NFL Week 6 takeaways: Lessons, big questions for every game – Jamison Hensley
Ravens
What to know: This ugly loss falls squarely on Lamar Jackson, and it will go down as one of his worst performances. With the game on the line, Jackson turned the ball over on the final two drives with an interception and a fumble. Less than sharp all game (17-of-32 for 210 yards), Jackson got intercepted on one of the worst decisions of his career. With three minutes left in the game, Jackson picked up a poor snap and threw a wild, off-balance pass in the middle of the field while deep in his own territory that was picked off by safety Julian Love. The Giants converted that turnover into Barkley’s game-winning touchdown. On the Ravens’ next possession, Jackson got stripped with 1:29 left, sealing another late-game collapse by Baltimore.
Has Kenyan Drake surpassed J.K. Dobbins as the go-to running back? It could be by default right now. The biggest positive of the game was the big-play running by Drake, who became the first Ravens running back to produce 100 yards rushing this year. Dobbins, who acknowledged that it was “super hard” not being the featured back late in last week’s game, didn’t play in the second half. He wasn’t even holding his helmet on the sideline, which could be a sign that he’s dealing with an injury. Drake, who was inactive for two games earlier this season, has earned more playing time going forward.
Lamar Jackson Laments Costly Fourth-Quarter Interception – Clifton Brown
“We just keep beating ourselves up,” Jackson said. “Our opponents are NFL teams, they’re good. But I feel we’re just beating ourselves with mistakes here and there.”
Jackson’s fourth-quarter interception was a huge turning point in Sunday’s defeat. Holding a 20-17 lead with just over three minutes to play, the Ravens disintegrated witha series of errors. On third-and-one, a penalty for illegal formation nullified a first-down run by Jackson.
Then on the next play, Jackson said that center Tyler Linderbaum snapped the ball to Jackson before he anticipated it. The snap eluded Jackson and after he retrieved the loose ball, he rolled to his right while being chased out of the pocket.
The clock hasn’t run out on Baltimore’s season, just six games into it. But they have lost a 21-point lead against the Dolphins, a 17-point lead against the Bills, and now a 10-point fourth-quarter lead against the opportunistic Giants, who are now 5-1.
While the Giants are finding new ways to win games, the Ravens are finding new ways to lose them. Harbaugh said the Ravens must solve why the trend keeps happening.
“The story for us is winning the game, ending the game, making plays that need to be made, and not making errors that cost you an opportunity to win games,” Harbaugh said. “We’ll regroup, we’ll go to work, and we’re going to find ourselves as a football team.
2022 NFL season, Week 6: What We Learned from Sunday’s games – Eric Edholm
Giants had no answer for Kenyan Drake. Drake put the Ravens up in this game with 119 rushing yards on only 10 carries. In his first five games, he had a mere 65 yards on 21 carries. Drake’s 30-yard touchdown (aided by the Giants having only 10 defenders on the field) put Baltimore up early, plus later runs for 30, 21 and 15 yards, setting up a Mark Andrews TD that put the Ravens up 10 in the fourth. J.K. Dobbins was a non-factor in this game, and Jackson had trouble generating big pass plays with Rashod Bateman out of the lineup and the offensive line falling apart on the final two drives. Drake fully looked to be the team’s RB2 behind Dobbins, but there might be a case for him to earn more touches to see if he can replicate his effort on Sunday.
Next Gen stat of the game: Lamar Jackson’s fourth-quarter INT gave the Giants a 39.8% increase in win probability, going from 16.7% to 56.5%.
Position-by-position grades for Ravens’ 24-20 loss to Giants – Mike Preston
Receivers
The Ravens were out sync most of the game and had quite a few dropped passes. But a lot of those couldn’t be blamed just on the receivers because Jackson was often off target. Andrews had seven catches for 106 yards and a touchdown, but none of the other receivers played a significant role. The rest of the receivers contributed nine catches for 96 yards. Maybe the most disappointing performance came from Devin Duvernay, who had one catch for only 14 yards despite being targeted five times. He was expected to contribute more after being more involved in the offense a week ago and with No. 1 wideout Rashod Bateman sidelined again with a foot injury. Grade: C
Defensive line
The Giants had only 16 yards rushing in the first half but finished with 83 as they gave running back Saquon Barkley more touches. Maybe the Ravens need to look at their conditioning because this group seems to wear down in the fourth quarter. Both Calais Campbell and Justin Madubuike played well through three quarters, but they don’t come up with many big plays in crunch time. Madubuike finished with five tackles and Campbell had four, but he also hurried the quarterback twice. Grade: B-
NFL Week 6 grades: Packers get an ‘F’ after being embarrassed by Jets; Steelers get an ‘A’ for stunning Bucs – John Breech
D
The Ravens looked like the better team all afternoon, but completely stumbled over themselves in the fourth quarter. They recorded both of their turnovers in the final four minutes of the game, and allowed 14 unanswered points to lose. Baltimore was up 10 points with about six minutes left in the game! It also hurt that the Ravens went 1-for-3 in the red zone. They wasted Kenyan Drake’s 119-yard rushing performance.