Some questions were answered while others came into focus on Sunday evening.
After having their interconference matchup with the soaring Philadelphia Eagles being touted as the game of the week and a potential Super Bowl preview, the Baltimore Ravens came up short in infuriating fashion in a 24-19 loss. Offensively, while the Ravens didn’t abandon the run game, they didn’t stick with it as often as they should’ve and squandered opportunities to take control of the game resulting in the Eagles being able to rally from an early two-score deficit. Defensively, Baltimore continued to show their improvement in pass coverage but sprung too many leaks in the ground game in the second half.
The loss marks the Ravens’ third in their last six games and puts them back to a game and a half of first place in the AFC North behind the Pittsburgh Steelers, who bounced back with a road win over the Cincinnati Bengals. This result also marked just the second loss the Ravens have suffered to an NFC opponent with reigning league MVP Lamar Jackson starting under center since his rookie season in 2018.
There were encouraging and discouraging performances by players and units on both sides of the ball who played a part in the Ravens’ overall record falling to 8-5.
Special Teams Remains a Glaring Liability
The uncharacteristic season from hell continued for Ravens seven-time Pro Bowl kicker Justin Tucker on Sunday. His three missed kicks—two field goals and one extra point—cost the Ravens dearly in a game where they could’ve regained and extended the lead and would’ve surpassed their margin of defeat had he successfully made them. It set a new single-game career-high for missed kicks in a game for Tucker and cost him the top spot on the all-time list for most accurate kickers.
“As simply as I can put it, I missed the kicks, and I’ll leave it at that,” Tucker said. “I feel like I cost us this one, but it doesn’t really do anybody any good to dwell on it.”
The future Hall of Famer performance wasn’t only poor aspect of the Ravens special teams in this game that proved costly and hurt the team. Wide receiver Tylan Wallace struggled fielding punts including a near lost fumble and made a pair of poor decisions not to field a pair of punts that were downed inside the Baltimore five-yard line.
As inconceivable as it still seems given head coach John Harbaugh’s strong background in this phase of the game, the Ravens special teams are playing so far below their usually elite standard that it should make them reconsider post-bye strategies. They’ll have to gage how much more aggressive they might have to be on third and fourth downs for the rest of the season and who should be fielding punts moving forward.
Lamar Jackson Left a Lot of Plays on the Field
The reigning league MVP finished with a solid stat line according to the final box score and fantasy football scoring with 306 yards of total offense—237 passing and 79 rushing—and did so by making some very impressive athletic plays with his arm and legs. However, the plays he didn’t or failed to make that were ripe for the taking loomed much larger and played a part in his team coming up short.
While he completed over 63% of his passes he missed on some throws early and late that would’ve extended drives. The most glaring was the pass he threw short of a wide-open Zay Flowers deep in their own territory when they were up 9-0 in the second quarter. He took three sacks where he held onto the ball too long, two of which proceeded kicks from Tucker including his miss from 47 yards out.
Jackson continued his trend of not taking the prime opportunities to scramble and pick up positive yardage despite good things happening in the times that he did. For a player who is the most prolific and dangerous dual-threat quarterback, he could be his own check-down most of the time especially in tight games instead of taking the risk a pass doesn’t get batted down at the line of scrimmage, dropped by the intended target or taken away by the defense. Jackson shared with reporters that his mother cussed him out on the phone about it before he got on the podium to address the media for his reluctance to call his own number when the chances presented themselves on Sunday.
”She said there were lanes I should have [taken] and ran, but I was trying to let guys develop routes,” Jackson said. “We had developing routes. I was just trying to go through my progressions, but yes, she’s right.”
Defense Was Not to Blame
For the third week in a row, first-year defensive coordinator Zach Orr’s unit continued to show tremendous improvement, especially in coverage where they are clawing their way back from being ranked dead last in pass defense. They held Eagles quarterback Jalen Hurts to just 118 passing yards and one touchdown while sacking him three times and limited Pro Bowl wide receiver AJ Brown to five catches on six targets for 66 receiving yards.
They pitched shutouts in the first and third quarters, giving their offense ample opportunity to build and regain the lead. The Ravens held the Eagles to 4-of-12 on third down and forced six punts including four straight to open the game. While they ended up yielding a season-high 140 rushing yards, they did a good job of bottling up league-leading rusher Saquon Barkley for the first three quarters before the dam started to break in the fourth quarter when their offense only held the ball for less than six minutes and didn’t score until a final consolation drive with victory well out of hand.
Todd Monken Should’ve Leaned More on Derrick Henry
While the Ravens outgained the Eagles on the ground by more than 20 yards, that was only made possible by the 39-yard run by Jackson on their final drive of the game. However, even prior to that, they were able to move the ball fairly well at times on the ground with their four-time Pro Bowl running back but as is the case in all five of their losses, he didn’t carry the ball enough.
The Ravens are 5-0 when Henry carries the ball 20-plus times and rushes for 100-plus yards. Although game flow sometimes necessitates that a more natural pass-catching and protecting player at the position such as fellow veteran Justice Hill be in the game in two-minute situations at the end of halves, that wasn’t the case in the second half on Sunday.
Despite only trailing by two points at halftime, Monken strayed away from Henry and the run game on their first drive after they picked up 25 yards on the ground on their first three plays. He proceeded to dial up passes on five of the next six plays that were capped off by a 14-yard sack that made Tucker’s second first missed attempt from 47 yards out instead of inside the 40-yard line.
On their first drive of the fourth quarter, three straight runs resulted in a first down and then four straight passes followed. Even after the Eagles took the momentum back with a touchdown on the ensuing drive, the Ravens still had enough time to run Henry more with just under eight minutes left in the game but he only carried the ball one more time after ripping off 10 yards on first down. Even though Barkley wasn’t getting chunk gains consistently through the first three quarters, the Eagles were rewarded for sticking with him and he led them to victory by logging 23 carries for 107 yards and a touchdown.
Offensive Personnel Decisions Remain Puzzling
As questionable as Monken’s offensive play-calling and sequencing were in this game the decision not to involve or even have two of their most explosive weapons on that side of the ball active for this game was truly head-scratching. Second-year running back Keaton Mitchell was a healthy scratch in favor of fifth-round rookie Rasheen Ali who didn’t take a single snap on offense while Pro Bowl wide receiver Diontae Johnson was active and in uniform and didn’t see the field at all.
Mitchell dressed for the Ravens previous three games before Sunday since returning to action but only played a combined four snaps on offense and 21 on special teams during that span. When healthy, he is one of the fastest and most explosive weapons in the league.
Johnson not seeing the field at all was perplexing especially after Rashod Bateman exited the game with a knee injury and didn’t return. The Ravens traded for him ahead of the midseason deadline and he spent the entire game on the sideline while Wallace and Nelson Agholor each played 40 offensive snaps, 56% of the offense’s total.
“I’m not really ready to comment on that right now,” Harbaugh said postgame. “I will be, just don’t have enough information right now to talk about that.”