With Greg Roman out, Ravens in need of new coordinator to resurrect their offense (2024)

Heading into the 2019 season, Baltimore Ravens coach John Harbaugh spoke excitedly about his vision for the team’s offense and made no attempt to minimize expectations. He talked about creating an offensive revolution and embracing a style that no other team was using. The man he put in charge of fulfilling that vision was Greg Roman, a veteran play caller whose ability to design and deliver a creative run game was well-documented.

The pairing of Roman and quarterback Lamar Jackson yielded immediate results: a 14-2 regular season in 2019, an offense that looked unstoppable en route to setting league and team records, a unanimous MVP award for Jackson and Assistant Coach of the Year honors for Roman.

That was supposed to be just the beginning for an offense that was to continue to evolve and a quarterback who was one of the youngest and most talented players in football. Yet, three seasons later, there is ample evidence that Roman’s offense peaked back in 2019 and has since plateaued, following a similar pattern from the offensive coordinator’s previous stops.

Roman will not have an opportunity to change that. Just days after the end of a disappointing 2022 season, Roman announced that he’s stepping down as offensive coordinator, likely the first of many steps in the Ravens’ offseason efforts to repair their struggling offense.

Statement from Head Coach John Harbaugh on Greg Roman. pic.twitter.com/itERSCJP81

— Baltimore Ravens (@Ravens) January 19, 2023

The change isn’t surprising, even though Harbaugh has been publicly supportive of Roman throughout his uneven tenure as the team’s play caller. The Ravens struggled mightily offensively in the second half of the season, scoring one touchdown or fewer in each of their final six regular-season games. Just about all of that stretch came with Jackson sidelined by a knee injury, but things weren’t exactly headed in the right direction with their star quarterback on the field.

The Ravens’ offense performed a little better in a 24-17 playoff loss to the Cincinnati Bengals, but running back J.K. Dobbins was critical after the game not only about his usage but of Roman’s ill-fated call for backup Tyler Huntley to run a quarterback sneak in the fourth quarter. Huntley fumbled and Bengals defensive end Sam Hubbard returned it for a game-winning 98-yard touchdown.

“He should have never been in that situation,” Dobbins said. “I didn’t get a single carry. I believe I would have put it in the end zone, again. I’m a guy who feels like if I’m on the field all the time, I can help this team win, and I wasn’t. It’s the playoffs. Why am I not out there?”

His comments only added to the scrutiny on the Ravens’ embattled offensive coordinator.

The Ravens’ pass game continued to lack explosiveness and precision, common complaints with Roman’s offenses throughout his coaching career, and their vanilla passing concepts and designs were the subject of regular criticism by former players and television analysts. Play clock issues persisted and Roman’s situational play calling, such as in the red zone and on fourth down (the Ravens ranked 30th and 26th, respectively, in those two categories in 2022), was lacking at times. Baltimore ran the ball extremely well throughout Roman’s tenure, but it became clear that wasn’t going to be enough to get the Ravens over the hump in an AFC loaded with high-flying and versatile offenses.

Roman, 50, has been a lightning rod of criticism from Ravens fans the past couple of years and was jeered both during and after Baltimore home games this season. There was a video that surfaced on social media during the season of home fans chiding Roman after he left the stadium following a Ravens victory. Harbaugh, though, stood by him, believing Roman was the right offensive coordinator to build and direct a run-based attack that would best highlight Jackson’s dynamic skill set.

However, the offensive regression was tough to ignore and the head coach, who will be entering his 16th season at the helm of the team, will now be looking for his seventh offensive coordinator and his first since he replaced Marty Mornhinweg after 2018 by promoting Roman from the tight ends/assistant head coach role.

The Ravens don’t have a slam-dunk internal replacement. Quarterbacks coach James Urban has been viewed in some circles as a future NFL offensive coordinator, but he doesn’t have play-calling experience at this level. Urban, however, is the coach in the building who has worked closest and longest with Jackson. The quarterback has praised his position coach on numerous occasions.

Tight ends coach George Godsey, formerly an offensive coordinator with the Miami Dolphins and Houston Texans, does bring play-calling experience, but it would be a tough sell for Harbaugh with such a pivotal hire to again promote the tight ends coach. Wide receivers coach Tee Martin has been an offensive coordinator at both the high school and college (USC) levels and was interviewed in the offseason for the Buffalo Bills’ offensive coordinator opening. It’s unclear, though, how much blame Martin deserves for the static passing game and the struggles of some of the young receivers.

In his six previous offensive coordinator hires, Harbaugh has gone outside the organization three times (Cam Cameron, Gary Kubiak, Marc Trestman) and promoted from within three times (Jim Caldwell, Mornhinweg and Roman). Given how poorly the offense played for much of the season and the lack of obvious improvement from the group over the past couple of years, it certainly would make sense if Harbaugh decided to bring in somebody from the outside to inject new ideas into an attack that has gotten stale.

Harbaugh’s decision is complicated by the future of Jackson, who is eligible to hit the free-agent market in March. The Ravens would almost certainly apply the franchise tag to Jackson to keep him from the open market, but that doesn’t necessarily mean he’ll be the team’s quarterback in 2023 and beyond. Jackson could opt to stay away from the team if he was tagged, which would obviously make installing a new offense this offseason difficult.

Baltimore also could “tag and trade” Jackson, a result that seems much more possible than it did months ago after the quarterback was sidelined for the team’s final six games, creating questions both inside and outside the locker room about whether he would have pushed through the injury if he had a long-term deal from the Ravens in place. It’s fair to question whether a top offensive coordinator candidate would even be interested in the Ravens opening with Jackson’s future with the team suddenly so tenuous.

There’s also the matter of Harbaugh deciding what he wants his offense to look like, and that would be in question whether Jackson is part of it or not. If Jackson remains in the team’s plans, does Harbaugh opt for a play caller more known for his pass concepts, believing that the quarterback can flourish in a more wide-open, pass-dependent attack? Or will Harbaugh still choose a run-based approach, thinking that’s still the best way to accentuate Jackson’s strengths and mask some of the areas where he’s struggled?

It’s a hire that the Ravens need to get right before they fall further behind in the AFC. Baltimore has a defense that it believes will keep it in every game, and it’s almost always at the top of the league in special teams production. However, until the Ravens become more explosive and consistent on offense, it’s going to be hard for them to match up with the heavyweights in the conference, such as Kansas City, Buffalo and Cincinnati.

Making the right call at offensive coordinator is just the start of what has to happen. The Ravens need to have some clarity about Jackson’s future. It’s hung over the team for too long now and it’s become a source of frustration in the building. General manager Eric DeCosta also needs to solidify a receiving group that became embarrassingly thin late in the second half of 2022, when season-ending injuries to Rashod Bateman and Devin Duvernay forced the Ravens to rely on a mix of street free-agent signings, practice squad elevations and young pass catchers who haven’t proven they can produce at the NFL level.

For all the criticism directed at Roman — and clearly, a chunk of it was warranted — it was an extremely tough ask for the team to have an explosive passing game the past two years with Jackson missing so much game and practice time and with the state of the wide receiver group. But this was hardly a one- or two-year problem. Roman’s passing attacks in San Francisco and Buffalo also had issues, and his offenses there struggled to maintain and build off of early success.

With Roman leading the offense, the Ravens ranked 27th, 32nd, 13th and 28th in passing yards per game. In yards per game, the Ravens were second, 19th, sixth and 16th. As for points, the Ravens dropped off every year going from first to seventh to 17th to 19th. The numbers show an offense that wasn’t heading in the right direction.

Still, Roman did some really good things running the team’s offense and that shouldn’t be lost. From 2019 to 2021, the Ravens averaged the third-most points in the NFL at 28.3 per game, trailing just the Tampa Bay Buccaneers (29.8) and Chiefs (28.7). They also led the league in rushing average during that span by more than 30 yards per game.

The high point, of course, was in 2019, when the Ravens had their best offensive season in franchise history. They led the league in points (33.2 per game) and rushing yards (206) and were second in total yards (407.6). That team became the first in NFL history to average 200 passing yards and 200 rushing yards per game over the course of a season. The 2019 Ravens also set team records for touchdowns, points, total yards, rushing yards, first downs and fewest turnovers.

A year later, the Ravens again led the league in rushing and won a playoff game. In 2021, Baltimore finished sixth in the NFL in yards per game and third in the NFL in rushing despite Jackson missing five games, the team’s top three running backs being lost for the year before the season even started, and the offensive line remaining in flux throughout.

But this season, the Ravens never developed in the way of offensive traction. They appeared to be finding their stride in early November, but they returned from the bye and managed just 13 points against the Carolina Panthers. Two weeks later, Jackson was injured at the end of a listless first quarter against the struggling Denver Broncos.

That was the beginning of the end of the Ravens season and probably for Roman’s time as the team’s offensive coordinator, too, although there were signs of the latter popping up long before Jackson went down. With each passing week, the memories of the offensive “revolution” of 2019 started to become more and more distant. It had become clear that Roman’s efforts to recreate those memories were falling short.

(Photo of Greg Roman: Scott Taetsch / Getty Images)