Week 3: Ravens @ Cowboys (The Regular Season matters edition)

[Ray Reed]

1 hour ago, AngusMcFife said:

If Harbaugh had half the confidence in Lamar that Quinn has in Jayden Daniels I'd feel better. Talk about letting your QB win the game.

Come on, this is hyperbole. The game icing play was a Lamar designed run. The sequence before on 3rd down was a called pass on 3rd and 6. Countless times Harbaugh has gone for 4th downs just because Lamar said he wants to. 

Harbaugh has complete confidence in Lamar Jackson. I don't think that's even a debatable point.

[Xmad]

56 minutes ago, Ray Reed said:

Come on, this is hyperbole. The game icing play was a Lamar designed run. The sequence before on 3rd down was a called pass on 3rd and 6. Countless times Harbaugh has gone for 4th downs just because Lamar said he wants to. 

Harbaugh has complete confidence in Lamar Jackson. I don't think that's even a debatable point.

Yeah if harbaugh didn't have confidence in jackson he would've benched him for flacco in 2018 and never built the teams entire offensive identity around jackson.

The confidence isn't the issue it's the fact Harbaugh is slacking in other areas. (Special teams...? Your Kicker having a technique ISSUE? WHAT) Seriously the fact we have the guy who was a holder for Tucker for a decade on staff and we're having "Technique Issues" is so beyond the level of stupid. Why change what works? What's the issue? Is Jordan Stout on crack or is it the special teams coach who clearly can't do his job.

The defense crumbling in the 4th quarter under harbaugh seriously what in the actual **** is crumbling in the 4th quarter? It's been a thing for 3 seperate D-coordinators so it ain't them. I'll give Oor "learning the ropes" problem but this was an issue long before him.

 

[AngusMcFife]

3 hours ago, Ray Reed said:

Come on, this is hyperbole. The game icing play was a Lamar designed run. The sequence before on 3rd down was a called pass on 3rd and 6. Countless times Harbaugh has gone for 4th downs just because Lamar said he wants to. 

Harbaugh has complete confidence in Lamar Jackson. I don't think that's even a debatable point.

My perception is that Harbaugh would rather run the ball and play defense than have Lamar throw to extend the lead.

Yes Harbaugh is obviously fine with Lamar running. But I think he takes the air out of the ball way too much in the 4th quarters. My understanding the the modern NFL is that teams can stop the run with certain fits and it is up to the offense to throw them out of those calls. But when Harbaugh has a lead he'll just run into the line and hope his defense holds.

There is no more obvious example the Super Bowl. Had a big lead, Flacco was playing great, Harbaugh turtles up, and the game comes down to the last play where Harbaugh uses his cover-0 blitzes. I understand why Harbaugh uses that strategy, it got him the greatest victory of his career. He will keep replicating that. But Ray and Ed are gone and the defense is no longer able to close games like they in the past. And now he has a HOF QB who can extend leads with aggressive playcalling.

If you look at the game after the Ravens got to 28 points, we find:

1st down: Run 11 out of 11 times
2nd down: Run 7x (one aborted screen), pass 1x (12 yard completion)

So out of 18 plays on 1st or 2nd down, 16 were run plays, 1 was a RB screen turned into a run, and 1 was a play action pass.

To me this is not really effective strategy in the modern game. Give your QB opportunities to gash the defense when they are selling out to stop the run, don't just ram the ball into the line where the D is playing run fits.

Maybe I'm too harsh on Harbaugh and maybe nobody wants to hear my complaints or folks think I'm out of bounds, but I genuinely feel that Harbaugh is a very risk averse coach when it come to strategy and it really hurts in late game scenarios where the other team knows exactly what we're gonna do.

And also that punt in the 2nd quarter was pure cowardice. Offense is averaging 8 yards/play and he punts on 4th and 1 in Dallas territory? That's outrageously passive.

[Ray Reed]

1 hour ago, AngusMcFife said:

My perception is that Harbaugh would rather run the ball and play defense than have Lamar throw to extend the lead.

Yes Harbaugh is obviously fine with Lamar running. But I think he takes the air out of the ball way too much in the 4th quarters. My understanding the the modern NFL is that teams can stop the run with certain fits and it is up to the offense to throw them out of those calls. But when Harbaugh has a lead he'll just run into the line and hope his defense holds.

There is no more obvious example the Super Bowl. Had a big lead, Flacco was playing great, Harbaugh turtles up, and the game comes down to the last play where Harbaugh uses his cover-0 blitzes. I understand why Harbaugh uses that strategy, it got him the greatest victory of his career. He will keep replicating that. But Ray and Ed are gone and the defense is no longer able to close games like they in the past. And now he has a HOF QB who can extend leads with aggressive playcalling.

