Ravens Forging Ahead With Greg Roman

Offensive coordinator has been under fire.

OWINGS MILLS, Md. — Despite some criticism, coach John Harbaugh has seen the Ravens make strides under Greg Roman.

That's why Harbaugh is prepared to move forward with Roman as the offensive coordinator next season.  

"I'm planning on Greg to be back," Harbaud is in his first press conference since the season ended. "I believe Greg plans on being back. That's the plan, and I'm excited about that. We've done some pretty darn good things here over the past three years, offensively. I think we have a really good vision and understanding of what we want to build offensively, who we're going to build around and what we need to do it."

Baltimore's offense did not perform that poorly this season despite a myriad of injuries.

The Ravens were ranked in the top half of middle of the NFL for several offensive categories, including:

• Points per game: 22.8 (17th)

• Yards per game: 378.8, (6th)

• Passing yards per game: 233 (13th)

• Rushing yards per game: 145.8 (3rd)

Both wide receiver Marquise Brown and tight end Mark Andrews eclipsed 1,000 receiving yards on the season. It was just the second Baltimore tandem to reach the 1,000-yard mark in the same season, joining Michael Jackson and Derrick Alexander accomplished that feat in 1996. 

Ravens quarterback Jackson missed the last four games with a bone bruise in his ankle. He finished the season with 2,882 yards passing with 16 interceptions and 13 interceptions (87.0 rating). 

Jackson admitted the offense has to be better, especially the passing attack.

"We have great running backs, we’ve got a great run game, but that passing game is going to help us even more, so we need to just keep doing that, keep getting better at that; keep getting better at everything – not just the passing game," he said. "There’s always room for improvement with anything you do.”

Nonetheless, Harbaugh expects the offense to play much better next season. 

"We came up short this year in a lot of ways, but if you take a step back, it's kind of interesting what we did," Harbaugh said. "We gained a lot of yards, but we didn't do a good enough job of turning yards into points. That's really what it boils down to."