Ok, so, as noted in a different thread, the narratives for the Ravens, specifically Lamar Jackson, in the playoffs have been busted. Lamar won a game, played well, played from behind, threw outside the numbers, limited the mistakes etc... This week they draw Buffalo and this is somewhat the opposite of the Titans. Buffalo will go as far as Josh Allen can take them and he has come on as a true elite QB and a weapon rivalling Lamar from an offensive perspective. Allen can throw a ball through a brick wall, he can hit any inch of the field with a throw and can throw on the run with the best of them. He runs like a running back to a degree in that he is an amazing athlete and is a LOAD to bring down. The Bills defense can surely be had and I think they can be run on and passed on. Aside from White, I don't think they have any shut down defensive players. To me, this is all about using base personnel to shut down the Bills limited running attack and focusing on stopping Allen and specifically Diggs. Diggs is a slippery little bugger and can seemingly get open on every play. I think our personnel matches very well with the Bills style of game and I think the Ravens have a really great opportunity to advance by keeping within our plan and being multidimensional. I feel the Ravens have to establish the run as they do, and work play action off the fakes and scrambles. Allow Lamar to take what the defense gives and establish some outside the numbers throws early to keep the Bills defense spread out. If they keep the defense spread out and honest, they will have difficulty stopping this offense and it will become a shootout or Buffalo will try to make it that by stretching the Ravens defense with deep plays and shots down the field. If the defense holds its integrity Buffalo will find it hard to score and the Ravens can control this game. I will say at this point, the Ravens are about as close to 100% healthy as they have been since day 1 and I will predict they win this game 27 to 17.
Tuck clanks the upright after Lamar took a bad sack in the drive. The D line isn't getting any rush on Allen in the first drive either. Not a good start.
The wind was a huge factor in the game in my opinion. The make-shift OL just killed the Ravens tonight, couldn't pass protect and the rushing was inconsistent, the Bills got far too much penetration. Credit to their front 7 ofc. Lamar needs to use this offseason to continue to improve his reads progression and learn to break his tendencies that are, he relies on Andrews far too much and throwing in the middle of the field. He also got happy feet in the pocket tonight because he had no time to really set up, but the game was still winnable till the Pick. All in all though, a good season considering all the adversity. Greg Roman can leave though, his passing schemes suck.
You know, there's been talks for awhile about how Roman can scheme up a great run game with a mobile QB, but his passing schemes are trash. I've ignored that until this year. There's a video of Kurt Warner breaking down how truly bad it is. These playoff games show that, and unfortunately it all gets blamed on Lamar. Not just Warner, others have been calling him out for this all season. I'm now in agreement. Roman needs to go
Kurt Warner exposing Greg Roman's offensive schemes in a little film study of the Titan game. It is really eye opening and shows partially why our WR look so bad, and why Lamar looks lost when he is trying to throw more often than not.
