Ravens OC Greg Roman has a history of slow play calling

Despite a resounding 24-9 victory against the New York Jets on Sunday, Baltimore Ravens head coach John Harbaugh did come away with a major problem with the offense led by Greg Roman that he felt needed fixing: The speed with which play calls were delivered.

While Harbaugh may say that this had to do with the plays being called, Roman’s history shows a consistent problem with getting calls in on time.

Playing with a slow pace is one of the bedrocks of Roman’s offense.

According to Football Outsiders, Roman’s offenses have only finished in the top half of the league in terms of fewest seconds per play in neutral situations, and during his first three years in Baltimore, the Ravens ranked 27th, 30th, and 26th.

In its highest form, his offense runs through the defense, makes them wait awhile, and then does it again. This takes time off the clock and leads to long, methodical touchdown drives.

The problem is that when you run this type of offense the offensive coordinator has to be on top of getting plays in. When you spend more time standing around you have less margin for error, and they have to be able to quickly react on the fly.

Well, it turns out asking Greg Roman to quickly react is like asking me to perform a flawless backflip or cook a gourmet chicken.

The Penalties

Throughout his stints as an offensive play caller, Roman’s offenses have been chronically bad at getting snaps off in time.

In fact, with the exception of the 2020 Ravens, every one of his offenses has wound up in the top-10 in most delay of game penalties called. Last year’s Ravens were tied for third, and despite having a historically dominant regular season the 2019 team still wound up tied for eighth.

But looking back at previous stints, the problem is not confined to any team or roster.

Both his teams in Buffalo wound up in the top ten in delay of game penalties. His teams in San Francisco finished in the top three in such penalties all four years, including one year leading the league.

One such example of Roman’s slow play-calling came in last year’s game against the Rams.

Up 16-14 and with first and goal at the five-yard line with just under seven minutes left, the Raven appeared to be in prime position to put the game away.

However, the Ravens got away with a delay of game that wasn’t called on first down and got the snap off just as the clock was ticking to zero on second down, leading to discombobulated runs that only gained a total of one yard.

On third down, the most crucial play of the game, one in which the coaching staff seemingly should already know the plan, the Ravens were called for an inexplicable delay of game, moving them back five yards.

Tyler Huntley then took a sack, forcing the Ravens to kick a field goal that kept the margin at one possession, an opportunity with which the Rams took full advantage by scoring a game-winning touchdown on their next drive.

The Other Effects

Beyond the penalties, there are other consequences to Roman’s slow play calling.

The NFL’s Football Operations website ran a study in 2021 that looked at how wasteful coaches were in using their timeouts over the previous four seasons.

In other words, they looked at how many of their timeouts were used for time-saving purposes, and how many of them were used for unnecessary extracurricular activities such as failed challenges and yes, timeouts to stop delays of game.

As a whole, John Harbaugh graded out positively in this metric. He is an experienced coach who is generally a good game manager and graded out in the top half of the league in terms of fewest unnecessary timeouts per game.

However, the area where he graded out most poorly was in that labeled “unnecessary offense,” meaning timeouts wasted on structural offensive issues such as misalignment or the play-clock running down, finishing ninth-worst in the league with almost one wasteful offensive timeout per game.

That is a direct result of Roman’s failure to get play calls in, and those wasted timeouts build up over the course of a season.

Now, I know this article may be bumming some people out, so let’s improve everyone’s mood. Ravens fans are generally excited right now, as they should be following a performance like the one the Ravens had on Sunday.

So let’s look at a different time when a Roman offense was too slow to snap the ball.

Roman was the offensive coordinator of the 2012 49ers — a team that advanced to the Super Bowl and played the Ravens. Down five the 49ers got inside the 10 with a chance to go ahead with under two minutes left, and then, well Roman took over.

On third down, Jim Harbaugh had to call a timeout to avoid a delay of game, a timeout that they really could have used later on (so basically we have Greg Roman to thank for the Sam Koch safety).

And on fourth down, the biggest play call of Roman’s career, one which the coaches presumable prepared for ad nauseam during preparation, the 49ers did not get set at the line of scrimmage until there were only seven seconds left on the play clock.

The Ravens got the stop, and they won the Super Bowl. Thank you, Greg Roman!

John Harbaugh can spend all the time he wants saying this is an issue that needs to be fixed, but the truth is that this simply is what you get when Roman is your offensive coordinator. As long as he is calling plays, this will simply continue to be an issue that holds the Ravens back.