The Ravens were preparing to install a new offensive scheme at this time last year and head coach John Harbaugh was asked this week about how he feels things have progressed over the last 12 months.
Quarterback Lamar Jackson won the MVP award while executing the plays called by offensive coordinator Todd Monken, so there were plenty of positive things to bring up about the unit over the course of the season. Harbaugh’s total evaluation was that the team has just scraped the surface of what they’re capable of doing.
“I think it progressed naturally,” Harbaugh said during a Scouting Combine press conference. “We’re just beginning. We’re just starting. We’re one year into this thing. There are so many things that I feel like, looking back on it now, they actually were baby steps. They were hard steps for us to take, because it was a seat change in terms of offensive philosophy, but they were baby steps looking back on them. We have so, so far to go. . . . I met with Todd. I met with all the coaches individually. I met with Lamar a couple of days after that. I met with different players, and we have a direction right now on where we want to go. We want to be tight. We want to be locked in. We want to understand how this offense applies to Lamar and our players, and we want to do right by our players, and we want to do right by Lamar and build the best operation that we can for him so his talents can really shine. I think we’re just starting with that.”
With free agents at running back, wide receiver and on the offensive line, the Ravens have some work to do before they’ll know exactly what the offense will look like in Year Two under Monken but knowing Jackson will be at the center of it gives things some shape in the meantime.