OWINGS MILLS, Md. -- Two weeks after quarterback by opining on the surprise implementation of "a totally new offense," his coach out to the field before practice. John Harbaugh was all smiles on Thursday greeting coaching legend Paul Johnson, a proven devotee of the triple option and a staunch proponent of running the football who emphasized that part of the game even with the likes of future All-Pro Calvin Johnson on his Georgia Tech roster."His favorite play was my dad's favorite play: the mid-line dive option," Harbaugh quipped, vowing to absorb as much as he could from Johnson's visit. So, um, forgive me if I'm not buying the notion of a Baltimore Ravens identity crisis on offense.Johnson, whose offense Harbaugh's father implemented at Western Kentucky way back in the day, is just the latest in a line of college coaches -- most if not all of them perfecters of one form of a run/pa s option offense or another -- to have visited the Ravens' facility this spring to watch practice and break down film with Harbaugh's staff. A year ago, the Ravens ran the ball more often than any club in the once Jackson took over for a then-injured , and with more succe s than any team in the NFL. They opened the offseason by spending big to retain dominant blocking tight end , then signed former Pro Bowl running back from New Orleans. Oh, and
Kyle O'Quinn Jersey Greg Roman, who just happens to have overseen option-heavy offenses for years now, ascended to the offensive coordinator role, replacing pa s-happy Marty Mornhinweg.Newsflash: Sure, the Ravens have changed their nomenclature in the pa sing game and added badly needed speed and twitch at wide receiver through the draft. But this team is going to pound the ground above all else; it will continue to try to confound and overpower teams with altering mesh-points with an RPO-based offense, and I would fully expect them to lead the NFL in rushing in 2019. They certainly hope to sprinkle the ball around more liberally through the air and are taking
T.J. Warren Jersey a painstaking approach with Jackson to do so. But this team knows what it does best and what provides the clearest path to winning football games, and that ain't changing all that much. "I can't give away any secrets," said backup quarterback , who has become a mentor to Jackson. "But at the end of the day, the way we ran the football at end of last year was pretty special. We went from near the bottom of the league to basically the best in the league (once Jackson took over) So our focus is on developing our pa sing game and what we are good at there so it can aid our running game. Don't get it twisted -- we're going to run the ball a bunch. And we'll also have to throw it."Or, as -- one of four legit NFL running backs on this roster -- simply put it: "Our identity is running the ball right now, and that
Justin Holiday Jersey 's what we want to stick to."Amen.Jackson, who was not available to the media after Thursday's open practice, created some angst and commotion in Baltimore with his recent comments, with some fretting that the Ravens would try to mimic the 1982 San Diego or something like that with a novice-but-promising QB who is still mastering some fundamentals. That simply isn't going to be the case. Owner Steve Bisciotti's remarks on a season-ticket holder conference call that, "I think you'll be pleasantly surprised that Lamar is not going to be running 20 times a game," led to more probing about how different this approach might be, but belies the fact that with so many options available to run the ball, there won't be any Ravens running 20 times a game despite all of the volume of run plays expected. Ingram, Edwards (who finished third in the NFL in total rushing yards from the point Jackson took over at QB), and versatile were joined by explosive fourth-round pick , while speedy receivers and can get involved with the ground game, too."We know what we're gonna be good at," left tackle told me, "and we know that to get through the playoffs you're going to need a quality running game. You're not going to make it all the way without a great running team. That's something that we've dedicated ourselves to, but we're not throwing all of our eggs in one basket. We're still trying to be a more balanced team."From the point Jackson (who completed 58 percent of his pa ses with a rating of 84.5 as a rookie) took over last season in mid-November -- in Week 10, with Baltimore spiraling at 4-5 on the bye -- Baltimore went on to run the ball 101 times more than any other club in football and for around 600 yards more than anyone else. Those are staggering differentials for such a small sample size, and they were doing it with not particularly explosive, journeymen types like Edwards, Dixon and . The personnel at running back is superior now. So the winning equation for a team that prides itself historically on stout defense is not going to all of a
Jeremy Lamb Jersey sudden change dramatically, especially with a quarterback who is getting starting offseason reps for the first time. The Ravens aren't going to be throwing 40 times a game, but they will need more accuracy and potency from Jackson when they do attempt to matriculate the ball methodically underneath, and then exploit those eight- and nine-man fronts with deep shots downfield.Jackson's foibles in practice this spring have been well chronicled, and over-obse sed about in some quarters, frankly. Thursday was again rough at times, with balls going astray and an errant end-zone pa s picked off. But one should keep in mind that Baltimore's stingy defense is uniquely adept at stopping this group, and with the team in shells and now pads, they aren't changing the point of attack and running RPOs and fakes to bait pa s rushers. As has been the case since he took over in the huddle, his teammates have been unfailing supportive, championing the 22-year-old's growth."A lot of people try to critique him and talk about how he throws," veteran receiver Chris Moore said. "But he's a play-maker. He's an athlete. And he is so hard on himself, too. He's a perfectionist, and he's gotten better every single week, and he'll only continue to get better." Jackson isn't able to improvise, really, at practice, or extend plays in the way that conjures the very magic that catapulted him into the first round a year ago. In this se sion he was without
T. J. Warren Jersey first-round picks from last year (tight end ) and this year (receiver Marquise Brown, a true burner still recovering from a collegiate Lisfranc injury).It's quite difficult to mimic what this offense does best in any practice (the pa s game and play action feeds so much off the run attack), much le s one with the physical limitations of an OTA, and Jackson is asked to throw more from the pocket in a typical drop-back manner in these OTAs than I suspect comes to pa s most Sundays. He continues to throw a tighter spiral, and his deep ball remains tantalizing as well as he continues to make some expected novice mistakes."I think he was reeling a little bit there,
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