Greg Roman talks about Lamar Jackson’s skills
Greg Roman was credited as an offensive mastermind for the Baltimore Ravens. Roman served as the Ravens’ offensive coordinator from the 2019-22 seasons. He earned NFL assistant coach of the year in 2019, the same season Lamar Jackson won the NFL MVP in just his second season in the league. Roman was able to build an offense around Jackson, a quarterback many didn’t think could be an elite NFL quarterback coming out of college.
Roman and Jackson have proven the doubters wrong. In an essay for the 33rd Team, Roman wrote about what he learned from coaching Jackson. He praised the quarterback’s skills at managing injury risk outside of the pocket and said it’s an offensive coordinator’s job to build around a quarterback’s strengths:
“If you have a quarterback with certain skills, you’ve got to tap into their strengths, and you’ve got to mine for gold there and have convictions. When you’re doing something different, half the fans aren’t even going to understand it because that’s not what they’re used to. You know that going in, but you’ve got to have the strength of conviction and courage to forge ahead with it.”
Jackson is currently in a contract dispute with the Ravens. We’ll see if his next offensive coordinator values Jackson’s elite capabilities like Roman.