The Ravens expected the ground game to be the foundation of the offense coming into the season.
With every piece returning from a rushing attack that averaged 4.5 yards per carry in 2014, the Ravens wanted their offensive identity to be built on the ground.
But like many aspects of last season, the plans didn't work out that way.
The Ravens were unable to match the success they had on the ground from the previous year, and they often had to go with a pass-heavy offense to try to score points. As the Ravens look through what went wrong in the 5-11 season, finding a way to re-establish the running game is a top priority.
"Running the football, it's our identity," Head Coach John Harbaugh said. "So, to the extent that we didn't run the ball well, yes, we lost our identity a little bit and we have to be able to do that. We're going to find our way back that way, and we're going to work on that right now."
The issues in the running game can't be pinpointed to one particular cause.
The problems started early in the year as the offensive line dealt with injuries during training camp and the preseason. Left tackle Eugene Monroe went down with a concussion on the opening series of Week 1 and missed the next four games, and right tackle Rick Wagner had to deal with the lingering effects of a Lisfranc foot injury.
No. 2 running back Lorenzo Taliaferro played just three games before a foot injury ended his season for the second year in a row. Starter Justin Forsett suffered a broken arm in Week 11 that ended his season, and the Ravens had rookie Buck Allen in the starting lineup for the rest of the year.
The Ravens also had to deal with defenses stacking the box to keep them from even having a chance to run the ball. Without a speedy downfield threat at receiver, defenses would crowd the line of scrimmage and dare the Ravens to throw.
"Part of that is scheme, part of that is how many times we call it and when we call it," Harbaugh said. "There's play-action that goes with it [and] passes behind runs that keep the linebackers off your run game – all of those things that we need to build into our run game to be as good as we can be. I do believe our offensive line is a type of offensive line that can run the football."
The other piece of the equation is that the Ravens consistently trailed in games throughout the season, which limited their ability to stick with the running game.
By the time the season ended, the Ravens finished with 383 rushing attempts for 1,478 yards and eight touchdowns. The offense averaged 3.9 yards per carry, which ranked 24th in the NFL. Their 92.4 yards per game ranked 26th, which was a steady decline from 2014 where the offense churched out 126.2 rush yards per game.
Harbaugh explained that he and first-year Offensive Coordinator Marc Trestman had dialogue throughout the year about the best ways to attack defenses on a week-to-week basis, but the offense was never able to develop into the stellar ground-and-pound approach they wanted.
"There's really no reason for us not to be effective running the football with all of the guys we put out there, including the young guys that played at the end of the year," Harbaugh said. "Those guys, they did a great job. So, that's on us as coaches. We have to scheme it, stay with it and find ways to do it across the board schematically and do a better job of it."
