Browns Edge Ravens At The Gun; Cincinnati Is Next

The Ravens lost 13-10 in Cleveland on Sunday and are 4-2. They led 10-0 after their first two possessions and did not score again. Derrick Henry fumbled at the Baltimore 35 midway through the fourth quarter, Audric Estime tied it with 8:33 left, and Andre Szmyt kicked a 37-yard field goal on the final play, after a Ravens block of his first try was wiped out by an offside penalty.

The Browns, Ravens and Steelers are all 4-2. Pittsburgh won 26-19 in overtime in Tampa, and Cleveland holds the head-to-head over Baltimore. Cincinnati, 3-2 and coming off its bye, is in Baltimore next Sunday.

The Ravens were 3-point favorites at DraftKings, with a total of 39.5, and ESPN’s Match-Up Predictor gave them a 55.4% chance to win. The line had been 3.5 when we previewed the game.

Most NFL games are close, most Division games are a fight.

Winning on the road is difficult.  Winning on the road with your backup QB multiple weeks in-a-row is an even tougher ask.

This is a game where if Lamar Jackson is healthy, the Ravens likely win going-away.

Instead the Browns were just good enough to beat the Tyler Huntley led Ravens, and Baltimore loses they expected to win.

Not only do the Ravens lose the head-to-head division match-up, the Ravens lose a game which could have playoff seeding implications later.

237 Total Yards for the Browns, 235 Total Yards for the Ravens.

It’s not a devastating loss for the Ravens, but does feel like a missed opportunity.
It’s also worth noting that the Ravens schedule is going to get harder in the 2nd half of the year, and this is a 2nd loss for the year which feels like it should have been avoidable.

What Happened

	1	2	3	4	Final
Ravens	10	0	0	0	10
Browns	0	0	3	10	13

Baltimore opened with 66 yards in 11 plays. Henry ran for 11 and 17, Ja’Kobi Lane converted a third-and-6, and Tyler Huntley scrambled 8 yards to the 1. Henry was stopped for no gain and then for a loss of 1. On fourth-and-goal from the 2, Huntley found rookie tight end Josh Cuevas for his first career touchdown.

After a Calais Campbell sack forced a three-and-out, Huntley hit Cuevas for 29 yards, with Maliek Collins’ roughing penalty added on. Declan Doyle lined Cuevas up at left guard, off the line, and released him into the route. A direct snap to Henry gained 3, he lost 2, and Tyler Loop kicked a 34-yard field goal. It was 10-0 with 4:40 left in the first quarter.

The Ravens punted on their next six possessions. Huntley was sacked twice on one second-quarter drive, by Quincy Williams and Collins, and Rashod Bateman left in the second quarter with a shoulder injury and did not return, per AP. Cleveland’s best first-half drive reached the Baltimore 40 before a Jerry Jeudy false start, and Corey Bojorquez’s punt was downed at the 2.

Cleveland opened the second half with 10 plays and 42 yards, converted a fourth-and-1 from its own 37, and Szmyt kicked from 48. It was 10-3.

Baltimore’s best chance to stretch it came next. Zay Flowers caught a 31-yard pass on third-and-11 to the Cleveland 30. Huntley was then sacked for 9 by McGuire, recovered his own aborted snap, and on third-and-22 hit Cuevas for 11. Loop’s 49-yard try on the first play of the fourth quarter went wide left.

With 12:45 left, Henry ran for 5 on first-and-5 at the Baltimore 28. Carson Schwesinger forced the fumble and Tyson Campbell recovered at the 35. The Browns needed seven plays. KC Concepcion caught a 15-yarder on third-and-4, Keyon Martin was called for pass interference on third-and-6 from the 10, and Estime scored from the 2 two plays later.

Rasheen Ali muffed the next kickoff, recovered at the 2 and returned it to the 16. Baltimore went three-and-out. Cleveland drove to the Baltimore 29, where Nnamdi Madubuike’s strip-sack on third-and-8, recovered by Kyle Hamilton, was reversed on review to an incomplete pass. Szmyt missed from 48 with 3:44 left.

