Rams will interview 49ers OC Greg Roman

[Yamahopper]

Don't let him get out of town without a contract. He can run the ball.

 

[jrry32]

I don't know. Roman has impressed me in the past with the way they scheme their WRs open but this year, he just didn't have it as a play-caller. Although, I have to wonder how much control Harbaugh had.

 

[yrba1]

I don't know. Roman has impressed me in the past with the way they scheme their WRs open but this year, he just didn't have it as a play-caller. Although, I have to wonder how much control Harbaugh had.

With the offseason acquisitions they made, it's possible Harbaugh adjusted the scheme to make it more pass friendly. Too bad their quarterback wasn't

 

[Fatbot]

I'm usually against anything 49er-related but here may be a couple reasons in his favor. One is Harbaugh is an utter moron so his assistants must have been doing something right to win. Two is since 49er fans are the least knowledgeable group in all sports fandom then if they think Roman is bad that likely means the opposite is true.

 

[TheDYVKX]

Roman is not an upgrade over Schottenheimer, I'm sorry. Please don't hire him.

 

[RamBall]

He was fine until he went pass happy this season.

How much of that was due to harblow tryin to prove that krapondick was the greatest QB ever? I agree, if he would have stuck with the run all was good for the whiners, thank god harblow wouldnt let that happen.

 

[fearsomefour]

The most unfortunate part of my job is the high amount of 49er fans I must work with. They blame Roman for everything. They also can't believe they let Hairball get away and kept a GM responsible for consecutive terrible drafts. But mainly, they hate Roman.

The most fortunate part of my job has been the dismay caused by my favorite OC, Greg Roman.

Pass

Me, also being in the Sierra, am surrounded by Whiner fans also.
Roman is the devil to them. They successfully ignore how, overall, successful the Whiner O was until this year with a QB with a lot of limitations to his game. That said, if Roman is to get credit for him amazingly "creative" running game, then he should catch some blame for the lack of passing offense given the investment the team has made.
For the record, I see a lot of old school full house backfield stuff when the Whiners were playing from ahead and pounding the ball....not "creative" per sey, but usually very well executed.
It was surprising how much and how quickly the wheels came off this season....there were injuries, but, every team has them. Tons of flags, "ram" sort of flags too....illegal alignments, false starts, delay of game. In reality I think Roman has been doing it with a lot of smoke and mirrors for a couple of years and it finally caught up to him.

 

[Memphis Ram]

How much of that was due to harblow tryin to prove that krapondick was the greatest QB ever? I agree, if he would have stuck with the run all was good for the whiners, thank god harblow wouldnt let that happen.

No one knows.

It could have very well been the other way around with him saying, hey Jim, let's try this....

 

[rdlkgliders]

His offense was anemic this past season much like ours was.

 

[Elmgrovegnome]

Roman was highly regarded from his days with Stanford and then coming to San Francisco with Harbaugh. He has been considered for college head coaching jobs. He has been good more than he has been bad.

Now let me ask you this. Who has been more imaginative in the run game? Which OC continually pounded the ball up the gut when there was no blocking? Roman is better at the run scheme than Schottenheimer IMO.

Now onto the poor passing attack. Harbaugh realized just like every single coach in the NFL now realizes (Except Fisher) that you can no longer win the big game without a good passing game. So Ba'alke brings in some good WR talent and Harbaugh wants Roman to insert a passing game. Who the hell can insert an affective passing game with Colin Kaepernick, when you have to adjust things so he does not have to read the entire field? If Kaepernick is not capable of anything but the Read option and an occasional pass then that is not on the OC. Throw in that their best target, Vernon Davis took a nap this year. And their Oline really broke down. Remember that Oline never was a great pass blocking Oline, so it is not like Roman never worked with limitations.

I wont put it all on Roman and I certainly wont listen to a bunch of message board Niner fans who I have no history with. You could read crap like that about the Rams on Ramstalk even back in the early 2000's.

