TAKING STOCK: BALTIMORE RAVENS

BY ADAM GREENE

Quarterback Lamar Jackson removed the stigma from his short career by winning his first playoff game, but only found himself, and his team’s worst pass offense in the league, stymied when facing an actual defensive strategy in the AFC Divisional Round.

For all the hype and the gloating of a Wild Card win, the Ravens offense led by coordinator Greg Roman crashed and burned as predicted by me (and plenty of other people). Much to the Tennessee Titans’ everlasting shame, it only happened a week too late.

Most of the time in an offseason after a playoff run, there is hope. For the Ravens, who made no significant coaching changes, there doesn’t seem like much. We’ll dive in and take a look.

In the Taking Stock series, we’re looking at each playoff team, going from worst to first, and outlining exactly what they must do to avoid being one of the five or so franchises who miss the postseason the year after making it.

BALTIMORE RAVENS

2020-21 Record: 11-5, AFC Wild Card

Playoffs: Defeated the Tennessee Titans 20-13 in the AFC Wild Card Round, lost 17-3 to the Buffalo Bills in the AFC Divisional Round

2021-22 AFC Championship Odds: +700

Previously: Cleveland Browns, Los Angeles Rams, Pittsburgh Steelers, Seattle Seahawks, Tennessee Titans, Indianapolis Colts, Chicago Bears, Washington Football Team

THE OFFENSE

If you’ve been following along this series, most of these teams, in spite of their postseason appearances, had QB issues that need to be resolved. Whether it was wholesale changes in Los Angeles, Indianapolis, Chicago or Washington, self inflicted wounds in Seattle or an aging veteran in Pittsburgh aching to go over the cliff at any minute, only the Browns, so far, were able to keep the stink eye off their quarterback situation.

Baltimore too does not have any issues there. The problem they do have is their offensive coordinator Greg Roman and their scheme, which is amateurish on its best day.

The Ravens boasted the worst passing offense in the NFL in 2020, averaging just 171.2 yards per game. I did a deep dive into this problem after Baltimore was completely shut down against the Bills, but the short version is this; Greg Roman is terrible and the Ravens should fire him before he ruins Lamar Jackson or gets him seriously injured.

Baltimore, of course, ignored my advice completely and has retained the services of one of the worst offensive minds in professional football. Greg Roman is the Gregg Williams of NFL offenses. In the piece I wrote after their playoff defeat, I diagrammed what was wrong, sometimes comically so, with their offense using their actual highlight film. These were the good plays. The ones that worked. And many of them were laugh out loud ridiculous.

Jackson isn’t the problem. The young gun, now heading into his fourth year, has proven time and again when called upon he can deliver NFL throws in an NFL offense. Roman is seemingly incapable of drawing one up.

Of course head coach John Harbaugh and general manager Eric DeCosta have felt the heat over this in the offseason and they can talk all they want, but Roman is who he is, running this same joke of a scheme with the San Francisco 49ers and Buffalo Bills before getting fired from both organizations for destroying their offenses.

NO NEW QB CONTRACT

While the Ravens might seemingly be set at the position, they can’t be foolish with their salary cap space and sign Jackson to a long term deal this season. They probably will, but it would be a mistake. It’s one that the Los Angeles Rams and Philadelphia Eagles were forced to suffer through, eating cap and losing draft picks to move on from their QBs signed before their fourth seasons. The Tennessee Titans and Tampa Bay Buccaneers did not and are both considerably better for it, with one making the AFC Championship game two seasons ago with its “new” quarterback and the other winning the whole damn thing this season with their “new” guy. Those costly first round picks played out their fifth year options in Nashville and Tampa and were sent packing.

I don’t blame the Ravens’ offensive woes on Jackson. He’s as much a victim as anyone, but in Roman’s scheme he’s going to underperform and, while competent NFL playcallers design strategies to keep their QB from getting hit, Roman is content to run Jackson right into the defense’s gaping tooth-filled maw on any given play. Jackson suffered his first NFL concussion (that we know about) in the Divisional Round loss to the Bills. If you know anything about the sport, then you know the next one is just that much easier to get. And they start stacking up. The fact that Baltimore didn’t replace Roman this offseason is egregious mismanagement and a detriment to Jackson’s long term health and career.

But I’d still make him play out the fifth year option and then use the franchise tag after that to avoid any Jared Goff/Carson Wentz scenario.

FREE AGENCY

Like any good team, Baltimore has been hit hard in free agency as other franchises raid their roster. They lost two of their best pass rushers in Matt Judon and Yannick Ngakoue to the New England Patriots and Las Vegas Raiders respectively. The Ravens were the second best defense in the league in 2020 and they’ll have to pull some guys off the street or strike gold in the draft to stay there.

Center Matt Skura signed with the Miami Dolphins, but Baltimore brought in Kevin Zeitler from the New York Giants to replace him.

They’ve been wooing Sammy Watkins as of this writing, in hopes that adding some burner speed to their offense could change things up, but if he’s running the same Pop Warner routes Marquis Brown, Willie Snead and Mile Boykin used last season, what good will it do?

NFL DRAFT

The Ravens pick at No. 27 in April’s draft and must be thinking edge rusher the whole way in the first round. There’ll be time to get some receiver help later. That means a guy like Gregory Rousseau from Miami, Joe Tryon from Washington or Carlos Basham Jr. from Wake Forest need to be high on their radar.

AFC NORTH

With a surging Cleveland Browns and a Pittsburgh Steelers team that won’t go away, the AFC North remains the second best division in all of football and that’s not counting a Cincinnati Bengals team that might have the best QB of the four organizations. Baltimore has taken a step back this offseason by staying put on their staff, which is exactly why they went from 14-2 in 2019 to 11-5 in 2020.

Projected 2021-22 Record: 9-7, miss the playoffs

Follow our BetOnline Twitter account for the latest sports news and betting odds, and stay tuned on the Instagram feed for more good information too.