The Ravens took over at their 38. Cuevas caught a 2-yard pass, a throw to Flowers was incomplete, and Huntley scrambled 6 yards on third-and-8. A delay of game on fourth-and-2 at the 46 pushed it back 5 yards, and Ryan Eckley punted for a touchback with 2:08 left. Ronnie Stanley was hurt on the second-down incompletion.

Cleveland started at its 20 with 1:59 left and went 62 yards in nine plays. Deshaun Watson hit Jeudy for 33 yards on third-and-5 to the Baltimore 29, and the Browns ran three times to the 23. Martin blocked Szmyt’s 42-yard try with two seconds left, and Travis Jones recovered, but Martin was flagged for offside. Szmyt made it from 37 as time expired.

Without Jackson, Again

Baltimore gained 96 yards and scored 10 points on its first two possessions. On its last nine it gained 139 yards and scored nothing: seven punts, Loop’s miss and the fumble. The offense had 163 yards in the first half and 72 in the second, and by our count from the play-by-play Cleveland held the ball for about 20½ of the 30 second-half minutes.

Huntley completed 19 of 31 for 165 yards and the touchdown, with no interceptions, and ran five times for 28. He was sacked three times, by Williams, Collins and McGuire. The Ravens converted 6 of 16 third downs.

Henry ran 17 times for 58 yards. He had 41 on eight carries in the first quarter, 30 of them on the opening drive, and 17 on nine carries after that. Ravens.com noted before the game that he had at least 23 carries in every game but the Week 2 loss to New Orleans. As a team Baltimore ran 23 times for 87 yards, 3.8 a carry.

That’s the matchup our line rankings pointed to coming in. Baltimore’s offensive line was 13th, eighth in run block win rate at 74%, and gaining 5.1 yards a carry, 0.6 better than its opponents allow. Cleveland’s defensive line was seventh on the numbers and second in run stop win rate at 34%, held out of our top eight because Mason Graham and Mike Hall Jr. were hurt. Neither played Sunday, and the Browns still held Baltimore under 4 yards a carry.

On the other side, the protection numbers were the worry. Baltimore came in 21st in pass block win rate with a 7.4% sack rate, 2.1 points worse than its opponents usually allow. Cleveland’s offensive line was 32nd with an 11.3% sack rate. On Sunday the Ravens allowed three sacks and an aborted snap, and Cleveland allowed five.

Vega Ioane made his third straight start at center, as newly acquired Cam Jurgens remains in the concussion protocol. Emery Jones Jr. started at right guard with Andrew Vorhees inactive. The operation had problems. The offense took three delays of game, two of them on third down and one on fourth-and-2, and Huntley had the aborted snap in the third quarter. Andrews had a false start, and a first-quarter play drew both an ineligible-man-downfield and an illegal-formation flag, both declined.

Vinson reported as an extra lineman three times. Henry had two carries for 12 yards with him in.

Flowers caught 6 of 11 targets for 66 yards, including the 31-yarder on third-and-11. Lane, in his first game back from injured reserve, caught 4 of 5 for 40 yards, and three of those catches converted third downs. Cuevas had 4 catches for 44 yards and the touchdown. Mark Andrews caught 1 of 3 targets for 4 yards; the third-and-3 incompletion after the tie was thrown to him. Devontez Walker was 0 for 2, and Bateman 0 for 1 before he left.

I continue to like Huntley as a backup QB, but the limitations are clear.
Cleveland was able to review last week’s game footage vs. Atlanta, and make things harder for the Ravens backup QB.
Huntley didn’t have a strong game, and I don’t think the Coaching staff had him in a great position to succeed.
Huntley was continually facing 3rd and long situations, with the Ravens failing to maximize 1st and 2nd down.

Was good to see Ja’Kobe Lane have his first full day with the Ravens.  4 catches on 5 targets, moving the chains several times.