Is Roman the best possible hire? Probably not for us fans that want to see some innovative passing, but he is a good fit for Fisher.

I'd be fine with the hire if it helps this power run scheme actually be able to run a power run scheme.

 

[WestCoastRam]

Many coaches and players take jobs in new cities and don't even move their homes and just have temporary homes. Maybe a selling point to Roman is that there's a very good chance he keeps his family where they're at and comes back to CA in a year...

 

[Amitar]

Forty niner fans do not like him. Why the blank they are even interviewing him is beyond me with all the other well respected OC's. My faith in this team is waning.

 

[RamsFan14]

LOVE the move, I'd be pretty happy if we hired Greg Roman as the OC. This guy was a hot commodity in years past, yea sure he didn't have the greatest year in 2014 but you can attribute it to the 49ers players as much as Roman. I love the move, I'd be pretty excited if we ended up hiring him. We'll see what happens.

 

[den-the-coach]

Well, the 49ers suffered many injuries along the offensive line and although they thought they had playmakers at WR they truly were suffering from vertical congestion. They did not have a WR that could stretch the field plus Frank Gore was getting old and Carlos Hyde was a disappointment.

God I sound like a Georgia Bulldog fan!

 

[WestCoastRam]

Reasons for and against:

For:

1) Loved the work he did after a lockout shortened season with Alex Smith. Resurrected his career.

2) Run game innovator. Love the inverted wishbone and think we've got good personnel for it (if we keep Kendricks).

3) Runs mostly power running and not zone blocking. Seems like we have more power pieces than zone right now.

3) Redid offense mid-season when Kapernick took over and it took off.

Against:

1) How much on any of his success is due to Harbaugh's offensive accuman (though it's actually been said that the offense is all Roman and there's minimal input from not only Harbaugh but other offensive assistants too)?

2) This pivots off the parentheses earlier: does not use acumen of offensive assistants to build game plan. May be too rigid.

2) Seemed unable to change is play-calling this year when it wasn't working.

3) Horrible play-calling in the 2nd half of games this year (We've already seen that!)

4) Questionable play-calling in read-zone.

 

[rdlkgliders]

My concern with Roman is in order to justify him we have to what if and make excuses for his teams lack of offensive output. If we were to give Schotty that same consideration there is not enough of a difference for me. I know I played a little bit of the devils advocate there but it is something to consider.
I am in favor of a proven commodity or maybe someone from within. It is always exciting to see and speculate on an addition that brings this kind of potential impact to our team.

 

[Mojo Ram]

It seems to me that any evaluation of the 2014 SF 49ers comes with an asterisk. The cloud of the imminent break up was hanging all over that team and it's coaches all season. Stories about certain players mailing it in etc...

Rams haven't hired Roman yet, so i think this is a great interview. I wish Darrell Bevell was available instead, but with Alex Smith and early Kap, they had a nice play-action ground n pound offense going there. That's what I've been waiting to see here, anyway.

 

[Angry Ram]

This is from a thread on a 49ers board on Greg Roman's 2-year extension in 2013. The first 3 comments are from 2013 and then it shifts to the end of this season.
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http://sfo.scout.com/forums/1922-49ers-hardcore/11656584-greg-roman-signs-extension

nice move- the mad scientist gets a pay bump and an extension. he still could leave next year for a HC job. but i'm selfishly hoping he doesn't.
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Same here. Early on, I felt that losing him wouldn't be a huge deal, since he didn't seem to be doing much special and Harbaugh was anyway an offensive-minded head coach, mitigating the importance of the offensive coordinator.

But I've grown to appreciate his creativity, best seen in the running game so far, and willingness to tailor offenses to his personnel, like incorporating the Pistol and read-option concepts when Kaepernick took over. Hopefully, with a full off-season knowing that Kaepernick will be the starter, he'll have an equally creative gameplan developed for the passing game this season.

