When thinking about the 2020 season, there are plenty of question marks about what will happen across the NFL and in a variety of different position groups for the Ravens. How will the OL shake out? How will the ILB snaps be allocated? Will the WRs improve?
I’d argue there are two areas the Ravens have a combination of stability, infused talent compared to 2019, and continuity. The first is RB, which brings back a lot of familiar faces and nothing but upside in Dobbins, add in Lamar Jackson and the rushing attack is potent and deep and will be a league leader again next year.
The other is the secondary. The two All-Pro CBs are back, in fact the two of them actually brought home 3 All Pro First and Second team trophies. The depth has a starting level caliber in Jimmy Smith, and Averett and Marshall provide good young upside depth. And Geno Stone (my sleeper for S of the future in Baltimore) and DeShon Elliott are more than capable S backups as well.
(You can discuss this on the BSL Board here.)
They get “additions” in the form of Tavon Young was ranked by PFF as the 23rd best overall CB in 2016, he didn’t play in 2017 due to injury and the upgrade over Tony Jefferson all season, where Chuck Clark was a pleasant surprise as a coverage guy where Clark ranked 11th among safeties during the regular season, Jefferson was 150th.
But the area that I think there is the biggest upside for growth from this unit is Earl Thomas’s usage in 2020. I’m fully prepared to take on a “broken record” label here. But last season, I was continually frustrated by the usage of Earl Thomas by Wink Martindale. Thomas’s coverage rating of 84.7 by PFF was 9th best among safeties in 2019. But his usage was peculiar at best. He was constantly at the line of scrimmage it seemed.
As I dug into his snap counts, the snap counts backed this up, too. Thomas took 52 snaps on the Defensive Line, 259 snaps in the box, 69 snaps at slot corner, and 23 snaps at wide corner. That put Thomas outside of the Free Safety Position for 45% of his overall snaps.
Compare that to his time in Seattle where his snaps looked like:
2017: 3/79/65/8/16.8%, (DL/Box/Slot/WR/%)
2016: 2/62/58/8/18.7%
2015: 4/22/37/6/7%.
But on Episode 11 of The Bank, Gabe Ferguson, my co-host, suggested the Ravens have always had usages like this and that guys like Ed Reed even at similar stages played more in the box. So I took a look at his seasons that matched Thomas’s age and some of Pees years at defensive coordinator.
2013 (Pees): 0/62/14/6/12.9% (DL/Box/Slot/WR/% of snaps)
2012 (Pees): 0/108/44/7/16.2%
2009 (31): 0/39/3/2/6.9%,
2008 (30): 0/88/29/4/13.1%
So Wink at his worst was using Reed about 3 times more in the box than Thomas, and at his worst 7 times more. I appreciate the deception this can add to the defense, but I question if half of Thomas snaps out of position not at FS are the best iteration for this defense. Earl Thomas isn’t Ed Reed, but he’s a smart player that QBs look for, and if he’s deep center field, it shortens the field of play that you need to defend. At times, it almost seemed like Wink was trying to prove a point, that Thomas could be a S in the box, and perhaps he’s above average there, but he’s proven to be elite at FS.
Even if Wink trimmed that usage down to 25%, you’d still have a one in four snaps bringing added deception, but you’d get 20% more snaps with Thomas in the position that he plays best. I think we’d see an improvement from Thomas’s overall stat line, mainly interceptions, and frankly, I think we’d see teams challenge the Ravens deep less. If Wink can find a way to put his elite players in their most elite positions, I think we could see an even bigger stat line and season from Earl Thomas next season.
Ravens Analyst
Jordan Kough is a graduate of University of Maryland, Baltimore County. He’s a long standing Ravens and Orioles fan of many years. He grew up just north of Baltimore and likes the statistical analysis of games as much as watching games themselves.