Short Yardage

 

Situation	Play	Result
2nd and goal, Browns’ 1 (1st)	Henry	No gain
3rd and goal, Browns’ 1 (1st)	Henry	Loss of 1
4th and goal, Browns’ 2 (1st)	Huntley to Cuevas	Touchdown

Over the last two games Henry has converted one of six carries with 1 or 2 to go, not counting the tying two-point run in Atlanta. The direct snap to Henry showed up again, for 3 yards on first-and-10 at the Cleveland 17.

The Defense

For three quarters the defense did what it hadn’t in Atlanta. Cleveland had 107 yards after 45 minutes, per AP, and converted 1 of 9 third downs, a Watson sneak on third-and-1. Its only points in that span came after a fourth-and-1 conversion at its own 37.

The pass rush finished. Watson was sacked five times: by Campbell and Roquan Smith in the first quarter, Martin in the second, Tavius Robinson and Madubuike splitting one on the first snap of the second half, and Trey Hendrickson on a third-and-4 in the third quarter. Madubuike also had the strip-sack that was reversed on review.

Hendrickson was back after missing two games following finger surgery, and after the game he was waiting outside the X-ray room, per Jeff Zrebiec. Hendrickson called his health “an ongoing process.”

The fourth quarter went the other way. Cleveland gained 130 yards and converted 5 of 8 third downs, counting the interference. The touchdown drive started at the Baltimore 35, the next drive reached the 29 before Szmyt’s miss, and the last one went 62 yards in nine plays.

On the final drive, Estime converted a third-and-1, and Watson threw 33 yards to Jeudy on third-and-5. Malaki Starks made the tackle; the play-by-play doesn’t show who was in coverage. Jeudy finished with four catches for 69 yards, and Concepcion with four for 37 plus the 15-yard third-down catch on the touchdown drive.

Cleveland ran 29 times for 93 yards, 3.2 a carry, without Quinshon Judkins. Watson had eight runs for 29 yards, most of them scrambles.

Martin’s interference on third-and-6 from the 10 turned a fourth-down decision into first-and-goal at the 6. @ryanmink thought Martin played it perfectly and called it a tough call against the Ravens.

“That’s a game we believe we should have won,” Madubuike said, per Zrebiec.

Hamilton led the team with seven tackles. There were no takeaways.

The Ravens Defense had a good day.  They got to Watson, they held the Browns to under 240 Total Yards.
Some of that they deserve credit for, some credit goes to the general ineptness of Cleveland.
A great day for the Ravens Defense would have included a few more stops when absolutely needed.

Penalties And Special Teams

Baltimore had six penalties accepted for 29 yards, a week after five for 40. Two came on defense, after none in Atlanta.

• Offense: Andrews’ false start, and three delays of game, before a third-and-10 in the second quarter, a third-and-5 in the third, and the fourth-and-2 in the fourth.
• Defense: Martin’s interference on the touchdown drive and his offside on the blocked field goal.

Cleveland had six accepted for 45 yards, including Collins’ roughing penalty on the Cuevas catch and a holding call that wiped out a 14-yard McLaughlin run in the third quarter.

Loop made his 34-yarder and missed from 49 wide left, with Baltimore up 10-3. Szmyt made two of three, from 48 and 37, and missed from 48 with 3:44 left.

Eckley punted seven times for a 49.4 average, with three inside the 20. Martin downed two of them, at the Cleveland 4 and the 10. Ali muffed the kickoff after the tying touchdown, recovered it at the 2 and got it back to the 16.

Last Week’s Things To Watch

We listed five. Here’s how each came out.

1. Jackson’s ankle. Minter ruled him out Friday, and Huntley made a second straight start. His three-game winning streak as a starter ended.
2. Jurgens. Still in the protocol and inactive. Ioane started at center for the third straight week, with Jones at right guard. The operation had three delays of game and an aborted snap.
3. The protection. Three sacks and the aborted snap against a Browns front without Graham and Hall Jr.
4. Third downs on defense. Cleveland was 1 of 9 through three quarters and 5 of 8 in the fourth. The Ravens got to Watson five times.
5. Cleveland’s injury list. Graham was inactive, as Adam Schefter had reported, and so was Hall Jr. Concepcion played and had 4 catches for 37 yards.