If you look at the game after the Ravens got to 28 points, we find:

1st down: Run 11 out of 11 times
2nd down: Run 7x (one aborted screen), pass 1x (12 yard completion)

So out of 18 plays on 1st or 2nd down, 16 were run plays, 1 was a RB screen turned into a run, and 1 was a play action pass.

To me this is not really effective strategy in the modern game. Give your QB opportunities to gash the defense when they are selling out to stop the run, don't just ram the ball into the line where the D is playing run fits.

Maybe I'm too harsh on Harbaugh and maybe nobody wants to hear my complaints or folks think I'm out of bounds, but I genuinely feel that Harbaugh is a very risk averse coach when it come to strategy and it really hurts in late game scenarios where the other team knows exactly what we're gonna do.

And also that punt in the 2nd quarter was pure cowardice. Offense is averaging 8 yards/play and he punts on 4th and 1 in Dallas territory? That's outrageously passive.

I agree with a lot of the “symptoms” you lay out here, I just disagree mainly on the cause behind it (i.e. it’s because he doesn’t trust Lamar). I just think that’s who he is as a coach and that isn’t necessarily tied to his trust in Lamar specifically. I feel like we have so much evidence of Harbs being ridiculously confident in Lamar and what he can do. But i’m in full agreement that we need to be more aggressive - ESPECIALLY while Orr learns the ropes on defense.

Side note: Ronnie is playing his *** off this year. Only 2 pressures in 3 games and I saw the team averages 7.7 YPC running off LT this year. Super impressive, especially with the line around him this year.

[AFlaccoSeagulls]

3 hours ago, AngusMcFife said:

My perception is that Harbaugh would rather run the ball and play defense than have Lamar throw to extend the lead.

Yeah because Lamar is the best running QB in NFL history and a league-average passer.

[Ray Reed]

Justice Hill has also been absolutely everything we could ask for as a change of pace back since he came back from that achilles 

His juice this year is crazy

[AngusMcFife]

8 minutes ago, AFlaccoSeagulls said:

Yeah because Lamar is the best running QB in NFL history and a league-average passer.

But wouldn't you agree that Lamar has improved considerably as a passer since he entered the league?

And wouldn't him getting more in game reps passing would likely further increase his ability?

Think about it. Josh Allen has 3200 passing attempts for his career, and Lamar has 2200. The difference of 1000 passing attempts is basically 2.5 seasons of Lamar passes. So Josh Allen has had 2.5 more years passing experience than Lamar despite being in the league in the same year. Lamar's way behind.

If Harbaugh is always going to shield him from passing whenever he gets a chance then obviously he won't develop as rapidly in that aspect.

[AFlaccoSeagulls]

48 minutes ago, AngusMcFife said:

But wouldn't you agree that Lamar has improved considerably as a passer since he entered the league?

Yes. When he came into the league he could not even throw a spiral, and since then has improved to where he is today - a league average passer. He still cannot throw deep at all and struggles throwing outside the numbers, and his accuracy/footwork/pocket presence is inconsistent.

48 minutes ago, AngusMcFife said:

And wouldn't him getting more in game reps passing would likely further increase his ability?

I would hope that we're not relying on him improving this ability during games, and instead improving this ability in the off-season / during training camp / during practice, and from what I've seen so far this year (small sample size, granted), he has not. He is 1/8 on throws 20+ yards down the field and in critical/clutch situations, I would rather us pick up the first down or seal the game in whatever way is easiest/best for the team - and often times that means Lamar running the ball.

48 minutes ago, AngusMcFife said:

Think about it. Josh Allen has 3200 passing attempts for his career, and Lamar has 2200. The difference of 1000 passing attempts is basically 2.5 seasons of Lamar passes. So Josh Allen has had 2.5 more years passing experience than Lamar despite being in the league in the same year. Lamar's way behind.

If Harbaugh is always going to shield him from passing whenever he gets a chance then obviously he won't develop as rapidly in that aspect.

I can see this argument, but ultimately that's just not our team. We're not going to be throwing the ball 40 times per game like the Bills have with Josh Allen. The quickest way for Lamar to improve as a passer is, indeed, lots of reps, but I would prefer those reps to come outside of game situations so we're not losing games trying to improve Lamar's abilities.

[Ray Reed]

Yeah that Lamar pass attempts argument doesn’t hold water IMO.

He has 2200 career passes, not 500. For comparison Burrow has less than 2000.

Its much more of an indictment on Lamar and your opinion of him as a player to say “he needs to throw 7 seasons’ worth of passes in order for him to do it well” rather than “he’s fine at passing, will probably only ever be fine, but that’s ok because he’s the 🐐 runner and “fine” works just well in that combo”

Lamar Jackson after 2800 passes isn’t going to be much different than Lamar Jackson after 2200 passes just like Lamar Jackson after 2200 passes isn’t much different than Lamar Jackson was after 800 passes (FWIW I think his best passing season from my eyes watching him was 2020. He was throwing unreal dots that year).

