The most important post-draft presser for this upcoming Ravens season took place when Rashod Bateman was introduced and Greg Roman came out with him. Because Roman began to speak to what he had now that he didn’t have the last two years, and how exactly that might change the shape of the offense:
It’s offseason time, and yes, you have to account for the fact that some of this may wind up being coach speak. But on paper this is the deepest group of receivers the Ravens have had in sometime with Sammy Watkins joining this young core.
The Ravens imploded last year because they couldn’t throw the ball when they needed to, so regardless of if change actually happens at a meaningful level, it’s good to see it being talked about in a real way. There are plenty of coaches around the NFL who would just bandaid this up with a “we’ve got the talent to execute our scheme now” and leave it at that. The fact that the Ravens are talking about a more systemic change is very positive to me.
There was nothing wrong with Orlando Brown last year, but Ronnie Stanley’s injury forced a variety of players into the starting lineup and hurt the unit’s ability to pass block for long periods of time. I think the addition of Alejandro Villanueva and the receivers that Baltimore added could point to a bigger investment in the play-action passing game. Despite one of the best running games in the NFL, Baltimore used play-action only 112 times last year per SportRadar data, a bottom-10 total in the NFL. They gained only 774 yards off of it.
In 2019, when the Ravens were crushing it, they ran the second-most play-action pass attempts in the NFL, 169 to Los Angeles’ 195. Of course, they were also running it so well that most of the time they had better play-action downs to begin with — they were creating second-and-4 and third-and-2 instead of second-and-6 and third-and-5. And, yes, the health of the line probably impacted how many play-action attempts they were willing to run as well.
With the re-introduction of the play-action pass, hopefully with more deep routes as compared to the 2020 season, the next area of emphasis is just winning one-on-one in a way the 2020 Ravens could not. Willie Snead has had an impressive career, but he wasn’t defeating press coverage out of most of his breaks. Hollywood Brown has had to be manufactured off the line in some similar ways. The Ravens were just too easy to defend tight between Jackson’s issues throwing to the outside and their receivers not creating windows for him underneath. That spiraled into things like “hoping Dez Bryant could win some slants 50-50s.”
What the Ravens have as a passing offense that they did not have in 2020 is not to be overlooked. At the same time, passing offenses tend to follow their constants and the constants here are Jackson and Roman. They will have to create some change to make the Ravens into the best versions of themselves.
Last year the Ravens finished 17th in pass offense DVOA. They had six separate games with negative pass offense DVOA in the regular season, and were bounced by Buffalo in the playoffs due to another one. In 2019, the Ravens had only two games with a negative pass offense DVOA and finished first in pass offense DVOA.
They don’t need to get back to 2019, which may be one of the great outlier seasons in NFL history, but they do need to at least split the difference if they want to be more than a contender that can catch some breaks. The right things are being said. Now, as the offseason drags on, we start awaiting the answers on if the right things will ultimately happen.
Ravens Analyst
Rivers McCown is a writer and editor who has written for ESPN.com, Bleacher Report, USA Today, and Deadspin, among other places. He’s edited for Football Outsiders, Rookie Scouting Portfolio, and Pre-Snap Reads Quarterback Catalogue.