Takeaways

Henry. 17 carries for 58 yards, stopped twice at the 1, and the fumble that started Cleveland’s comeback. He apologized to the team afterward, Huntley said, per Zrebiec.

Lane. Four catches in his first game back, three of them on third down. Looks like he presents a nice target, with a strong catch-radius. A couple of contested grabs.

Cuevas. His first career touchdown, and the 29-yard catch from the left guard spot. With Matthew Hibner inactive, he was the only rookie tight end available.

The pass rush. Five sacks with Hendrickson back, after three in Atlanta.

Loop. The 49-yard miss with a 10-3 lead, early in the fourth. Was a significant miss. Ravens had the opportunity to make it a 2 score lead.

Week 7: Cincinnati Comes To Baltimore

The Ravens host the Bengals next Sunday, Oct. 25, at 1 p.m. ET at M&T Bank Stadium. CBS has the telecast. The Ravens are given a 53% chance of winning per ESPN’s Match-Up Predictor, and their a 3.5 point favorite per DraftKings. It’s Cincinnati’s first Sunday afternoon game in Baltimore since 2021.

The Bengals are 3-2 and coming off their bye. Baltimore comes off a division road loss.

How Cincinnati got to 3-2

Week	Opponent	Result
1	Tampa Bay	W 33-27
2	at Houston	W 20-6
3	at Pittsburgh	L 30-27
4	Jacksonville	L 22-17
5	at Miami	W 31-24
6	Bye	—

In the Week 4 loss to Jacksonville, Ja’Marr Chase left with a concussion in the first half and Joe Burrow threw for 428 yards with two interceptions. The Bengals ran for 23 yards. Tee Higgins caught 11 passes for 157 yards after Chase went out, per Ravens.com, and left on the final drive with an adductor injury.

In Miami, Chase cleared the protocol and caught six passes for 77 yards, including a one-handed 45-yard touchdown. Burrow threw four touchdown passes, and Jordan Battle intercepted Malik Willis on back-to-back second-quarter drives. Miami ran 34 times for 217 yards but didn’t sack Burrow.

In our Week 6 rankings the Bengals were 12th overall and fifth in DVOA, with a 10-7 projection and a wild-card spot. Burrow was fourth on our Oct. 6th quarterback list.

The record has had help. In Week 1, 24 of Cincinnati’s 33 points against Tampa Bay came off Buccaneers mistakes, and the defense forced four turnovers. Houston outgained the Bengals 374-267 in Week 2 and lost by 14, after a botched snap on a field goal and a short 58-yard try. In Pittsburgh, the Steelers gained 411 yards, Cincinnati’s special teams gave away 10 points, and Derrick Harmon’s strip-sack of Burrow ended the Bengals’ last drive near Evan McPherson’s range, per AP. Through five games Cincinnati has outscored opponents 128-109.

When Cincinnati has the ball

The offensive line was sixth in our rankings, first in run block win rate at 77% but 24th in pass block at 46%. It allowed a 4.5% sack rate, a point better than its opponents usually allow, and 3.6 yards a carry. Chase Brown had averaged 2.2 yards a carry over the two games before the bye.

Burrow has carried the offense through the air. Against Jacksonville he threw for 428 yards with 23 rushing yards behind him, and his two interceptions, one in the red zone, were the difference in a five-point loss, as we wrote in Week 5. In Miami he threw four touchdown passes and wasn’t sacked.

The line’s numbers don’t agree with each other. Our Week 5 rankings had it first in run block, with Dalton Risner first among interior linemen and Orlando Brown Jr. second among tackles, but running back Chase Brown has averaged 2.2 a carry over the last two games. In August we noted Cincinnati’s line allowed the third-lowest pressure rate in football last season, and that Burrow’s reluctance to give up on plays keeps his sack totals up. Baltimore had five sacks in Cleveland with Hendrickson back.

