Week 16 GDT: Giants @ Ravens -- We Need Help...

[AFlaccoSeagulls]

1 hour ago, BareYourTeeth said:

Has Malik Harrison even been playing on ST?

If not then what's the point of having him active on gamedays right now?

He's been playing on defense and ST's (9 snaps on defense, 14 on ST's):

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Inject this into my veins. We also need to talk about how much credit Roman deserves for making 2nd-half-season adjustments to the way we run the ball, which has completely taken teams by surprise again just when we thought he wasn't capable of adjusting.

[M.10.E]

1 hour ago, BareYourTeeth said:

Has Malik Harrison even been playing on ST?

If not then what's the point of having him active on gamedays right now?

Played 61% of ST snaps yesterday. Same as Welch. So he's a key STer.

Edited December 28, 2020 by M.10.E

[ThatJaxxenGuy]

I had the pitchforks out for Roman earlier this season, but he has really put things together lately. 

 

Which is why I am a guy on the internet and the professionals are the professionals. 

[SalvadorsDeli]

Bredeson getting roughly equal snaps as Phillips did is interesting. Was that his first action this season? 

[M.10.E]

26 minutes ago, SalvadorsDeli said:

Bredeson getting roughly equal snaps as Phillips did is interesting. Was that his first action this season? 

I think he became the extra lineman (Skura's role) once Mekari went down. Played 12 snaps in the COVID bowl.

Edited December 28, 2020 by M.10.E

[RavensfanRD]

Pitchforks still out for Roman in my case. We never should have been in this position in the first place. We're a running team and, in my opinion, have 5 losses because we stopped running the football trying to be cute. I guess for me to cool the fire on Roman, I would need to see the running in the playoffs if our backs are against the wall. Need to see if he panics again when the heat is real. But I guess I can give him credit for going back to the run I guess? Took about 13, 14 weeks, but I guess its better late than never. Now let's hope the boys can continue the hot streak against the Bengals who're coming to play last few weeks. They want all the smoke, let's give it to 'em.

[ThatJaxxenGuy]

16 minutes ago, RavensfanRD said:

Pitchforks still out for Roman in my case. We never should have been in this position in the first place. We're a running team and, in my opinion, have 5 losses because we stopped running the football trying to be cute. I guess for me to cool the fire on Roman, I would need to see the running in the playoffs if our backs are against the wall. Need to see if he panics again when the heat is real. But I guess I can give him credit for going back to the run I guess? Took about 13, 14 weeks, but I guess its better late than never. Now let's hope the boys can continue the hot streak against the Bengals who're coming to play last few weeks. They want all the smoke, let's give it to 'em.

Yeah I’m not saying I want him again next year, I just think we can win a playoff game with this offence as of right now, also as a team we were trying to see what we had throwing the ball as we already know we can run. We had the best running game ever last year and that got us nothing in the playoffs so I can roll with trying new things in the regular season. Now we are getting back to what we know we are good at.

Edited December 28, 2020 by ThatJaxxenGuy

[M.10.E]

We lost 5 games this year. I don't think any directly belong to Roman. Does he have his warts? Yes, but I think he's done an admirable job this year with what he's been given at OL and WR/TE. He's adjusted the running game a ton the last 2 months with all the counters.

1 - Chiefs: just dominated us everywhere

2 - Steelers: Lamar had 4 TOs. You might try to say this is Roman, but your MVP QB can't play that bad no matter what.

3 - Pats: OL issues cause our running game to be very inefficient. Our rushing D was bad, bad weather, Lamar bad INT etc.

4 - Titans: massive choke job by the defense. Running game was under 4 YPC.

5 - COVID Bowl

 

Edited December 28, 2020 by M.10.E

[diamondbull424]

4 hours ago, SalvadorsDeli said:

I remember that game. Was my freshmen year in college out in upstate NY and my roommates were all Giants fans so that game was a big time event for our dorm room... didn't work out so hot for me. Honestly though that Giants team was comfortably the best team in the league that year up till Plaxico shot himself. 

Had a similar thing with the 07 Patriots, a lot of Giants fans that were pseudo Patriots fans throwing it in my face when the undefeated Pats beat the Ravens, I’ve personally hated the Pats/Brady ever since after all his whining and being rewarded.

