Where The Projections Sit

Every national outlet has Maryland as a bubble team, 10th to 12th in the Big Ten. I haven’t seen anyone project them to finish below 12th in Conference play.
I don’t think there is anyone out there currently projecting MD to finish Top 6 in the Conference either.

Torvik’s split looks inverted to me and my expectations, as I anticipate this team to be led by their defense.

The Williams Pattern

Williams’ three worst seasons in a decade were all year one or year two of a job. Twice the recovery reached the Top 35 within three years. Maryland’s 119th is not an outlier in his career; it is his standard opening move, and 2027-28 is when the pattern says it should break historically.  Breaking in Year 3 here would not be sufficient. Needs to be a major jump here in Year 2.

The Roster

Sixteen players, six transfers, four freshmen and five holdovers. The class ranked 10th among high school groups, 19th in the portal and 5th overall. The roster reportedly cost north of $14 million.

Backcourt

Wings

Frontcourt

The rotation

Likely starters: Wagner — Boswell — Mills — Buljan — Payne, with Oladotun as a high-minutes sixth man who probably starts by January.

Maybe Oladotun grabs a staring spot right away, but after missing most of his Senior high school season; coupled with Mills having started 25 games and averaging 12.2 points in the Big Ten – I’d think Mills would begin the year as a starter.

I’ve seen some people suggest that Buljan and Payne might not play a lot together.
I don’t see how that works even if their similar.

I like McNair as the seventh man with him giving MD some spacing.
Jennings, Turkson, House and Jabriel fill out a nine-to-ten-man group; K’Medehouto and Tambedou are the emergency bigs.

That said, I like everything I’ve seen and read about Tambedou, so maybe he forces his way into more minutes then I’m currently expecting.

Expect a very good defensive rebounding team and a dominant offensive glass — Buljan, Jennings, K’Medehouto and Tambedou were all elite offensive rebounders at their last stops. That is the single most deliberate thing about how this roster was built.

The Schedule

Twenty Big Ten games split evenly, ten home and ten away, with two of them in early December. The full schedule runs 32 games plus two October exhibitions, against Georgia Tech at UMBC on Oct. 11th and West Virginia in College Park on Oct. 18th.

Non-Conference

Six buy games — Bucknell, Alcorn State, Wagner, American, Morgan State, Radford — and six that matter.

The Big Ten Draw

Home: Michigan State, UCLA, USC, Illinois, Rutgers, Wisconsin, Nebraska, Indiana, Minnesota, Northwestern

Away: Ohio State, Iowa, Indiana, Purdue, Penn State, Michigan State, Oregon, Washington, Rutgers, Michigan

The draw is favorable in structure. Maryland gets seven of ESPN’s top ten Big Ten teams at Xfinity Center, and draws Michigan State, Indiana and Rutgers at home once each. The December opener is unkind – at Ohio State on Dec. 6th, then Michigan State at home three days later – and January is eight straight games against tournament-caliber opposition.

Do Damage Against The Teams Expected To Be Below You

ESPN ranks seven Big Ten teams below Maryland. The Terps play eight games against those seven, and five are on the road: at Iowa (Jan 9th), at Penn State (Jan 30th), at Oregon (Feb 17th), at Washington (Feb 20th), at Rutgers (Feb 28th).

Quick Hits

The shooting concern is a legitimate question, but shouldn’t be a crisis. This won’t be a strong shooting team like the ’24-’25 team. But It has McNair at 44.4% (5th nationally, a program-record 110 makes), Jabriel at 44.0% (35th nationally), Boswell at 38.5%, Mills at 34.6% on 159 attempts, and Wagner improving from deep for a third straight year. Will this team be a great shot making team? I doubt it. I think there is enough shooting that it shouldn’t be a tremendous liability.  Of course, MD is going to have to do work on the boards, and get to the line.

Andre Mills. Twelve points a game over a full Big Ten season, 25 starts, two 30-point games. He is the second Maryland freshman ever alongside Joe Smith to post two 30 point games as a rookie. He is also the strongest counter-evidence to the argument that this staff cannot develop players: a four-star ranked 96th nationally who redshirted at Texas A&M and produced a top-five freshman scoring season in program history.

