3-0. Five teams remain at this unblemished mark headed into week 4. PHI, NE, BAL, DEN and MIN look to stay unbeaten. PHI has a bye so they will remain in this group but will the other 4 stay there?
Ravens are off to the start they knew they would need as the schedule only starts to get tougher. It starts with the Raiders this week. How did last week’s game look against the Jaguars? The Raven’s came away with a 19-17 victory. How did it unfold? Whether you watched the game or not. If you did, as time passes, this visual should be able to help jog your memory of what you saw – especially those memorable events. If you did not watch the game, this map gives you a blueprint for what happened and how performance tracked throughout the history of the game. (Discuss this article on the BSL board)
Baltimore starts strong. Up 10-0 until they start a drive in very bad field position (unsuccessful for Ravens offense). Turns out the drive started at their own 8 yard line. The Ravens punt and the Jags start their next drive with great field position (unsuccessful for the Jags defense). Turns out the Jags had a great 42 yard punt return back to the Ravens 37 yard line. 
A little digging gives the play-by-play information:
- 1st and 10 at BAL 8: (8:40 – 2nd) J.Flacco pass short middle to M.Wallace to BLT 23 for 15 yards (J.Cyprien)
- 1st and 10 at BAL 23: (8:02 – 2nd) J.Flacco sacked at BLT 15 for -8 yards (M.Jackson)
- 2nd and 18 at BAL 15: (7:20 – 2nd) J.Flacco pass short right to D.Pitta to BLT 22 for 7 yards (P.Posluszny)
- (6:36 – 2nd) Timeout #1 by BLT at 06:36.
- 3rd and 11 at BAL 22: (6:39 – 2nd) (Shotgun) J.Flacco pass short middle to J.Forsett to BLT 25 for 3 yards (T.Smith; P.Posluszny)
- 4th and 8 at BAL 25: (6:00 – 2nd) S.Koch punts 54 yards to JAX 21, Center-M.Cox. R.Greene to BLT 37 for 42 yards (A.Levine)
The Jags convert and they start to have some success on offense. However the Jag’s defense gives up two field goals – one right before halftime and another coming out of halftime. The Jags have no possessions in that chunk of clock time and once they finally get the ball on offense, they score a touchdown.
Play continues without much action until a special team’s turnover by the D. Hester who fumbles a punt and that turns into a field goal for the Jag’s. Great job by the Raven’s defense keeping them out of the end zone. 
Then the final 7 minutes or so of the game has 4 turnovers a missed FG by the Jags (actually blocked) and a final FG by the Ravens to win it from 54 yards out by J. Tucker. 
The GameMap paints a picture that you leverage as you look into greater detail of the action within a game. This could help you decide where to spend more time or it could help you remember what you have already seen. The macro-level view of the action gives interesting detail into performance and field position. Try it on another game over at TheQ5.com – maybe one you did not watch at all and see how the story starts to come together for you.
What do the numbers say about this matchup. Equally weighting each game and NOT taking into account quality of the opponent – an early look at something you would cautiously call “rankings.” Analysis in this equally weighted fashion does not take into account quality of opponents and at this early part of the season, a strong performance will have a strong effect where doing this in week 8, the effect of a single game is lessened. Also shown is a TREND column which uses the same three games but weighs them with the most recent game having the most influence on the answer. Working backwards chronologically, games have less and less weight. The trend is a reflection of who may be “hot” or playing well right now. With only three games, these two columns are very similar – as they should be. Several weeks from now, these two calculations can be very different for a team.
| week | win | Ravens | Pts | TEAM 2 | Pts |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | W | BAL | 13 | BUF | 7 |
| 2 | W | BAL | 25 | CLE | 20 |
| 3 | W | BAL | 19 | JAX | 17 |
| 4 | L | BAL | 27 | OAK | 28 |
| 5 | L | BAL | 10 | WSH | 16 |
Some notes, the Chargers are not the 5th best team in the NFL. They severely beat up on the Jags in week 2 (not good news for the Ravens) so their ranking is skewed slightly by that result. They have played well but the team that drafted #5 in April is not ranked #5 right now, BUT the team that drafted #2 in April (all be it after a trade) is the #1 ranked team – again, based on this drive performance metric. Everyone would agree that they have played very well thus far into the season but I would still take the Patriots if they were playing this week and especially if they were playing the following week with a certain Patriot returning. Also, the Steelers are one of the top teams in the league but they played very poorly against the Eagles and it shows in this analysis. Keep in mind that quality of opponent has not been taken into account in the analysis.
By this drive performance metric, the Raiders have performed better than the Ravens this season. With our discussion about GameMaps behind us, you could get a view of the Raiders game flow from all three games at TheQ5 and select “Oakland Raiders” in the drop down menu. 
As we “match-up” the Raiders and Ravens we would want to take into account that the Ravens are at home so you could see this as a pretty even match-up from a drive performance perspective. 3-0 puts the Ravens in elite company but they are probably not championship material – just 3-0. Does anything else matter right now?
Dr. Guyader is the Owner / Founder of The Q5.com, which specializes in Football Visualizations and Drive Analytics. Additionally, Guyader has 10 years of Division I football experience coaching top-tier and historic programs. From guiding third round NFL draft pick Ramses Barden for four seasons at Cal Poly to converting 6-foot 10-inch lineman Ali Villanueva to wide receiver at the United States Military Academy at West Point, Andy knows how to coach on the field and how to game-plan in a meeting.