Ravens Beat The Titans In London; Quick Hits

The Baltimore Ravens are leaving London, having beat the Tennessee Titans 24-16.

With the win, Baltimore improves to 4-2 on the season.

Quick Hits: 

1) The Ravens Defense had another strong game today. They’ve now allowed 19 or less points in five of their six games. Derrick Henry had 97 yards on his 12 carries, but 63 came on one attempt. Ryan Tannehill was of 8 of 16, for 76 yards before he was carted out. Baltimore had 6 sacks, with Jadeveon Clowney and Justin Madubuike each having 2. Geno Stone had a pick, which gave momentum back to the Ravens. Tennessee was held to 1 for 9 on 3rd down.

2) Justin Tucker was 6 for 6 on his FG attempts today, with his longest being from 41 yards. It felt like Coach Harbaugh decided he was taking the points today vs. forcing the issue, and going for it on several 4th downs. I appreciated that.

3) This was a closer game than it could have been, not because Harbaugh was conservative; but because the Ravens offense failed to finish numerous times in the Red Zone.

4) The Titans defense was playing close to the box, and daring the Ravens to throw.  They wanted to take away the Ravens running game.  While understanding that, I don’t think the interior of the Ravens O-Line played well.  On the last episode of The Bank, I talked about wanting to get Gus Edwards more touches. He did have a season high 16 carries, but was limited to just 2.6 yards per attempt.

5) Despite the Titans generally controlling Edwards, I was pleased that the Ravens did have 39 total rushing attempts.

6) Lamar Jackson completed 21 of his 30 attempts. Eight different Ravens had catches, with six different Ravens having at-least 2 catches.

7) I thought Isaiah Likely and Devin Duvernay would be more involved offensively than they have been. Through six games now, they have a combined 5 catches.

8) Duvernay did have a fantastic 70 yard Punt Return today. (Was surprised he didn’t get to the house on that one.)

9) The Kyle Hamilton hit and ejection got a lot of discussion in our game thread.  My personal feeling is that you could have thrown a flag, but I think the ejection was excessive. I’m curious if we will see Hamilton suspended for next week?

10) The Ravens dominated time of possession, holding the ball for nearly 36 minutes. 70 total plays for the Ravens vs. 46 for Tennessee.

11) Baltimore allowed 88 yards on 9 penalties.

12) When healthy, a Secondary with Hamilton, Marlon Humphrey, and Marcus Williams is pretty damn good.

12a) Speaking of pretty damn good, Patrick Queen is having a big year.

12b) Roquan Smith in a league of his own.

13) We’ve said it a number of times already this year. When you don’t knock out teams when you have the opportunity, it often comes back to bite you. The Ravens inability to finish in the RZ today allowed the Titans to hang in the game. After Jackson’s pick, Tennessee was able to pull within 5 points. After the Stone pick, the Ravens were able to settle back down, but for a second there you could envision the Ravens having had a very long trip home.

14) If you want to be glass half-full, you could say the Ravens didn’t play great today, and were still largely in-control throughout. If you want to be glass half-empty, you could focus on the Ravens failures to deliver an early KO when they had the opportunity.  Both takes have some valadity.

Up Next: 

The Ravens return to Baltimore to host the Detroit Lions. Detroit is currently 4-1, with a game vs. Tampa Bay later today.
ESPN’s Match-Up Predictor gives the Ravens a 57.3% chance of winning. Entering today, the Lions have won their last 3 games overall.
In their initial 5 games, they’ve scored at-least 34 points three times.