NFL
The Baltimore Ravens have myriad issues offensively, but any turnaround hinges on two-time MVP Lamar Jackson playing better down the stretch. Aaron M. Sprecher / Associated Press
OWINGS MILLS, Md. — It was supposed to represent a seamless continuation of last year, when the Baltimore Ravens had arguably the top offense in football. For three-plus quarters in their regular-season opener, the Ravens moved up and down the field against the Buffalo Bills.
They came away with points on seven of their first eight drives, scoring touchdowns on five of them. Lamar Jackson threw the ball with accuracy and confidence. Both Jackson and Derrick Henry were chewing up yards on the ground. Zay Flowers and DeAndre Hopkins were making big plays through the air.
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The Ravens racked up 40 points and 432 yards in a frustrating loss that was pinned almost entirely on the defense. Yet that offensive performance was the Ravens’ zenith, not a sign of things to come.
In 11 games since, they haven’t really come close to replicating that showing. In the 32-14 loss to the Cincinnati Bengals on Thanksgiving night, the offense looked broken. The Ravens turned the ball over five times, went 3-of-10 on third downs and possessed the ball for just over 21 minutes against a defense that was on pace to be one of the worst statistically in NFL history.
There have been other dispiriting performances this year for Baltimore, but Thursday had to be rock bottom for Jackson, coordinator Todd Monken and the rest of the offense. If it’s not, the Ravens won’t be in the AFC playoff mix for much longer — and some tough decisions will have to be made this offseason.
“It was not a precise offensive performance in any way,” Ravens coach John Harbaugh said Monday. “There was nothing precise about it. It was imprecise in every way. We all know that. We’re all not happy with it. We’re very disappointed by it, but you can’t live in it. You have to move on.”
Harbaugh said the players were in the building for a full day on Friday, and the coaches worked into the mini bye weekend. With the AFC North division lead on the line Sunday in a matchup with the also-struggling and 6-6 Pittsburgh Steelers, the Ravens are running out of time to fix an offense that is currently underachieving.
Baltimore has had good stretches offensively since the loss to Buffalo, but it hasn’t put together a full game or sustained momentum. In fact, its most complete performance over the last month-plus probably came in Week 8, when the Ravens beat the Chicago Bears 30-16 behind backup quarterback Tyler Huntley.
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There’s been no obvious signs of improvement, either. In fact, the offense’s last two outings against the New York Jets and Bengals may have been its worst all season.
“How frustrating is it?” Henry said last Thursday, repeating the question. “I think it’s self-explanatory. We need to be better. We all know that.”
The Ravens have myriad issues offensively, but any turnaround hinges on Jackson playing better. The two-time league MVP has gone three consecutive games without throwing or running for a touchdown. He’s also gone four straight games without completing at least 60 percent of his passes for the first time in his career. As a runner, he’s averaged just over 3.0 yards per carry since returning from a hamstring injury in Week 9, and he hasn’t had a run for more than 20 yards all year.
“I do think you’re going to have an off day sometimes,” Harbaugh said Monday. “That’s not something that you take lightly for sure. Listen, Lamar doesn’t take it lightly more than anybody. No player on this team takes it lightly. That’s what you do, you go back to work. You get in there, and you practice, and you study it, and you work together to be as precise as you can.”
The silver lining from Thursday’s game is that Jackson, who has battled hamstring, knee, ankle and toe injuries, looked more comfortable moving around, and now he’s had a few extra days off to get healthier. But everything else is a concern, from his accuracy to his decision-making to his ball security.
Asked after last week’s loss what he needed to do to be more consistent, Jackson said, “Just be me. Be Lamar.”
The Ravens hope it’s that simple, but there’s mounting evidence that it isn’t.
Left tackle Ronnie Stanley raised some eyebrows when he said the Ravens need to keep the run game going and “make sure that’s our identity.” That came after a game in which they ran it just 22 times — several were Jackson scrambles — and didn’t get the ball to Henry once in the second quarter, although he had five carries for 33 yards and a touchdown in the first quarter.
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Stanley isn’t wrong, and Harbaugh reiterated Stanley’s point Monday. The Ravens are always better when they establish and stick to the run game. It’s even more imperative when Jackson is struggling as a passer. There’s no doubt that Monken should have mixed in a few more runs Thursday, but the criticism was a little overblown.
