A Passing Failure

The Ravens currently rank 27th in the league in passing yards per game (180.6). Over the course of their last 5 games since their Week 10 bye the team has averaged just 169.6 yards per game through the air. Comparatively speaking, the Ravens averaged 233 yards per game in 2021, up from a league low of 171.9 in 2020.

It is a mess!

And all of this during a season when the Ravens were supposed to get a clear read on Lamar Jackson so that they can determine his market value.

I’m not sure what the 2022 season does to Lamar’s market value. Clearly his value to the Ravens is immense. It could be argued that no other team in the league depends more on one player than the Ravens do with Lamar. And they’ve given him little to work with.

Sure, they upgraded the offensive line by adding Tyler Linderbaum and Morgan Moses. But what the team has done at wide receiver amounts to grand larceny. Jackson bet on himself to determine his market value and it has been a colossal failure. The Ravens traded away a 1,000-yard receiver without sufficiently replacing him and then bet on Rashod Bateman to play at a level his draft status suggests and for the other pass catchers in the wide receiver room to step up. Instead, they’ve tripped.

Offensive coordinator Greg Roman has been regularly criticized for the design of his passing attack. Receivers are rarely schemed open and the timing between the quarterback and the receivers is so out of synch that oftentimes, the pass catchers have their backs to the quarterback when he’s set and ready to throw. And at times, that may be just fine if the quarterback and receiver are in synch and the ball is thrown to a spot known to only the QB and WR. That’s called throwing a receiver open. The Ravens QB’s only throw to open receivers, and that’s about as common as a good song by Nickelback.

So how does owner Steve Bisciotti and GM Eric DeCosta determine Lamar’s value when he’s operating in a broken system with receivers from The Dollar Store? Lamar’s passing production is down across the board and THAT is where he needs to improve to justify a franchise-record, perhaps league-record contract. The Ravens collectively have learned absolutely NOTHING about Lamar’s value in 2022. So in that regard, it has been a wasted season.

You can see the frustration in the way Lamar plays. He no longer has that boyish enthusiasm and obvious love for the game. The pressure to perform without the necessary tools around him have seemingly ripped that joy from his soul. Instead of “big truss” and “belee dat” we now see a brooding Lamar on the sideline or when he’s on the field play, clock mismanagement compel him to snap at teammates or punt the ball in frustration. Off the field, he’s laying into a fan on social media.

The pressure is real.

Lamar bet on himself and then the Ravens challenged that bet by emptying the supply closet of the tools needed to win the bet. Go ahead, Lamar. Climb that mountain without boots, rope and crampons. You can do it!

2022 was supposed to provide clarity about a Lamar Jackson-led offense. Instead, the waters are murkier than a snorkeling excursion at The Inner Harbor.

Greg Roman is among the scapegoats in this cluster, but it’s not all on him. That said, enough of it is on him to earn a pink slip. The repeated issues with the play clock and the team’s league-leading delay of game penalties are a joke and a bad one. This should be an embarrassment to the entire staff. I know that I was embarrassed for them all after hearing this gem from Roman shared during his presser on December 1:

“Really, what we’re talking about is a race to be in control. So, it’s not, ‘Hey, how fast can we get to the line and snap it?’ It’s, ‘How can we do what we want to do and be in control of the situation?’ So, if we snap the ball an average of four seconds later than other teams, over the course of a 70-play game, now you’re talking, what, four-and-a-half, five minutes where their offense can’t touch the ball. Those are treasures.”

The man was serious!

If only he was more serious about proper spacing in his passing attack, Lamar and the Ravens would…well, you know.

But it’s all ok. Come Monday, John Harbaugh will remind us of the obvious problems and how they’ll go back to work to fix them.

[BOLD PREDICTIONS: Ravens v. Falcons]

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