There are plenty of (run-pass-) options

Team hadn’t embraced wave of RPOs sweeping over NFL, but that’s changing

When the Ravens drafted Lamar Jackson in the first round of April’s NFL draft, eulogies were all but written for the offense as we knew it. Out would go underperforming Joe Flacco and the predictable attack, a mix of short passes and power running. In would come Jackson and an innovative, blink-and-you-miss-it onslaught.

These predictions were premature, of course. Flacco has been perhaps the offense’s most consistent weapon a week and a half into training camp. Jackson has looked like most rookie quarterbacks do against the Ravens defense: promising but still unpolished, athletic but often inaccurate.

In one crucial way, though, the offense is distancing itself somewhat from the familiar rhythms of recent years. The team’s offseason evolution has pointed coordinator Marty Mornhinwheg’s system toward one similar to Jackson’s at Louisville. The Ravens, like most of the NFL, are embracing a pro-style offense with runpass-option (RPO) elements. One season after finishing with the fewest RPO plays in the league, nearly six months after watching the Philadelphia Eagles tear apart the New England Patriots’ defense with a well-balanced attack that included RPOs, the Ravens should look different on offense this season, even if their quarterback is the same.

“It’s a little bit more part of the offense,” Mornhinweg recently said of RPOs. “You know, our base is this and we do these things and it makes the base very good. If you don’t do these things, you get slapped in the face when you [don’t do them well]. It’s part of this now instead of that.”

Part of the appeal, defensive coordinator TV: