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Journey to Ring 3: Club Evaluation & Building Another Champion


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17 minutes ago, AFlaccoSeagulls said:

In terms of winning championships in today's NFL, where do you guys think the "run the ball and play great defense" formula is in terms of how accurate it still is?

Defense idk anymore. I don’t think you can be horrendous but I think even the best defenses are going to lose a matchup with the best offenses. I still think the run game is critical. It makes the play action work and just opens up things for the passing game in general. I think KC is an outlier because the mismatch of having a top 5 all time TE, one of the most dangerous deep threats ever, one of the best arm talents ever and all that in Reid’s offense is possibly the biggest mismatch in history.

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I don't think there's any reason you can't win with a run-first offense. No matter how we tweak the offense it's always going to be run-first in some shape or form. The key is balance though. You have to be able to do both even if your Plan A is one over the other. Every system needs flexibility because you need to be able to win in a variety of ways come January. Roman's system IMO is still only built to win in on one specific way. 

What I'd love to see Roman do this offseason is really prove his 'running game wizard' title by tweaking the running game in a way that keeps it dominant without needing 8 tight ends and 4 fullbacks on the field on every snap. If that's the only change that is made to the offensive scheme, then it could still be a major boost to the offense when coupled with expected personnel upgrades. 

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I think the approach our defense has taken is probably one of the best approaches. I think keeping together and elite secondary with 3-4 really good corners is going to be cheaper and likely experience less collisions (injuries) than building an elite front 4. So I think the way you construct and maintain an “elite defense” while still providing the rest of the team the needed resources to win has changed, but I still think defense is very relevant to slowing down most passing attacks. As opposed to having that one dominant corner and an elite front 7 as in yesteryears, I think maybe it’s the opposite.. have an elite back 5 (3-4 great corners and an elite safety) and 1-2 impact rushers up front. Enough pressure that the QB knows he won’t have all day to throw.

KC is just in a weird area where they simply have so much speed and arm talent and scheme that it’s nearly impossible to guard them regardless.

In terms of rushing attack, I think having an elite run game is definitely important, but the balance is key. It’ll be difficult for a team like Buffalo to ultimately win the SB likely because their offense also isn’t particularly balanced, they struggle to run the football. But the Packers and Bucs both have very balanced offensive attacks.

... and you can’t have a balanced offensive attack when your OC is running 22 personnel sets on like 35-40% of plays. You just can’t. There’s no explosive passing attack that can threaten a defense with those kinds of installations regardless of how magical the pass game coordinator is at his job. You’re asking him to get a 310 lbs converted DT into FB to try and force the defense to take their attention away from the deep routes... that’s just not going to happen.

Roman and Harbaugh spent all offseason studying a crap ton of run formations to revolutionize NFL offenses, well they may want to spend an equal amount of time studying up on the Air Raid system or something to add some revolutionary passing to their revolutionary rushing. But I digress. The offense best wins when it is balanced. The Patriots always seemed to have a very balanced offensive attack for example and they won SBs as much because of their run game (and defense) as their pass game.

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I know some will say that this is just EDC not wanting to telegraph his plans but at the same time we might as well just listen to what they're actually saying. Pretty clear contrast from both Harbaugh and EDC so far in being very open about wanting to strengthen the offensive line while downplaying the idea that receiver is a big need. Already in this press conference EDC has gone out of his way to mention multiple times that "we're a running team" when he's asked about improving the passing game. None of this sounds like an organization that is getting ready to make a run at Allen Robinson. 

This just feels like same old Ravens to me. Lack of urgency and curiosity when it comes to getting the offense where it needs to be. 

Edited by SalvadorsDeli
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If you got your hopes up for an Allen Robinson level receiver, that's on you for getting your hopes up. It was never going to happen. We'll have $20M in cap space this off-season at best. A-Rob/equivalent would require almost all of that. It would also leave us with Jaylon Ferguson and Pernell McPhee as our only two EDGE players. Our OL help would be relying on vet mins and rookies. Money does need to shift to offense, but not just one big name. We need much more help than that.

I think Ravens fans need a reality check on who Lamar Jackson is. People seem to think if we get him a #1 WR he'll be Patrick Mahomes. He's an above average inconsistent passer and the best running QB ever. An OL would help both our running game and our passing game, thus the team wants to focus it on that.

It wasn't that long ago when 90% of Ravens fans were complaining we were passing the ball too much.

Edited by M.10.E
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12 minutes ago, M.10.E said:

If you got your hopes up for an Allen Robinson level receiver, that's on you for getting your hopes up. It was never going to happen. We'll have $20M in cap space this off-season at best. A-Rob/equivalent would require almost all of that. It would also leave us with Jaylon Ferguson and Pernell McPhee as our only two EDGE players. Our OL help would be relying on vet mins and rookies.