The Ravens showed nice balance on their game-opening touchdown drive. On their second possession, they had the ball on their own 14 and Henry was held to no gain on first down. You’re not going to make a living running the ball on second- and third-and-long. The third drive started on their own 2, and Henry again got no yards on a first-down carry. You need to try and get the first down, and running the ball into a stacked box on second-and-long isn’t a great option.
There were opportunities to run on their first full drive of the second quarter, but it’s hard to gripe too much when that possession would have ended with a touchdown had Isaiah Likely not fumbled the ball as he was going in for the score. The Ravens were then in their two-minute offense for the rest of the second quarter.
To start the third, Henry got the ball twice, gained 5 total yards and the Ravens went three-and-out. Despite trailing by 12 points midway through the third quarter, Baltimore stuck with the run, and the result was a touchdown drive, culminating in an 18-yard scamper by Keaton Mitchell. Then, for much of the fourth quarter, the Ravens trailed by two scores and were in hurry-up offense.
So you’re talking about maybe one or two drives where you could question why they didn’t mix in a few runs. Notable, yes. But hardly the reason the Ravens lost that game.
• The talk all week will obviously be about how the winner of Sunday’s Ravens-Steelers game, along with the Week 18 rematch between the teams, will go a long way toward deciding the AFC North. With all due respect to the Bengals (4-8), who are still in the mix but probably need to win out, the game means even more because it certainly looks like there will be no wild-card spot available for the second-place team in the division.
You have two two-loss teams in the AFC, four four-loss teams and one five-loss team. Then, you have the six-loss Ravens, Steelers and Kansas City Chiefs. It certainly is possible that a team or two comes back to the pack, but it won’t help the Ravens’ cause in the case of a potential two-team wild-card tiebreaker that they’ve already lost to the Bills (8-4), Houston Texans (7-5) and Chiefs. While 10-7 might be good enough to win the AFC North, there’s no certainty that it will be good enough to get a wild-card spot.
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• The Ravens had two open 53-man spots that they didn’t fill when they put running back Justice Hill (neck) and defensive lineman Taven Bryan (knee) on injured reserve last week. One of those spots seemed likely to be taken by practice squad rookie inside linebacker Chandler Martin, who used his third and final practice squad elevation against the Bengals. Martin, however, sustained a season-ending knee injury on the opening kickoff, leaving the Ravens with no obvious internal additions to their 53-man roster.
With Nate Wiggins potentially missing some time, the Ravens could turn to practice squad cornerback Amani Oruwariye, who has only one elevation remaining. Otherwise, every other practice squad member has at least two free elevations remaining. The Ravens also could hold a spot for the return of outside linebacker Tavius Robinson, whose return from a foot fracture isn’t believed to be far off. Harbaugh said Monday there’s a “good chance” Robinson and defensive back Ar’Darius Washington return to practice this week. Harbaugh said that Hill, who has a disc issue in his neck, will miss at least three or four weeks.
• Rookie LaJohntay Wester has looked like a totally different returner since muffing a punt deep in Ravens territory in their Week 11 victory in Cleveland. He’s been passive and seems reluctant to field the ball in traffic, which is a complete departure from the aggressiveness he showed for much of the season. Against the Bengals, he didn’t come forward to field a Ryan Rehkow punt in the first quarter, and the ball bounced all the way inside the Ravens’ 14.
As it gets windier and colder and the fields get chewed up, it makes sense to be a bit more conservative with when to field punts. However, with the way the offense is struggling, the Ravens can’t afford to give away valuable yards and field position. If Wester has lost confidence, Baltimore needs him to regain it — and fast.
• Harbaugh’s analysis of rookie third-round offensive lineman Emery Jones Jr.’s first NFL snaps against the Bengals was that he played hard and showed his athleticism, but he also played “like a rookie in a lot of ways.” He was noncommittal about whether Jones would continue to rotate at left guard with Andrew Vorhees going forward, but he acknowledged that Jones simply needs to play game snaps to make the necessary improvements.
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Jeff Zrebiec is a senior writer for The Athletic covering the Baltimore Ravens. Before joining The Athletic in 2018, he spent the previous 18 years as a writer for The Baltimore Sun, 13 of them on the Orioles or Ravens beats. The New Jersey native is a graduate of Loyola University in Baltimore. Follow Jeff on Twitter @jeffzrebiec