WHAT WE LEARNED: NFL DIVISIONAL ROUND

BY ADAM GREENE

THE RAVENS NEED TO FIRE GREG ROMAN

Allow me to show you some Baltimore Ravens offensive highlights. Click here to watch the strategic acumen of offensive coordinator Greg Roman’s battle plan unfold.

Oops, sorry. That’s Pop Warner highlights, but if you plug those kids into Ravens jerseys you’d never know the difference. Baltimore celebrated its first playoff win with Lamar Jackson under center by immediately being dominated in the divisional round and losing to the Buffalo Bills 17-3 in a game that never really felt in doubt.

In fact, the only reason it was close at all was from an elite, nearly perfect performance from the Ravens defense. They held the Bills to just 220 total yards and were so stout against the run that Buffalo offensive coordinator Brian Daboll just gave up on it completely before the game even kicked off.

The Ravens’ offensive playcalling and strategy has been a problem all year. Back in November Lamar Jackson revealed that the offense was so basic and predictable that defenses knew what they were going run before they snapped the ball.

“They’re calling out our plays, stuff like that,” Jackson told the NFL Network’s Rich Eisen on his podcast. “They know what we’re doing. Sometimes stuff won’t go our way if they’re beating us to the punch.”

When asked if opposing defenses call out the specific offensive plays pre-snap, Jackson said, “Yeah, they definitely do. Like, ‘run’ and stuff like that. ‘Watch out for this, watch out for that.’ Sometimes that’s what’s going on.”

It’s egregious, it’s amateurish and it’s who Greg Roman is. He’s ridden in this rodeo before and gotten the same results. It’s why he’s been fired as an offensive coordinator twice.

He was hired as the San Francisco 49ers OC in 2011 and, in 2012 thanks to an injury to starter Alex Smith, plugged in Colin Kaepernick. Roman ran this exact offense with Kap for two and a half seasons. The first season and a half, it caught defenses by surprise because they were used to scheming against actual NFL caliber playcalling, not this NCAA Division II option attack. Once they’d all gotten a good look, the fun was over. Roman’s offense stalled out in 2014, the 49ers went 8-8 and he was forced to walk the plank at the end of the year.

In his next stint in Buffalo, he never made it out of Septmber of his second season before getting tossed down the garbage chute.

The same thing is playing out in Baltimore, with the only difference being that Jackson is more talented than Kaepernick. But, in the end, all that’s bought him was a handful more wins. There is no Super Bowl title coming with Roman designing and calling the plays. A real defensive coach, a guy like Buffalo’s Leslie Frazier, with a halfway decent roster can shut this offense down. It’s happened too many times, and it’s always going to happen in the postseason unless Baltimore makes a change.

I want to show you some plays, successful plays that were successful specifically because Lamar Jackson is a generational talent. These are poorly designed, drawn up in the dirt pass routes than anyone in the NFL should be ashamed to see on film.

For instance, look at this.

It ends up a touchdown pass to wide receiver Willie Snead because Jackson basically hands it to him with a pinpoint accurate pass that few people on the planet can throw. It should have been a disaster as Snead is literally running at the pylon and directly into the route of another Baltimore receiver, taking both the corner covering him and the safety over top with him. Roman has drawn this up, to put two receivers in the same spot in a short field. Not only does the design not clear out the wide corner, it brings him into the play so that if the Jackson is just a foot off target any one of three Browns defenders can pick this pass off. It’s awful.

And you could say that, sure, maybe one of the receivers ran the wrong route, but that’s not the case at all. Jackson, when his back foot hits the ground, knows exactly where Snead is going to be because he is an NFL QB and that’s how their brains work.

But let’s give Roman the benefit of the doubt on that and look at this one, where he has not two, but three receivers run the exact same routes to converge in the middle of the field. Marquise Brown and Miles Boykin literally have to dodge each other as they cross to keep from colliding together. And what’s Snead supposed to be doing. the third guy over the top? Because the only thing he could be accomplishing with this route is bringing his safety in to make the tackle. Again, these are HIGHLIGHTS.

Here’s another one. Jackson ends up pulling this one down and running for a good gain, but do you see why he has to? This time Brown and Devin Duverney nearly run into each other on their routes, crossing at the same depth on the same spot on the field. This is not an accident. It has to be drawn up this way and I can honestly say I’ve never seen it in professional football before. And it’s not because it’s some awesome new idea.

Here’s one that made me laugh out loud. Roman has Duvernay and No. 82 run the exact same route for the first seven or so yards and Duvernay literally has to push off the tight end to make his cut because 82 is in his way. Needless to say, nobody’s open and Jackson takes off. I want to reiterate. These are highlights. The best plays.

But what you really need to notice in this highlight package is virtually every big play in the Ravens passing game, certainly 90 percent of them, are on off schedule plays. Meaning that when Jackson’s back foot hits on his drop back, no one is open so he scrambles around, his receivers do the same, and he hits them with extremely accurate passes when they come open. Greg Roman did not draw those up. Lamar Jackson did in real time. And you can’t build a consistent winning philosophy based entirely on “hopefully Lamar does something awesome so we can score.”

Of course, the not so secret secret is out now after their embarrassing Divisional Round loss. The NFL Network’s Steve Smith Sr. said the same thing I have, that Roman needs to be shown the door.

“If you want Lamar Jackson to continue to be a stellar quarterback, an MVP type of quarterback,” Smith said. “You have to implement a second notch or a third level of the passing game that makes it a little bit more complicated. Because it’s not very complicated and my 6-year-old who’s asleep right now can probably run this offense as well.”

Brown, who has been dodging his own teammates running pass routes all season, summed it up.

“Whenever you’re the No. 1 rushing (offense) and the 30-something passing (offense), that’s not right,” Brown said. “That’s not balanced. We’ve got to find a way to balance our game, even with our great rushing attack. We’ve got to be able to throw the ball, move the ball through the air. And that’s something that we’re going to continue to work on and continue to implement into the offense more.”

But ultimately, what keeping Roman will do is ruin Jackson, a guy that could be a generational superstar. Because calling that many QB runs in a season is going to get him hurt. He just suffered his first concussion in the NFL (that we know about) in the Bills game. If you pay attention, you know that concussions start to stack up in the NFL. Once you experience one, you’re more prone to get another. And it gets worse every time you suffer one.

Using Jackson as a runner this much, not from scrambling or using his natural ability, but on called plays, puts him at risk. Not only for brain injuries, but for catastrophic leg and shoulder injuries. In the NFL, teams specifically design ways to keep their star QBs from getting hurt. Roman is firing Jackson into the shark’s mouth 15 times a game. It’s not an accomplishment that Jackson has rushed for back-to-back 1,000 yard seasons. It’s an indictment.

It’s going to shorten Jackson’s career. It’s going to keep him from developing into the NFL passer he consistently proves he can be when given the chance and it’s not going to win a title. It’s just that simple.

Fire Greg Roman, Ravens. Don’t let this guy grind one of the best players in the league and a possible once-in-a-lifetime superstar into the dirt with calls and designs ripped off from middle school playbooks. Don’t trust him to fix it. Don’t trust him to expand it. Shoot him out the airlock and hire someone competent that can do the job.

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