This article is about Marquise Brown. And there are few things it evolved to. First, Marquise Brown does his job really well. He draws a lot of deep coverage and a lot of attention and often was getting bracketed. First and foremost, Jackson needs to try to identify early which players are getting the extra defenders. That was my biggest take away from this analysis. It starts with the fumble play.

(You can discuss this on the BSL Board here.)

Lamar is clearly locked in on Andrews here. But the four guys in yellow, they are all keying Jackson and by default Andrews, which is where he is looking. Lamar is trying to find a window to throw it here, but he should be climbing the pocket here because he knows he’s got 4 guys watching his main target and himself. Brown and Boyle are coming open to the right and he’s about to flood that area of the field with 3 guys to two defenders. The defender on the 8 will stay with Lamar and Brown or Boyle is going to be open for this TD. The attention being paid to Andrews in this zone should have been informative for how the Ravens tried to use him later in this game.

So let’s go back to the first INT. Because you saw the same thing there. You see four defenders stay in the middle of the field, mostly covering Andrews but also spying Lamar. This play is a classic Roman running too many guys close together though.

If you’re going to run 5-wide, do something that can put pressure in more spots. First, I’d run verticals out of the slants on both sides. Take the defenders out of the middle of the field and make them defend deep. Let Lamar has space to work if they aren’t open, it’s opened his running lanes. Also, Dobbins who is at the bottom of the screen, what’s the point of him on a go route, that’s never going to be thrown and unlikely to be completed. Run him on a drag under the verticals, keep Andrews high and make the lone middle defender take Dobbins one on one. This concept of verticals to stretch the interior of a defense with a slant or drag underneath is really not all that complex but would seem to really benefit Lamar more than the average QB.

But was Brown open and Lamar missed him? Well, you tell me, was he open on this play? Who has the most separation in this route?

And I think the biggest thing I’d be coaching Lamar on is finding the mismatches. Look for the spots where you have more receivers than the defenders. But this play makes me wonder, is there a QB run play action? We’ve seen the jump pass at the line of scrimmage, but the whole field commits to Lamar here. And if he’s surveyed the field, he should know he has three receivers to the right and only 2 defenders if the LB stays in the middle. He should fake this run and then just toss it easily to whatever receiver of those 3 is open. In this case it was Brown on an easy toss to the back end of the end zone.

But Lamar wasn’t the only culprit of ruining plays that Brown was open. The poor OL played a part. Brown can actually option this route depending on what the ILB does, but my objection here again is what is this play call from Roman. This should be a vertical from Duvernay. First, Duvernay and Brown running verticals together is going to be a true threat. But beyond that, Brown will have space to work underneath that route. Jackson can loft an under throw to Brown here because the verticals have cleared out the space. Lamar has to hold this ball because these routes are close enough together that he should be worried.

There is a lot that Lamar can do here to be better and the OL play can be better. But I think Brown has some legitimate gripes about both being open and when he should be the first read and getting more credit for clear out routes when he runs them for others. To me, this stuff is all coaching and early week stuff. Lamar needs to learn his keys and understand the route concepts and where he should create openings and if those openings don’t happen as designed the pull it down and run.

Luckily this is all fixable. But the clock is ticking on this season.

Jordan Kough
Jordan Kough

Ravens Analyst

Jordan Kough is a graduate of University of Maryland, Baltimore County. He’s a long standing Ravens and Orioles fan of many years. He grew up just north of Baltimore and likes the statistical analysis of games as much as watching games themselves.

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