’s radically re-energized defense all the way to Super Bowl LIV, where they lost in late-game fashion to Andy Reid’s Chiefs on this particular play.

Not that any of this is new. Pre-snap motion has been around for decades — Tom Landry did as much as anyone to develop it with the Cowboys in the 1960s and 1970s, and Bill Walsh was not above availing himself of the concept with the 49ers back in the day. In a

If you want to see another play in which the quarterback heads right as the guards head left, leaving an open target against a confused defense, this is a good example (Thanks to John Tunney of the excellent Pro Football Journal blog for the highlight pull).

In an NFL where defensive front versatility is the order of the day and coverage schemes are more advanced than they’ve ever been, it behooves those who design offenses to bring to the table anything possible to plant their flags in the turf. Pre-snap motion, which is used to varying degrees throughout the league to varying degrees of effectiveness, has become a mandatory construct among many of the most effective offenses.

But none of the public subscription-based football metrics services — not Football Outsiders, not Pro Football Focus, and not Sports Info Solutions — make pre-snap motion charting-based stats available, and therefore, we as football fans and and football analysts have no way of knowing the exact effectiveness of the methodology. The first real reference I saw to pre-snap motion in an analytical sense was in Warren Sharp’s 2020 Football Preview, and Sharp laid it all out in compelling fashion.

Per Sharp’s charting, NFL teams used pre-snap motion in the first three quarters of games on 39% of passes, 49% of rushes, and 43% of all plays in the 2019 season. The 49ers led the league with pre-snap motion on 66% of their passes, followed by the Patriots (65%), the Titans (63%), the Ravens (57%), and the Chiefs (53%). Two of those teams made the Super Bowl, the Ravens were the AFC’s number-one seed, the Titans made it to the AFC Championship game, and the Patriots ranked 11th in Football Outsiders’ Offensive DVOA metrics despite a receiver group that couldn’t bust a grape.

However, they used pre-snap motion at below average rates, yet saw much more improvement when passing with pre-snap motion. Look at the comparison vs the league average with the advantage gained by using pre-snap motion prior to passes.

Per Sharp’s metrics, teams had 0.2 more yards per attempt, a 3% success rate increase, and 0.02 more EPA per attempt. The Vikings, who used the 20th-most pre-snap motion on passing plays last season, saw a bump of 1.6 in yards per attempt, a 6% success rate bump, and an increase in EPA per attempt of 0.25. The Buccaneers, who could have desperately used anything to make Jameis Winston more efficient in 2019, used pre-snap motion on just 37% of their plays, one of the lowest rates in the league. The league average was 40%.

With Tom Brady now on board in Bruce Arians’ offense, expect a big uptick. Brade has utilized pre-snap motion for years to help discern coverage concepts, to isolate and remove specific defenders, and to give his receivers an advantage that their physical gifts don’t always present. One the Bucs have a new sense of pre-snap trickeration and Brady has Mike Evans and Chris Godwin to throw to… well, things could get interesting.

When talking about the specific schematic advantages of pre-snap motion, most people will point to the ability of the quarterback to read man versus zone coverage based on the motion defender. If the defender follows the motion receiver through the formation, it’s generally man. If the defender stays put and hands the responsibility through the formation, it’s generally zone.

But defenses are starting to show dummy man/zone looks, and as Orlovsky told me, that’s not the ultimate advantage for quarterbacks — or, for that matter, anybody on the offensive side of the ball.

“Yeah, I think we’re all past man vs. zone,” he told me. “We’re kind of beyond that. The big thing was creating leverage on certain players. That’s a big deal. You could get certain guys – when you line up in your formation, and you’re moving your personnel, you can get certain [defenders] to move where you want them. When you use motion, and you kind of know how your opponent will respond, you will call certain plays to be run at certain guys.

“We’re seeing more coaches understand that… motion doesn’t have to be married to man/zone. It could be to try and get your run game to be run at certain people. Or, to try and get your passing game directed at certain people, whether it’s man or zone. Because if that nickel defender doesn’t kick over to trips, you can have your slot receiver working on a safety. So now, just off motion, even if it’s against a zone defense, you have really created an advantage. That safety really wants to play the run more than he wants to play the pass. So, it’s really about trying to create advantages, whether it’s via leverage, or via fits in the run game. I think we’ve seen great growth on that in the NFL.”