The run game has been absolutely state of the art and it would be nice to see an innovative passing game built around Kaepernick (much the way the Patriots built one in recent years around Brady, running more spread, hurry-up and utilizing two tight ends really well).
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think we were seeing more of the open passing game too with CK in there, later in the year. i'm excited to see what the mad scientist has planned with all the weapons we have this year (even with c-tree down for a while) AND a full offseason to work with CK. should be a great showcase of his abilities as a coach to utilize his weapons and gameplan for his opponents.
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Wow..my my my how things have changed.
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i still think he's a highly capable coach. but I think he's hamstrung by his QB's limitations.
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Wait a minute. Wait a minute. Wait, wait, wait ......... wait a minute. Hamstrung by his QB's limitations? Huh? Isn't his job to improve the QB?. Isn't it his job to maximize the strengths and minimize the weaknesses of his players? Isn't that what he draws a paycheck for? Under Roman the offense is a disaster. Stone age blocking schemes. Lousy pass route design. Can you say unimaginative? Statistically one of the worst in the league. And with a defense that consistently does its job and gets the offense the ball far better than most teams.

Kaepernick is no Peyton Manning. But under Roman, Peyton Manning would be no Peyton Manning either. Except Manning would have this dud fired by the second pre-season game. But Kaepernick can play, he's shown he can but under Roman's expert tutelage his performance has been in straight line decline. The OLine has declined individually and collectively.

Gore at least has been Gore, but the SF is where wide receivers and tight ends come to die. There is not a single offensive player that has improved under Roman. Not one. And he has failed to develop a single young player. And this guy is capable? He's had three years to correct this unbelievable delay/time out situation and has failed totally. Some capability. No, no. He sits on top of this manure pile. He is responsible. Its called leadership.

I'm sure he's a nice guy, family man, likes animals and is kind to old ladies. But NFL quality he is not. Maybe he'll do well at Michigan.
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Two huge factors to his success last night.

1) San Diego did not get much of a pass rush against Kaepernick, and that gave him a lot more time to get comfortable in the pocket.

2) Gore's great start at running made the play-action effective, which forced the defense to commit, which opened up lanes to the outside.

Note, however, that Kaepernick did almost all of his damage from under center. His success in the past running came a lot out of the read-option and pistol, things which have been increasingly ineffective year over year without the threat of the pass.

Kap still struggled with some of his short area/tight window passing (particularly in the red zone), but he had some beautiful passes without the pressure in his face as well. Two of his best passes were brought back, too (the post back-endzone toss to Boldin and the outside the numbers route in stride that he hit Vernon Davis on). The game plan wasn't really that different, but the execution early and the inability of San Diego to mount enough of a pass rush played a huge part in his success.

Note: Anthony Davis and Marcus Martin were healthy, so this was as good an OLine as they've had in weeks. Not having Jonathan Martin getting bowled over on the right side repeatedly was a huge boon.
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Here's another thread on him needing to be fired...
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http://sfo.scout.com/forums/1922-49ers-hardcore/13413496-official-fire-greg-roman-thread?s=69

Our Offense is BASIC CABLE!!! No Creativity!!! Roman got to go!
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yeah it's definitely not roman who is the biggest problem. his QB is playing like a rookie at times. not seeing open receivers, seeing ghosts, missing open receivers, and panicking in the pocket. I don't care who is calling the plays. if the QB is playing like that, we'll continue to suck.
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This is what happens when you take a multi-talented QB who is a great natural runner and try to turn him into a pocket passer. They are destroying his confidence and he doesn't look anything like the firebrand who first came onto the scene.

Fire Harbaugh and Roman, make Fangio the HC and Tomsula defensive coordinator. Then, PLEASE hire Kap's college coach, Chris Ault, who created and designed the Pistol for Kap. This is B***S***
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You can't blame overthrows and direct passes to CBs on the OC. CK needs to be benched. Just look at his production over the last 6 games. One of the worst in the league. Maybe the worst. It has A LOT to do with him.

We will get rid of Roman and Harbaugh regardless in the offseason. We will trade Harbaugh. Hopefully we give our DC a huge raise to stay. Hire a legit offensive guy to run the show. Could you imagine Chip Kelley with this team?
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There's plenty of blame to go around on both Kap and the coaches.

Every multi-talented QB who was a great natural runner had to transition into being more of a pocket passer. Randall Cunningham did. Donovan McNabb did. Michael Vick did. Steve Youngdid.

There has yet to be a QB, at least one who's been successful to my knowledge, who was given free reign to run around and just rely on his God given athletic ability instead of being expected to transition to a pocket passer first.

We ran that offense basically when Kap first assumed the starting role, and yes he, and the offense, looked great. We scrapped it by and large because it's the NFL and defensive coordinators who have the benefit of the greatest football athletes on the planet lining up for them figured it out. They'd figure out the Pistol too in a year or so. Then you're once again back to square one.

If Kaepernick's confidence is being destroyed or if he can't transition into a pocket passer, that's a Kaepernick problem.

The young man needs to spend every available moment he has working on improving his accuracy as a passer. You can be the greatest athlete and have the strongest arm of anyone playing the position in the league. But if you can't hit your receivers often enough with accurate throws, then... well, how has Michael Vick's career panned out in the big picture in this league? That's Kapernick's path unless he puts in the work to change that.
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Greg Roman and Jim Harbaugh are demonstrating how to destroy the confidence and creativity of a great young QB. Harbaugh is dumb and immature and Roman is way out of his league, never having developed a pro-style passing game at any level. Pathetic. I am ashamed of Jed York and Eddie D must be suffering from dementia to have not said anything yet...You can't blame the QB, even though he had his worst passing game since becoming a 49er.

He passes best on the run, so they keep him in the pocket. Roman apparently knows no passing schemes other than long passes down the sidelines. Give Kap the tools he needs, not a basic vanilla scheme. I've been watching the Niners for 68 seasons and have never seen a more pathetic and impotent offensive display. Changes will be made sooner rather than later.
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It occurs to me that when Harbaugh was hired he made a big thing in an interview of being privately tutored by Bill Walsh for 9 months on the West Coast Offense. Everyone expected him to bring it with him. Has anyone seen it??? He is either too stubborn to use Bill's offense, or too dumb to remember the details of it. Walsh was a genius. While Roman and Harbaugh react to what the defense does, Bill would predetermine what the defense would have to do by scripting the first 15-20 plays.

He'd script his first play, knowing fully what each defender would have to do; the second play would be based upon how he thought they would react to his first play, etc. In other words, by varying his play calls, Walsh was controlling the defense, not the other way around. WAY OVER HARBAUGH AND ROMAN'S COLLECTIVE HEADS.
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The play either calls for a 3, 5 or 7-step drop and you do what the play calls for. Roman likes to keep him in the pocket with deep drops. Not smart.
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Greg Roman may, indeed, be replaced.. but his play calling has not been as bad as many think. Execution of the game plan remains a huge issue, from the O Line simply not being able to consistently sustain blocks in protection (or simply being out of sync), to Kaepernick consistently staring wide open WR in the face and failing to pull the trigger. I discussed this in the 'bench Kap' thread, but.. Roman and his staff definitely deserve criticism, but I think the criticism of them has more to do with adjustments than with play calling (or play design) as a whole.

When things aren't working, either because the defense is taking things away or the offense is unable to execute the called plays (or, as the case was yesterday, both), they have to make adjustments. And, week to week, they need to start to figure out ways to call plays that aren't leaving the same reads on the table. To be fair, they did call many more roll outs, but the WR corps still wasn't able to get further down field despite that, and, in fact, by having Kaepernick roll out, the Seattle DBs knew (more or less) the side the ball was going to and could cheat off the opposite side. The couple times that roll out was successful was when Kaep reversed field (like on that 3rd down conversion to Boldin, who cut across the grain and was wide open on the other side). Of course, plays like that can only be called so often.