But to cap it all off I never forgave Rex Ryan for calling that 4th down timeout after Ray Lewis had closed out that game (in a similar fashion to how he did against the Chargers on that Sproles play). Refs never should’ve allowed that play to continue, yet they did allow it. I’m sure if the Pats had gotten the 1st down, they don’t award that TO. I went from celebrating to pissed off real quick. When Bart Scott threw that penalty flag in the endzone after that ridiculous reffing, I was right there with him. Those refs deserved to be flogged as far as I care.

2008 however brought me other memories, the Steelers annoyingly winning that SB over the Cardinals. Can’t remember that one quite as much but I feel like their was some skeptical reffing in that game on behalf of the Steelers as well. Cards should’ve won that game IMO.

[diamondbull424]

3 hours ago, AFlaccoSeagulls said:

Inject this into my veins. We also need to talk about how much credit Roman deserves for making 2nd-half-season adjustments to the way we run the ball, which has completely taken teams by surprise again just when we thought he wasn't capable of adjusting.

Meh. I like Roman as a run game coordinator. He’s elite in drawing up such plays, but he’s still in my dog house.

All season long, heck even in the offseason, it was clear that the Ravens would need to utilize less 12 and 22 personnel formations and more 21, 12, or 11 personnel formations due to having no Hayden Hurst (to present a big play ability). Yet he banged his head against the wall for the first half of the season.

Lamar playing better down the stretch is partly to do with him displaying better accuracy and not pressing, but it’s also just as much to do with him having more capable receivers to throw to.

Against the Chiefs and Steelers, a big part of Lamar’s terrible performances came because of:
1) Inefficient run game- Teams could just put 9 guys into the box and stop our offense on 1st and 2nd down to put the offense in 3rd and long scenarios consistently.

2) Bad pass protection- This isn’t Roman’s fault. This is moreso the fault of the shortened offseason. Though I suppose if blame is to be attributed, the team having Philips win the OG competition over Ben Powers, seems foolish. Though perhaps he was as out of shape as Brown Jr to start the season, so again, I’m not providing blame to Roman here. 

3) Terrible Personnel Versatility- The pass blocking was indeed trash, but combining that with Boyle and Ricard BOTH on the field as Lamar’s outlets and you’re talking 5-6 yard gains- at best- from those guys. Defenses would EASILY take that vs allowing our run game to go off. We applied no ability to move their defenders back. They could play our offense like teams have played the Steelers offense the last few weeks; 9 guys close to the LOS to prevent their WRs from breaking initial tackles and going for the big play. Our offense relies on explosive run plays vs explosive short pass plays, but same difference schematically speaking.

4) Terrible pass scheme- Between route crowded route depths and poor design, defenses could sometimes defense 2-3 receivers with one well placed man. That’s ridiculous.

5) Lack of Discipline- How did it take 12 weeks to cut down on all the pre-snap penalties? That’s unacceptable and having put ourselves in difficult situations, led to inefficient 3rd down opportunities for your 3rd year QB.

——

So of course when Lamar has three WR sets he can find a Boykin on a mismatch or Hollywood on a mismatch or Andrews in single cover opportunities (ie a mismatch). Those lead to more efficient execution, like we’ve seen of late. They lead to other guys receiving less defensive attention, they lead to more efficient down and distance opportunities.

So while I appreciate Roman’s contributions to the run game’s consistent dominance, I think his inability to adjust the formations to provide the team its most efficient means of backing away defenses led to a Lamar regression year three, increased pressure on the OL, and a Hollywood regression in year two as well.

Only when Boyle went down did he change things to help out his young QB/WR tandem, this man isn’t someone I’m continuing to rely on leading my offensive room for that very reason.

Roman’s elite at what he knows how to do, yet we’ll be investing a lot of money in Lamar very soon and unless we want him to be a contract bust like Flacco because his OC refuses to adjust his offense until injuries occur, I’d still rather move on and see if the grass is greener.

[SalvadorsDeli]

Roman's done a good job the past several weeks but his passing game concepts still kinda suck and it shouldn't be as hard as it is for us to scheme guys open particularly with a QB who can create moving pockets and things like that to help.