Pre-snap motion also creates specific advanatges in the run game — it’s a big reason the Ravens had the NFL’s most schematically evil rushing attack in the NFL last season.

Ravens offensive coordinator Greg Roman has been brilliant at cooking up different kinds of motion concepts, which is the next level of this — when offensive minds continue to realize that it’s the complexity of motion that really puts defenses on a string — as the Ravens, 49ers, and Chiefs already have — the advantages grow in an exponential sense.

“I don’t necessarily care if an offense motions,” Orlovsky said, putting his defensive coordinator hat on. “But when they have different motions, that’s when I’ve got a problem. [Remember when] Chip Kelly was the greatest thing in the world because he played with tempo? Well, defenses caught up and started playing with tempo. Then, the great coaches, Sean McVay being one of them, they’ve got all different kinds of tempo. They’ve got stupid-fast tempo, then the fast tempo, then the ‘okay no-huddle’ tempo, then the slow tempo. That’s what screws with defenses. Because then, you don’t know. You’ve got to be ready all the time. That’s when you’re on your heels, and you’re guessing rather than dictating. Those offenses that are constantly changing the way they’re doing the motion – for defenses, you can no longer feel confident in what you’re doing. You are always going to be a step slow.”

In part 2 of the “Emotions in Motion” series, we’ll get into more specific examples of run and pass motion concepts that have taken over the NFL. In Part 3, we’ll talk about what defenses need to do to put a cap on these particular innovations.

Don’t lock Devin Duvernay into a single role with the Ravens

After producing from the slot at Texas, wide receiver Devin Duvernay wants everyone to know he isn’t just a one-trick pony for the Ravens

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One of the main reasons why the Baltimore Ravens selected wide receiver Devin Duvernay in the 2020 NFL Draft was his blazing speed. Duvernay was clocked running a 4.39-second 40-yard dash at the NFL Scouting Combine. Many believe the Ravens will line up Duvernay as a slot receiver, but he was quick to point out he has more than one string to his bow.

“I feel like I can do both (play outside and in the slot),” Duvernay said at his press conference after being drafted. “My freshman year and senior year, I played strictly slot. My junior and sophomore years, I played strictly outside. So, I feel like I can be productive at both, and be able to move around on the field.”

Duvernay isn’t the only one that has a say in where he lines up. But when asked about the bevy of choices the Ravens have in the slot, coach John Harbaugh noted that they like to move their players around and don’t lock someone into a specific position.

“We don’t just have an X and a Z and an S and a Y, a U and an H,” Harbaugh said following the final day of the draft. “We play all the guys in different spots, the same as we do on defense.

“So really, I don’t think we really have a ‘slot’ player or an ‘outside’ player. You’ll see those guys play in all the different spots in different times. And then, we try to put them in position to do the things that they do well. The things you see Willie Snead doing are the things we think he does best, and he’s a very versatile player, for instance. We’ll try to do that with all the guys we have.”

While all the pre-draft talk had Duvernay playing in the slot, the thought of being pigeonholed was something he clearly wanted to put out of people’s minds. When asked what he brings to the Ravens, Duvernay talked about his intangibles first, mentioning his “versatility, toughness, physicality,” while also noting he can take on a number of different roles, like “being able to not just go deep but go short, take it the distance, be involved in the screen game and with blocking.” Duvernay said he’ll be “an all-around player” in Baltimore.

Harbaugh continued to back up Duvernay’s belief, dissuading anyone from believing either he or James Proche would be locked into one specific role or one specific spot on the field.

“So, when Devin [Duvernay] can go outside – and then James Proche has been outside, too – outside, inside, in motion, runs, twitch routes, out of the backfield.”

While this versatility will no doubt be utilized by offensive coordinator Greg Roman, it’s likely that Duvernay will spend a good deal of time in the slot for the Ravens. In 2019, Willie Snead led all Baltimore wide receivers with 409 snap slots, averaging 7.7 yards per target. Given his speed and all-round game, it would surprise no one if Duvernay was to eclipse these marks as a rookie.