The question is, what adjustments can be made? The OLine has to be able to sustain blocks to start. The WR have to be able to stretch the field. And the QB has to be able to make the throws when they are there. That didn't happen last night, and it hasn't happened consistently in many games. Richard Sherman was absolutely right in saying that the 49ers are not a team to be concerned with right now, because these are very basic things an offense has to be able to do.

Harbaugh, Chryst, Roman.. I don't know who needs to take the blame for Kaepernick not playing basic fundamental football, but moving forward (if they are around for next year), there can't be anymore Kaepernick working out on his own. They have to take ownership of his development. They need to make him work on the aspects of his game that continue to break down in the heat of battle.

But.. the play calling is not the issue. It's maybe 5th on the list of issues, to be frank. They do need to be less stubborn if the team isn't executing and find other plays that work, but that doesn't mean suddenly changing the entire identity of the team. Power running can be effective (Seattle won the Super Bowl last year without a dynamic offense), but it cannot be if everything else is failing to work around it.
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Play calling is not the issue. Coaching incompetence is the issue. Kaepernick is at fault? Well any QB with an IQ smaller than his shoe size is bound to have execution problems. But who chose him to replace Alex S.? Who has stuck with him through thin and thinner?. Who decided he was a pocket passer?

Nah. The problem is coaching. The defense loses three quarters of its foundation - the linebacking corp, - its nose tackle, and then its back up nose tackle and its best CB, and still it plays at a high level. That's due to good coaching. That's due to Fangio.

The central issue is not talent. There's plenty of talent. Its Harbaugh and Roman. Do the test - name three young players (offense only) that have improved under their stewardship. OK name two. How about one. Yep can't disagree with you. Now, do the same thing using regression. Yep again. Under those circumstances play calling is totally irrelevant. May as well do the old pick-up game 'everyone go out for a pass and I'll hit the open guy' routine. Laughable. And sad.

Where are the clowns? Send in the clowns. Don't bother they're here.

^^^^LOL

Internet football fan mentality: Blame the OC.

 

[RamBill]

Former 49ers offensive coordinator Roman on Rams' radar
• By Jim Thomas

http://www.stltoday.com/sports/foot...cle_cd4c545f-9187-59f7-be8b-34e796a09a87.html

Just two years ago, Greg Roman was being portrayed as one of the game’s brightest offensive minds as coordinator of the Super Bowl runner-up San Francisco 49ers.

He was viewed as an innovator who successfully incorporated second-year quarterback Colin Kaepernick into the offense after a midseason injury to starter Alex Smith (against the Rams) ended Smith’s season.

The native of Ventnor, N.J. was also regarded as a victim of his own success because the 49ers’ run to the Super Bowl all but eliminated him as a potential head-coaching candidate. He was that hot.

How quickly things change. After appearing in three straight NFC title games, the 49ers fell to 8-8 and out of the running this season. The 49ers scored only 306 points — fewer than the Rams’ 324 points.

Along he way, he was criticized for the 49ers’ lackluster offensive performance to the point where even the daughter of general manager Trent Baalke tweeted: “The 49ers don’t want you no more” following the team’s 19-3 loss to Seattle on Thanskgiving.

With coach Jim Harbaugh gone to Michigan, Roman is looking for work. And despite the 49ers’ off-year offensively in 2014, Roman is attracting interest from several teams —

including the Rams.

The Post-Dispatch learned early Friday evening that Rams have been granted permission by the 49ers to interview Roman.

