The Ravens are moving forward with Greg Roman as their offensive coordinator, Head Coach John Harbaugh confirmed Monday afternoon.
Roman has been the offensive play-caller for the past three years and will look to take the unit to another level after injuries majorly impacted its 2021 season.
"I'm planning on Greg to be back. I believe Greg plans on being back," Harbaugh said. "That's the plan, and I'm excited about that.
"We've done some pretty darn good things here over the past three years, offensively. I think we have a really good vision and understanding of what we want to build offensively – who we're going to build around and what we need to do it."
The Ravens had widespread injuries this year, but the offense bore the heaviest brunt.
Lamar Jackson was knocked out for a third of the season, just as Baltimore was scratching to make the playoffs. Both top running backs were lost before the season started. All-Pro left tackle Ronnie Stanley was done after just one game.
Still, the Ravens offense finished sixth in the league in total yards. Where it fell short was in points, finishing at 17th after a tough final stretch.
Over the Ravens' six-game losing streak to close out the season, the offense had red-zone struggles, including a few notable missed opportunities to score touchdowns and a pair of missed two-point conversions to win the game.
While of course acknowledging the injuries, Harbaugh didn't excuse the offense's struggles. Instead, he outlined them, saying they have to improve the called run game (runs minus quarterback scrambles), get better pass protection and cut down on the penalties, especially pre-snap.
"We came up short this year in a lot of ways, but if you take a step back, it's kind of interesting what we did," Harbaugh said. "We gained a lot of yards, but we didn't do a good enough job of turning yards into points. That's really what it boils down to."
In analyzing why the Ravens got so many yards but not points, Harbaugh said they often didn't have good field position (so they had to go the distance often), had too many turnovers in the red zone (especially late), and not enough big plays (in the second half of the season).
At the end of the day, points matter most and the Ravens offense has dropped three straight years in scoring average. However, that started with an extremely high bar in 2019.
In 2019, with a "revolutionary" scheme and Jackson in MVP form, the Ravens offense finished atop the league in scoring and second in yards. Roman was named the NFL's Assistant Coach of the Year.
The unit slipped in 2020, finishing 19th in yards but seventh in scoring. The Ravens got a little out of balance, however, as they were last in passing yards per game but first in rushing.
This year, the Ravens made big improvements in the passing game, finishing 13th despite Jackson's absences, but the rushing game slipped some without J.K. Dobbins and Gus Edwards to third. Harbaugh believes the unit can turn things around in 2022.
"I know we can look at [our issues] with the coaching staff that we have, build off it with the players that we have," Harbaugh said. "Let's choose our scheme direction wisely. … We've got all the elements in the offense."
