Flacco has never had great downfield accuracy even when he was throwing deep at a high rate. I think the pullback from the deep ball was as much to do with Flacco's limitations as it was to schematic changes. I don't recall Cutler being thought of as a checkdown guy under Trestman.Warwick9 wrote: ↑Fri Jun 09, 2017 12:13 pm wow some people are short sighted, I agree it's padless practice, but the defense also doesnt have pads and can't keep up to Perriman. Has he really shown enough disappointment that people can already write him off as a true #1 WR? Ravens have never drafted 1, and imo will give Perriman every chance to prove that their rare 1st round investment(after a year of seasoning/a year of countless tough times with death of best friend/re-occurring injury and hospitalized father) has all the tools and now confidence to prove he was worth the pick.
the short sighted comment was due to the thought that "checkdown joe" has always been this way...pre-Trestman, he threw deep passes more than 95% of QBs in the league. Also, Pitta's career is done, so his long time buddy isn't there anymore for him to throw 4 yard passes to and fall down, now that will likely be Woodhead or Dixon catching them and getting YAC.
Further, Torrey Smith got 137 targets in the highest target season for a receiver under Flacco in 2013 and that was with zero running game. Outside of that season, most receivers were capping out in the 110 range.
Basically, you need Flacco to focus in on one guy, which he historically does not do & throw an effective deep ball, which he historically does not do. You'll also probably need the run game to be absolute garbage. Finally, you'll also need Perriman to supplant an established Mike Wallace and potentially Maclin or Decker to become that targetted receiver when he has historically struggled with catch rate and profiled as a situational deep threat last year. I like the optimism, but I ain't investing in it.
