Greg Roman to help Ravens run game get back on track

The Baltimore Ravens agreed to terms yesterday with former 49ers and Bills offensive coordinator Greg Roman to join the team in a yet to be specified role.

Roman previously spent time with the Ravens as an offensive line assistant from 2006-2007, before moving to high school and eventually college football. He made his return to the NFL in 2011 to coordinate Jim Harbaugh’s offense in San Francisco, and went up against the Ravens in Super Bowl XLVII as the engineer of the Colin Kaepernick led pistol offense of 2012.

After the 49ers cleaned house in 2014, he joined up with the Bills to run a similar offense with Tyrod Taylor up until the beginning of this season when Rex Ryan fired him to promote Anthony Lynn to Buffalo’s coordinator position.

While Roman’s role hasn't been specified, it is expected that he will help get the Ravens running game back on track.

While his struggles in Buffalo this past season may be cause for concern, his past roles may hint at some potential success in fixing what was a relatively abysmal running game for the 2016 Ravens. The aforementioned pistol offense he ran in San Francisco was heavily predicated on pounding the football with Frank Gore and Delanie Walker at the H-back position.

In 2015, Buffalo did a nice job running the ball with LeSean McCoy and Karlos Williams, and while he got away from that early in 2016, there is reason to believe that Roman may be able to help the Ravens get back to what owner Steve Bisciotti sees as the team’s offensive identity.

The main reason for confidence in his ability to do so is that Roman’s position seems to be totally focused on getting the run game going. Without the stresses of having to implement an offense and teach 20 plus players a new playbook, Roman should be able to get the offense back to a respectable rushing unit. Hopefully, he has success in doing so.