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Greg Roman wins Assistant Coach of the Year award

After completely redefining the entire offense around quarterback Lamar Jackson, Greg Roman wins the Assistant Coach of the Year award.

The Baltimore Ravens have started their likely run of awards for the 2019 season. Offensive coordinator Greg Roman won the Associated Press’ Assistant Coach of the Year award.

It’s a well-deserved honor for Roman who set the entire league on fire with his unique run-first offense. Roman went to work this offseason, after replacing Marty Mornhinweg, to create a completely new playbook that included entirely new language to take advantage of quarterback Lamar Jackson.

Along with Jackson’s help, the Ravens’ offense led the league in points scored and ranked second in total yards, while breaking what had been a 41-year old record for the most single-season rushing yards by a team. Roman’s offense helped propel Jackson into the spotlight, taking advantage of his athleticism and stable of running backs to create confusion in opposing defenses. In turn, Jackson is expected to win the NFL’s MVP award as well.

Roman was in the running for the head coaching vacancy with the Cleveland Browns but ultimately wasn’t selected. Instead, Baltimore will get a chance to further tweak their offense with Roman and Jackson at the helm in an effort to improve over what was a historically great 2019 season.

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The Mahomes/Lamar era of QBs means (most of) the NFL has caught up to college

From Alex Smith to Patrick Mahomes to Lamar Jackson, the expansion of quarterback skill sets has set a new market efficiency in the NFL.

The first time I talked with an NFL executive about the feeder stream of collegiate quarterbacks coming from various spread and option offenses to the pros was with then-49ers general manager Scot McCloughan at the 2008 scouting combine. Back then, we were still in an era where spread offenses were considered a weird curiosity by a lot of NFL coaches and executives — at that time, McCloughan told me that there were a lot of “false positives” when analyzing players in collegiate offenses.

“It makes it tougher for some positions to figure out,” he told me. “It’s kind of nice when you go watch a college team on tape like USC, when you can see an NFL-style offense. It’s, ‘oh, it’s easy to see what the guy can or can’t do.’ It’s the same for every team.”

Since then, of course, the idea of a “NFL-style offense” has been turned on its head. It was going to be a clear example of market efficiency when NFL teams figured out how to merge spread concepts into their playbooks, and that started to happen through the early 2010s. The Panthers mixed Gene Chizik’s concepts from Auburn with what Rob Chudzinski wanted to run for Cam Newton. Mike and Kyle Shanahan took their play-action, zone-based schemes and added a bit of Baylor for Robert Griffin III. Jim Harbaugh and Greg Roman took elements of Chris Ault’s Nevada offense when Colin Kaepernick, who had played for Ault, became San Francisco’s starting quarterback, replacing Alex Smith. And with both Smith and Patrick Mahomes, Andy Reid was able to succeed because he had been well ahead of the current curve — not only did he assign a “Spread Game Analyst” title to assistant coach Brad Childress in 2013, he also hired Ault as a consultant.

“He had other teams interested in having him come in, but not to the degree that Kansas City stepped forward,” agent Bob LaMonte said in 2013 — LaMonte counted Reid and Ault among his clients. “It’s a good job, and he’s excited for it. He went with the team that gave him the best opportunity to be a consultant.”

Mahomes sat most of his rookie season in favor of Smith, who was traded to the Redskins after the 2017 campaign so that Mahomes could thrive as the starter. This he obviously did, becoming the third quarterback in NFL history (after Tom Brady and Peyton Manning) to throw 50 touchdown passes in a season. That Mahomes did it in his first full year as a starter was a testament not only to his own ability to thrive beyond his gunslinging days at Texas Tech, but also Reid’s vision in paving the way for a quarterback of Mahomes’ specific skill set. Mahomes’ upcoming appearance in Super Bowl LIV is proof of the same.

And of course, the Ravens went whole-heartedly into a run-based offense with all kinds of passing shot plays available with Roman as its offensive coordinator after selecting Louisville’s Lamar Jackson with the 32nd overall pick in the 2018 draft, and making Jackson the starter over Joe Flacco in Week 10 of Jackson’s rookie season.

As Reid had with Smith and then Mahomes, Ravens head coach John Harbaugh and his staff turned their offense over to Jackson not only literally, but also conceptually. Roman was once again on board as the offensive coordinator for a head coach named Harbaugh, aligning what Jackson did in college with what he needed to do to succeed at the NFL level. Jackson was good in fits and starts in his rookie season, but with a full offseason to put everything together, he was able to not only break Michael Vick’s single-season rushing yardage record for a quarterback, but also to lead the league in touchdown passes with 36 in the regular season, and one more in the 2019 playoffs — though Baltimore’s 28-12 divisional round loss to the expertly-coached Tennessee Titans was not Jackson’s finest day by any stretch.

Not that everybody is on board. During a Wednesday Senior Bowl telecast , the conversation turned to Alabama/Oklahoma quarterback Jalen Hurts, who has already been asked by media this week whether he’d be willing to switch positions. This despite the fact that Hurts threw a total of 80 touchdown passes to 20 interceptions in four seasons for two of the NCAA’s most prominent programs. One analyst said (to paraphrase) that it’s great that Hurts is an athlete who can run, but at a certain point, it’s going to be third down and there won’t be play action (why?) and he’ll have to make a throw. One analyst, a former NFL general manager, then compared Hurts to Brad Smith, the former Missouri quarterback who threw 56 touchdowns to 32 interceptions in college and switched to receiver in the NFL.

Well. Per Sports Info Solutions, in 2019, on plays of third-and-6 or more — the real clutch situations, we’re assuming — Hurts completed 42 of 62 passes for 647 yards, 308 air yards, four touchdowns, and one interception. Under the same conditions, Oregon’s Justin Herbert, who was praised by the same crew for being big and tall and the kind of quarterback you want in bad weather, completed 58 of 71 passes for 489 yards, 271 air yards, five touchdowns, and one interception.

The statistics are relatively similar. The perceptions are most certainly not. Just as there are teams that have adapted to, and thus advanced, the new realities of the position, there are those who will stick with the big guy/big arm/pocket passer paradigm because it’s what’s comfortable for them. It’s what they can work with. And that’s fine. There will always be pocket passers who are big guys with big arms for those teams to develop.

But more and more, teams that want to be on the cutting edge of offensive football will have to open their minds to quarterbacks who can do everything — whether it fits the NFL’s old school or not.

Touchdown Wire editor Doug Farrar previously covered football for Yahoo! Sports, Sports Illustrated, Bleacher Report, the Washington Post, and Football Outsiders. His first book, “The Genius of Desperation,” a schematic history of professional football, was published by Triumph Books in 2018 and won the Professional Football Researchers Association’s Nelson Ross Award for “Outstanding recent achievement in pro football research and historiography.”

Ravens John Harbaugh named PFWA’s Coach of the Year

The Baltimore Ravens going 14-2 and setting several records this season pushed coach John Harbaugh to be the PFWA’s Coach of the Year winner

The Baltimore Ravens had a magical season, surpassing every offseason expectation en route to a 14-2 final record and No. 1 seed in the NFL playoffs. While the season didn’t end on the high note many fans and pundits eventually predicted, Baltimore is the likely landing spot for many awards this offseason.

With the Pro Football Writers of America awards up first, the Ravens are already cashing in. Quarterback Lamar Jackson was named the PFWA’s MVP and Offensive Player of the Year. Now, coach John Harbaugh has been named the Coach of the Year while offensive coordinator Greg Roman was named Assistant Coach of the Year.

It’s the first PFWA awards for both Harbaugh and Roman, who were the chief architects for the Ravens’ emergence this season. Both worked together to completely redo Baltimore’s offensive scheme around Jackson, including the playbook and even the terminology. The end result was the Ravens’ offense finishing the season ranked No. 1 in points scored and No. 2 in yards while Jackson transitioned into an MVP-caliber quarterback.

Baltimore’s 14-2 record for 2019 set a franchise record for wins and gave the Ravens their first-ever No. 1 seed. Roman’s offense also broke a 41-year old NFL record for the most rushing yards by a team in a single season.

While the PFWA awards are just the start of the recognition for Baltimore, the real prize is the Associated Press awards given out during the NFL Honors ceremony the night before Super Bowl LIV. Ravens players and staff are expected to win the NFL MVP, Coach of the Year and Executive of the Year for the 2019 season.

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