When new Ravens offensive coordinator Greg Roman plans for the offense he’s building around quarterback Lamar Jackson, he may draw wordless pictures, with a confused-looking Scandinavian man standing on the margin.
And he admits it’s going to take more than an Allen wrench to put it all together.
“I’ve kind of compared it to putting your kid’s furniture together from IKEA,” Roman said, via Jeff Zrebiec of The Athletic. “If you make one wrong move, you’ve got to take the whole thing apart and start over again.”
Starting from scratch is easier with a dynamic player such as Jackson in the middle of it, and Roman has drawn up run-heavy offenses around similar players before. But putting in new plays and formations to maximize his talent is still a unique challenge.
“So let’s build an offense that really accommodates that, as opposed to try to fit him into something that other people had once done,” Roman said.
Last year, that meant a run-heavy scheme which helped propel them to the playoffs, but they know they have to develop Jackson as a passer as well.
“I’m looking for an efficient passing game that we build that can take advantage of all the looks we get to stop the run and create point-producing plays, big chunk plays,” Roman said. “And efficiency situationally — third down, in the red zone, two-minute [drills], all those clutch situations. That’s when you find out how good your passing game is, really. So, I mean, I feel good about our staff, what we’re putting together now and we’ll see how the race for the roster shapes up. But I think that’s a wait-and-see thing. I feel very confident about it, though.”
They’re definitely going to need to add to that roster, as receiving targets seem to be a perpetual item on their list, and another tight end and a backup quarterback are also needed, and perhaps someone to add even more juice to the running game.