All Icing No Cake

[masterpanthera_t]

(09-12-2020, 04:45 PM)Bmore Birds Wrote: Thanks for taking the time to post this.

To your first paragraph: He does get to the sideline a lot. We leave the DE unblocked on those plays and Lamar keeps it only if the DE bites on the run. So it's mostly DBs who tackle him or run him out of bounds. It is a valid concern though. Lamar has to be smart about it but the plays are set up to give him the option of avoiding contact. You're right though, it only takes one hit. Disagree that defenses are surprised, pretty sure they've been wary of the read option since his first game.

Second paragraph: That's really the multi million dollar question. Safe to say he's not a bad passer but opinions really vary from there.

Thanks to you for posting the stats and the analysis you made from those stats.

To the bolded: I'm saying the same thing you're saying. That because defenses are less surprised about the read option, especially because (I am not sure if stats back this up), the Ravens use designed runs at a much higher rate than other teams in previous years, the defense is expecting a Lamar run and more likely to get a hit on him. Also, the reason why I said that while designed runs are less likely to lead to injuries, it's usually (IMO) because a defense is likely to be surprised by it. But because defenses are not as surprised when they play the Ravens, those injury stats might not be in the same context. Hope that makes it clear. And because they use more designed runs, there's a chance Lamar will get "caught" in one of those runs that leads to an injury. I'm just wondering if the conclusion I drew could be plausible. If Lamar keeps running circles around defenses for one more season, perhaps I'd lean more toward the conclusion that he's that "one exceptional player" who sees the field so well, is so fast and so elusive, that he simply cannot be injured by a clean hit. Which, I'm not dismissing right now. We'll get more evidence this season, so let's see. I just happen to think if he's not that type of exception, then eventually his passing deficiencies will not be patched up enough to make him on the same level as a Mahomes or Russell Wilson. But we're talking about three to five years from now. Anyways, we'll find out.