Should the Ravens re-sign Torrey Smith?

As the Baltimore Ravens enter the offseason, they have plenty of work ahead of them before they are ready to make another playoff run next season. One of the biggest questions facing Baltimore is the future of receiver Torrey Smith. Smith is an unrestricted free agent coming off a somewhat down season, but has expressed a desire to stay with the Ravens.

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Smith has emerged as a leader for the Ravens off the field; having been most recently nominated for the Walter Payton NFL Man of the Year award for his outstanding community service off the field. He’s exactly the type of character you want in a locker room, but the Ravens, as yet, haven’t re-signed him.

That’s because of his performance on the field. Smith struggled, particularly early in the season. In previous seasons, Smith has always been a deep threat, which matches quarterback Joe Flacco’s big arm. But he wasn’t able to be a great deal more than that. The Ravens started the season somewhat limiting his route tree. In the first few games, Smith mostly ran just three routes.

One of the more common was slant patterns.

He also ran quick outs from the slot.

 

And then of course, he ran his share of go routes.

But as the season went on, Smith sharpened his route running and found the same page as his quarterback. Baltimore started to trust him more with other routes. One of the biggest steps was getting him to run the thunder route more consistently.

The thunder route is a west coast offense staple. It requires the receiver and quarterback to be on the same wavelength and read the defense. The receiver has three routes he can run, based on the coverage. Against Cover 2, the receiver runs a fade. Against off-man coverage, Smith should run a five-yard hitch route. But here against press, Smith runs a seven-yard stop route.

Flacco spots the press coverage and trusts Smith to run the correct route, releasing the ball before Smith has made his cut.

Smith repays Flacco’s faith in him by making the cut on time to come back for the ball. The coverage recognition, the route and the timing of the throw gain Smith plenty of separation, making this an easy completion.

After having success with the thunder route, Baltimore started trusting him with more short timing routes.

Here, Smith is simply spotting up in between defenders.

Smith quickly finds the gap in the zone coverage and turns back to Flacco, who is already beginning to throw.

The ball reaches Smith before the defender can close, leading to another easy completion.

One other big step the Ravens took with Smith was using his speed off play-action.

One of the big plays in the Gary Kubiak offense is the bootleg play-action fake. Smith had previously been used as the deep route on the outside running a go route to clear the path behind him. But here, Smith runs the intermediate crosser.

Quite often this season, Flacco came out of the bootleg and simply dumped it off to the tight end or fullback in the flat. But here, Smith’s speed allows him to cross from the other side of the field and get a couple of steps in front of his defender. Rather than a three or four yard dump off pass, Flacco looks for Smith over the middle.

It’s another relatively simple throw for Flacco and Smith has plenty of space to work in. He makes the catch for a first down and has potential to use his speed and momentum to turn up the field and pick up extra yards after the catch.

But perhaps the most effective play they called for Smith was a play-action post.

This play is a staple in Mike and Kyle Shanahan offenses, which Kubiak also runs. The Ravens show a run-heavy look and fake the run while Smith runs a post route on the outside.

The linebackers are drawn in by the run fake, creating a huge hole in the defense for Smith to work with. Flacco has as easy a pass as he’ll get in the NFL, throwing over the middle with no linebackers to worry about.

Smith makes the catch and then has room to pick up extra yards.

Smith uses his speed and elusiveness to turn a 14-yard catch into a 40-yard gain, running across the field and up the sideline to pick up an additional 26 yards after the catch.

Once the Ravens diversified Smith’s route tree, he became less predictable. Corners couldn’t just guess the route he was running, giving him a bigger impact on the offense. There is certainly a role for him in this offense, and I’m not sure the Ravens maximized his potential in it this season.

But ultimately, Smith still had a down year. He had career lows in receptions (49), receiving yards (767) and yards per catch (15.7). Pro Football Focus also had Smith tied second worst in the NFL in dropped catches (11), while only managing to catch 55.1% of the passes thrown his way.

While you’d like to see the catch percentage higher, his deeper routes tend to be less successful. The numbers he put up are still solid numbers and are good numbers for a number two receiver. Clearly the Ravens would like Torrey Smith back and clearly he would like to be back, but it has to be at the right price. Smith isn’t in a position to demand to be paid like Calvin Johnson or Larry Fitzgerald. But he should still merit a sizable contract, which could be worthwhile if the Ravens can utilize him correctly. With a strong looking free agent class and another deep receiver class in the draft; it will be an interesting decision for the Ravens and one of their tougher ones this offseason.