On some level though that's more a Harbaugh problem - Greg Roman is who he is, a master innovator when it comes to the running game who doesn't bring much to the passing game. What we need is a passing game guru on par with Roman who can help introduce new concepts and mold them into the existing playbook. Maybe David Culley is a genius and Roman's just failing at bringing his ideas into the fold but sorta seems unlikely to me.

[diamondbull424]

1 hour ago, M.10.E said:

We lost 5 games this year. I don't think any directly belong to Roman. Does he have his warts? Yes, but I think he's done an admirable job this year with what he's been given at OL and WR/TE. He's adjusted the running game a ton the last 2 months with all the counters.

Keyword being the last two months. How about before that when it was blatantly obvious that this offense wasn’t cutting it and yet we continued to run the same inefficient formations.

While we’ve added wrinkles to the run game to boost its efficiency, some of these plays we had been running previously, such as the counter bash concept.

Yet the biggest change in efficiency came overall on November 15, 2020 when Nick Boyle went down with an injury, leaving us with only 1 TE and having to figure out how to produce a strong run game out of non 2 TE sets.

It’s no coincidence that the change came when Boyle went down. Just imagine if we had utilized these same formation variances WITH a healthy Boyle in the lineup.

Roman not being one of this teams biggest issues during the 1st half of the season is revisionist history at best.

[berlin calling]

as if Harbaugh would even entertain the idea to have a creative offensive mind install a modern passing game. He got this weirdo fetish for play-it-safe, control the clock and run it down as early as you can style of lame offense. 

It is what it is. w/o a catalyst like Lamar we would look like the Jets on offense.

[diamondbull424]

7 minutes ago, SalvadorsDeli said:

Roman's done a good job the past several weeks but his passing game concepts still kinda suck and it shouldn't be as hard as it is for us to scheme guys open particularly with a QB who can create moving pockets and things like that to help.

On some level though that's more a Harbaugh problem - Greg Roman is who he is, a master innovator when it comes to the running game who doesn't bring much to the passing game. What we need is a passing game guru on par with Roman who can help introduce new concepts and mold them into the existing playbook. Maybe David Culley is a genius and Roman's just failing at bringing his ideas into the fold but sorta seems unlikely to me.

In Culley’s defense, in the first half of the season we were running a boatload of 21, 22, and 12 personnel set formations. I’m sure it’s far harder to design pass plays around those types of formations with Nick Boyle and Patrick Ricard as two of your options to cultivate.

So we can really only judge early season Culley based on the 3rd down packages FTMP. Yet even then we don’t know how much Roman has the team practicing those passing situations vs running situations. That and passing on 3rd down when teams KNOW you’re going to likely pass is more difficult to execute than passing on the other downs. So Roman wasn’t putting any of Culley’s potential contributions in any positive light either.

I think our passing concepts of late is far more fair to judge Culley on than the 1st half of the season.

Based on the other pass game/offensive coordinators in the league where the HC is the playcaller, I’d imagine Culley is responsible for designing our redzone passing attack, our 3rd down pass plays, and our 2 minute warning.

If those assumptions are correct than that would be our best bets to judging Culley’s contributions IMO.

[M.10.E]

22 minutes ago, diamondbull424 said:

Keyword being the last two months. How about before that when it was blatantly obvious that this offense wasn’t cutting it and yet we continued to run the same inefficient formations.

While we’ve added wrinkles to the run game to boost its efficiency, some of these plays we had been running previously, such as the counter bash concept.

Yet the biggest change in efficiency came overall on November 15, 2020 when Nick Boyle went down with an injury, leaving us with only 1 TE and having to figure out how to produce a strong run game out of non 2 TE sets.

It’s no coincidence that the change came when Boyle went down. Just imagine if we had utilized these same formation variances WITH a healthy Boyle in the lineup.

Roman not being one of this teams biggest issues during the 1st half of the season is revisionist history at best.

You have to give people time adjust in the NFL. Roman has shown he can adjust his game (this year at least). You can't put all the blame on Roman and none on Lamar. Lamar has missed a ton of throws this year that would've made Roman look a lot better. Now they're both hitting their groove and you can see what that looks like. Now, if some great offensive guru becomes available sure, but I'm not going to fire Roman to hire someone random.

Edited December 28, 2020 by M.10.E