Obviously today’s bye should help Chase, Higgins and safety Bryan Cook. Higgins had a groin injury, and receiver Colbie Young (knee) and safety Kyle Dugger (quad) are week to week. Burrow and Chase is one of the league’s elite duo’s.

Zac Taylor said Chase and Higgins both played through injuries in Miami, per Cincinnati Bengals On SI. Taylor’s bye-week list, per Bengals Wire: linebacker Swayze Bozeman to injured reserve with a broken forearm, tight end Tanner Hudson with a pectoral injury from special teams, and Dugger still week to week.

Hendrickson of course signed with Baltimore from Cincinnati, and this is his first game against the Bengals since he signed. He returns to Cincinnati on New Year’s Eve.

When Baltimore has the ball

Cincinnati’s defensive line was 18th in our rankings. It was sixth in run stop win rate at 31%, but allowed 5.0 yards a carry, 0.7 worse than its opponents usually gain. Its pass rush win rate was 48%, 23rd, though its 9.2% sack rate was above expectation.

Cincinnati spent its offseason on this side of the ball. It sent the No. 10 overall pick to the Giants for Dexter Lawrence and added Jonathan Allen, Boye Mafe, Bryan Cook and Dugger, with Cashius Howell in the second round. Our August preview named the linebacker room, graded a 4 by Mike Clay, as the weakness, and Bozeman’s injury thins it.

Al Golden’s plan showed in Houston. On the Texans’ first third down he sent eight, with Lawrence dropping into coverage and Cook coming free off the edge, per FOX19. Lawrence had dropped into coverage only twice since 2022 before that game, per NFL Pro data cited in that piece. Late in the half the Bengals showed seven rushers on third-and-13 and rushed four. Houston’s running backs gained 18 yards on 14 carries, and Cincinnati stopped 10 of 11 third downs of medium or long distance. Golden had cut his blitz rate to one of the league’s lowest last season after his pressures broke down.

It hasn’t held since. Pittsburgh’s rebuilt right side kept Lawrence quiet in Week 3, and Jaylen Warren ran for 127 yards. Miami ran for 217. After two weeks the front was tied for the league lead with eight sacks; going into Week 6 it was 18th in our rankings and 23rd in pass rush win rate.

That points the Ravens back to early downs. In Cleveland, 11 of their 16 third downs needed 8 yards or more, by our count from the play-by-play, and they converted three of them. Against a run defense allowing 5.0 a carry, first and second down are where Baltimore can stay out of the long third downs Golden’s pressure is built for.

Jackson has missed two games with his ankle. Matt Jergensen predicted last week that he’d be back for this one.

Last season

The teams split last season. Cincinnati won 32-14 in Baltimore on Thanksgiving, in Burrow’s first game back from a Week 2 toe injury. The Ravens turned it over five times, and the Bengals kicked four field goals off them. Baltimore won the rematch 24-0 in Cincinnati in Week 15. Burrow went 25 of 39 for 225 yards with two interceptions, and Henry ran 11 times for 100 yards.

Things To Watch

1. Jackson’s ankle. The practice reports, and whether Huntley makes a third straight start.
2. The line. Whether Jurgens clears the protocol, which moves Ioane back to right guard, and Stanley’s injury from the final possession.
3. Bateman’s shoulder. And how much of the passing game goes to Lane and Cuevas if he can’t play.
4. The run game. 3.8 yards a carry in Cleveland, against a Bengals front allowing 5.0, 0.7 worse than expected.
5. Chase and Higgins out of the bye. Both were hurt in Week 4, and Higgins’ groin is the one to follow.
6. Hendrickson. His first game against his former team, a week after the X-ray.
7. The fourth quarter. Cleveland gained 130 yards and converted 5 of 8 third downs in it. If this is a close game in the 4th, can the Ravens close?

It’s a Home Division Game.  You expect to win these games. Back-to-back Division losses wouldn’t have the Ravens in a ideal place within the AFC North.