He can pass fine. He can run amazing. That’s perfectly acceptable. You shouldn’t be calling plays in a game when you’re 0-2 like it’s a scrimmage trying to work on “more reps”. Win the game. Lamar’s blunders in the playoffs aren’t from a lack of reps. You don’t go from torching SF and MIA and DET last year during the season to crumbling against KC because of a lack of passing reps. 

[AngusMcFife]

14 hours ago, AFlaccoSeagulls said:

I can see this argument, but ultimately that's just not our team. We're not going to be throwing the ball 40 times per game like the Bills have with Josh Allen. The quickest way for Lamar to improve as a passer is, indeed, lots of reps, but I would prefer those reps to come outside of game situations so we're not losing games trying to improve Lamar's abilities.

But Harbaugh has already established that if we get deep and the playoffs and a team shuts down our rush attack, we will go to a pass first offense that throws close to 40 passes per game. That was literally the strategy in the biggest game of the franchises past 10 years.

So why not play the regular season with that in mind? Because I guarantee you a good playoff team will be able to slow down the rushing attack given the quality of our O-line. Then you are putting Lamar in a situation in the playoffs that he never had to be in during the regular season. Seems shortsighted to me.

[AngusMcFife]

14 hours ago, Ray Reed said:

You shouldn’t be calling plays in a game when you’re 0-2 like it’s a scrimmage trying to work on “more reps”. Win the game. Lamar’s blunders in the playoffs aren’t from a lack of reps. You don’t go from torching SF and MIA and DET last year during the season to crumbling against KC because of a lack of passing reps. 

Well here's the other problem.

These recent Ravens teams are probably the worst team in the history of the NFL at protecting multi-score leads in the 4th quarter. Harbaugh's turtle up strategy where he runs the ball into the line on 1st and 2nd downs repeated and routinely results in losses. Are you good with Harbaugh's management in these collapses?

Harbuagh is not really factoring into his strategy that these teams can easily move the ball and score at will against his D in late-game situations. His strategy is mistakenly assumes defensive competence.

If he were to assume that maybe his D will cough up a bunch of yards and TDs at the end of the game, I think he would continue to be more aggressive with the offense and mix in some more passes.

So when I advocate for more passes I think it is the most strategically sound idea to win the game but also I think it will have long term benefits for Lamar's development.

[AFlaccoSeagulls]

1 hour ago, AngusMcFife said:

But Harbaugh has already established that if we get deep and the playoffs and a team shuts down our rush attack, we will go to a pass first offense that throws close to 40 passes per game. That was literally the strategy in the biggest game of the franchises past 10 years.

So why not play the regular season with that in mind? Because I guarantee you a good playoff team will be able to slow down the rushing attack given the quality of our O-line. Then you are putting Lamar in a situation in the playoffs that he never had to be in during the regular season. Seems shortsighted to me.

That's called an identity crisis, not something else. Harbaugh's repeatedly stated (and our personnel reflects this) our identity is a tough, run-first team, not a pass-happy team.

The reason we abandon our identity in big games is because Harbaugh and the coaching staff panic, abandon everything that works, and try to throw 50 times and we lose.

If they want us to be a pass-happy team that throws, Monken isn't that guy and Derrick Henry should've never been signed and we should have instead invested in WR's and better OL.

But we didn't.

[AngusMcFife]

1 hour ago, AFlaccoSeagulls said:

That's called an identity crisis, not something else. Harbaugh's repeatedly stated (and our personnel reflects this) our identity is a tough, run-first team, not a pass-happy team.

Can you share a recent quote to support that? I thought moving from Roman to Monken signaled a shift from run-first to a balanced offense.

[Xmad]

33 minutes ago, AngusMcFife said:

Can you share a recent quote to support that? I thought moving from Roman to Monken signaled a shift from run-first to a balanced offense.

Look at the volume from last year, we had more rushing attempts than passing attempts. (494 vs like 550?)

Comparing 2020 (lamar's last fully healthy year) 406 to 555

We're trending that way but I feel like that's more of a using play action % from Monken's offense than anything tbh. 

[AFlaccoSeagulls]

53 minutes ago, AngusMcFife said:

Can you share a recent quote to support that? I thought moving from Roman to Monken signaled a shift from run-first to a balanced offense.

I'm not going to sift back through every harbaugh quote but I'm sure you can find it in Monken's opening press conference when they hired him as well as the first opening presser of this year as well.

And like @Xmad also pointed out, it's in our actions, too. We want to use more play action and be more efficient in our passing game, but opting to become a pass-first team with this personnel and QB is not what made Lamar Jackson a 2x MVP QB. We should be striving for a more balanced offense vs. run-heavy under Greg Roman, but we are a running team first and foremost.