I think Ravens fans need a reality check on who Lamar Jackson is. People seem to think if we get him a #1 WR he'll be Patrick Mahomes. He's an above average inconsistent passer and the best running QB ever. An OL would help both our running game and our passing game, thus the team wants to focus it on that.

It wasn't that long ago when 90% of Ravens fans were complaining we were passing the ball too much.

No one's saying he's gonna turn into Mahomes. You don't need to be Mahomes in order for a #1 receiver to be a worth it. The whole point is that bringing in weapons can help Lamar get to where he needs to be. The Allen/Diggs comp has been made ad nauseum. Dak's development is another good marker. He got every criticism Lamar has and then lo and behold he started delivering a lot more as a passer once he was surrounded with talent. 

And look, who knows, maybe Lamar keeps making the same mistakes even with better weapons. But I'd rather at least find out rather than admitting defeat from the outset. 

It's not like strengthening the OL isn't a great idea. It just seems like pretending we can ignore the other issues on our offense because we do things a different way is also dumb.

If we're approaching the development of Lamar with this idea that he's not a good enough passer to actually be worth building around in the passing game then we might as well just trade him now. I'd rather try than just keep doing the same thing over and over again, coming up short, and then listen to these guys congratulate themselves over how smart they are for doing things differently. 

Edited by SalvadorsDeli
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Having a #1 receiver doesn't mean jack if your QB doesn't have protection. The better OL's won yesterday.

We do need better weapons, but that doesn't mean wasting all of our cap space on one WR. It's not like Lamar was maximizing our weapons all year and we're hitting our peak with the current weapons. We left so many opportunities on the board with our current weapons.

Edited by M.10.E
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In my opinion, it is undisputed truth that the Ravens must get LJ8 more weapons. Especially if they want to keep selling "We're gonna build around Lamar". Ok, bet, now go get him some game changing help. With that being said, I do believe OL should be the priority for the off-season along with pass rusher. We simply have to get better in both those areas.

So far on my draft list are

  • Creed Humphrey (c)
  • Ben Cleveland (OG)
  • Dyami Brown (WR)
  • Nico Collins (WR)
  • Darkhorse  Alim McNeil (DI) Because yes
Edited by RavensfanRD
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On 1/20/2021 at 1:23 PM, SalvadorsDeli said:

I don't think there's any reason you can't win with a run-first offense. No matter how we tweak the offense it's always going to be run-first in some shape or form. The key is balance though. You have to be able to do both even if your Plan A is one over the other. Every system needs flexibility because you need to be able to win in a variety of ways come January. Roman's system IMO is still only built to win in on one specific way. 

What I'd love to see Roman do this offseason is really prove his 'running game wizard' title by tweaking the running game in a way that keeps it dominant without needing 8 tight ends and 4 fullbacks on the field on every snap. If that's the only change that is made to the offensive scheme, then it could still be a major boost to the offense when coupled with expected personnel upgrades. 

We can win being run first. We can’t win being last in pass though.

We need two linemen, a TE, and an established wide receiver 

Edited by ThatJaxxenGuy
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4 minutes ago, ThatJaxxenGuy said:

We can win being run first. We can’t win being last in pass though.

We need two linemen, a TE, and an established wide receiver 

Yep. You need balance. Heck, even the Titans, who are arguably the most balanced run-first team in the league, couldn't get by when their run game was shut down. You cannot win in today's NFL at a high level in the playoffs when you can't throw the ball consistently and lean on your passing attack if the run game isn't working.

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25 minutes ago, AFlaccoSeagulls said:

Yep. You need balance. Heck, even the Titans, who are arguably the most balanced run-first team in the league, couldn't get by when their run game was shut down. You cannot win in today's NFL at a high level in the playoffs when you can't throw the ball consistently and lean on your passing attack if the run game isn't working.

The Chiefs are the epitome of the new age pass-happy offense, and nobody is better set up to be that kind of aggressively pass-first team as they are given who their QB is. But they still went out and drafted CEH with their 1st pick last year and signed Lev Bell this year, because they recognize that it's better to be able to run the ball really well when asked to than not. On some level it feels like when faced with that same question in reverse we just tell ourselves that it's okay to aim for less. And it becomes a self-fulfilling cycle where Lamar not showing enough improvement with the JAGs he's sent out there with is then used to justify not giving him more to work with. 

We can and will just keep talking in circles about this WR thing, and I completely agree that OL needs to be a priority as well. But I just can't get on board with the attitude the FO seems to have that being run-first means being okay with just treating our pass-catching weapons as the last item on our to-do list, the thing we only get to if every other box has been checked two times over. It was treated as an afterthought last offseason and I really don't like what I'm hearing thus far from the org because it sounds like the reduced cap is going to be used as a pretext to do the same thing again this offseason. 

Edited by SalvadorsDeli
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