He is the first known candidate for the offensive coordinator’s job created when Brian Schottenheimer left Wednesday to take the same position with the Georgia Bulldogs. Rams coach Jeff Fisher is known to be deliberate when making staff hires, but with the coaching carousel in full swing around the league, he may have to act in a more expeditious manner to land one of the top candidates.

At face value, Roman ran pretty much the type of offense that Fisher would like in St. Louis: a power-running attack that doesn’t turn the ball over much and features enough passing to keep opposing defenses honest.

In Roman’s first three seasons as coordinator (2011-13) the 49ers committed a combined 44 turnovers, a league low over that span. Even though he was criticized at times for not using veteran running back Frank Gore enough, the 49ers never finished lower than eighth in the NFL in rushing offense over his four-year tenure.

Even this season, despite the other offensive shortcomings, the 49ers finished fourth in both rushing offense and yards per carry.

According to reports by various media outlets, Roman also has drawn interest from the Buffalo Bills, Tampa Bay Buccaneers and Jacksonville Jaguars. Buffalo is interested in Roman as a head coach; the interest in Tampa Bay and Jacksonville is for offensive coordinator.

The Tampa Bay opening has since gone to Dirk Koetter, once the offensive coordinator for Bob Stull at the University of Missouri.

In Jacksonville, Roman has strong ties with Jaguars general manager David Caldwell. They were college roommates at John Carroll University and even lived together for a while when they were breaking into the league in the 1990s at Carolina.

Roman, now 42, entered the league in 1995 as an offensive line assistant with the expansion Panthers. After seven seasons there, he had stints with the Houston Texans and Baltimore Ravens.

Roman was part of Jim Harbaugh’s staff at Stanford in 2009-10 before Harbaugh brought him along to San Francisco in 2011.

There are several other possible candidates to replace Schottenheimer:

• If Fisher stays in-house, tight ends coach Rob Boras could be the most logical. Boras is well-respected at Rams Park and could make it a relatively seamless tradition since he obviously knows the terminology used by Schottenheimer for three seasons.

• Recently fired Chicago head coach Marc Trestman has a good reputation as an offensive coach and play-caller but may be too pass-oriented to suit Fisher.

• Oakland offensive coordinator Greg Olson, who held the same title for two seasons with Scott Linehan in St. Louis, could be more of an under-the-radar choice. Olson took over the play-calling for the latter part of the Rams’ 2006 season and the team flourished down the stretch, finishing 8-8. (It’s the team’s last non-losing season.)

Steven Jackson put together his finest year at running back and Olson showed patience in sticking with the run that year. Olson’s profile has since suffered to a degree because he has worked at franchises with less-than-stellar success in Tampa Bay, Jacksonville, and now Oakland. (He was part of 10-6 and 9-7 teams, however, in Tampa.)

• Former NFL coach Mike Shanahan is a good friend of Fisher, and Shanahan’s son, Kyle, is currently making the rounds since being allowed to resign his coordinator’s position at Cleveland. Shanahan is getting some play as a head-coaching candidate and may have better opportunities.

• The Browns fired quarterbacks coach Dowell Loggains, who worked for Fisher for three seasons in Tennessee, first as an offensive quality control coach and then as quarterbacks coach. Loggains, 34, was offensive coordinator for the Titans for two seasons under Mike Munchak.

RAM-BLINGS

Three former Rams have signed offseason contracts elsewhere. WR Austin Pettis has signed with San Diego, DL Matt Conrath with Pittsburgh, and DT Jermelle Cudjo with Detroit.

Also, former Mizzou TE Michael Egnew has been signed to the Steelers’ offseason roster.

 

[Dodgersrf]

Boras is starting to sound like the man for the job.

I'm having a tough time swallowing the fact that Fisher is on his fourth coordinator in as many years.

The change in offensive philosophy that Fisher mentioned also has me intrigued. We were much heavier with the passing game this year than I expected.
Is he changing his history of being a run first advocate and playing more to the pass?
Or is he going back to the run first, and often, philosophy that eluded us this past season?