Wagner’s baseline is?  Hopefully his sophomore year, and not last season. He started all 36 games at Arkansas in 2024-25, led the team with 131 assists, ranked second in the SEC in minutes, and averaged 12.2 points and 4.6 assists over the final 18 games once he took over at point guard. He entered last season as preseason third-team All-SEC. Maryland needs that level of steady production.

Year Two: What Buzz Has To Obtain

1. Make the tournament. With the field at 76, missing is close to disqualifying. There is no version of a second straight whiff he survives with credibility.
2. Win a tournament game. A one-and-done 11 seed will read as treading water to the fan base. MD has just three Sweet 16s in 24 years, and wants signs to believe deeper runs in March are coming.
3. Two and ideally three quality non-conference wins. Georgetown plus one of Virginia, South Carolina or the Players Era field. The schedule gives MD six chances before January.
4. A defense that matches the rhetoric. Williams was hired on a reputation for gritty, physical defense and finished 125th. Injuries factored. So did overall lack of talent. In Year 2 a bottom-half defense would be an indictment with no alibi.
5. Get Wagner right. The Arkansas read was that he impacts winning as a facilitator and struggles carrying the scoring. Maryland needs the former and needs not to require the latter.
6. Maximize Oladotun. This might be his only season in College Park. Make the most of it.
7. If there is an issue with the Boosters, that has to be settled. Winning would be what helps the most. But overall Buzz has to make sure everyone with the program – current players, former players, alumni, administration, former coaches, etc – is rowing in the same direction.

Expectations

Nationally, the current expectations are for MD to be a bubble team, 11 seed, finishing 10th to 12th in the Big Ten.

My program expectations for MD is to get back to being a perennial Top 25 team with Sweet 16 aspirations annually.
Is that possible for MD this year? We’ll see.

What are realistic expectation for this year? 21-11, 11-9 in the Big Ten, a 9 or 10 seed, somewhere around 35th in the efficiency ratings. That would be an 85-spot jump from 119th – dramatic-sounding, but close to what Texas A&M did from year two to year three under Williams, 137th to 33rd.

A 21 win, 10 seed season would be simultaneously a large improvement, a validation of the Williams career pattern, and short of the standard Maryland should hold. All three are true at once.

What I Like

The Payne-Buljan frontcourt. Two 6-9, 250-pound bodies, one of whom was the only Mountain West player to average a double-double and set a school offensive rebounding record, the other in his third year in the system. They should combine to be a strong duo, that isn’t pushed around.

The ball security. Wagner at 85-to-23 and Boswell at 106-to-53 is elite for a backcourt. Last season Maryland played shooting guards at point because Myles Rice did not work out. That specific problem is fixed.

McNair. A 224th-ranked portal addition who finished fifth nationally in three-point percentage and averaged 24.0 points shooting 13-of-21 from deep in road games at Northwestern and Penn State. He’ll have to adjust to a new role of being a reserve, and not getting as many looks as he is accustomed to. But he should be able to hit a couple of shots a game off the bench.

The defensive intent. House was Defensive Player of the Year in his HS league, Boswell led Tennessee in steals eight times, K’Medehouto blocked 83 shots in a JuCo season, McNair led BU in steals, Jennings is a defensive specialist by reputation. Five distinct defensive additions.

Oladotun. The second-highest-rated recruit in program history and a projected lottery pick, from Silver Spring. Worth watching regardless of the record.

The Primary Questions

1. Does Mills take the next step? He scored 12.2 a game on 40.9% shooting and 46.8% on twos. With Wagner, Buljan and a healthy Payne cutting his usage, does that become 15 on 45%? The offense largely depends on it.
2. Is Boswell’s shooting real? He opened last season at 60.7% from three through 18 games and finished at 38.5% – meaning he was roughly 20% over the back half, when SEC play tightened. His career high in points is 13, tied three times. Project him at 8 to 10 a game.
3. How ready is Oladotun? He missed most of his senior high school season, returning for the playoffs. He’s going to be playing a ton, and potentially be a day one starter. If he needs until January, the wing rotation thins fast.
4. Health. Payne played 10 games, Jennings three. Behind them sit a JuCo transfer and a freshman. The identity of this team runs through two bigs with recent availability problems and no proven third option. That is the most fragile thing about the season, more than the shooting.
5. It’s 1 Year Situation: College Basketball in 2026 is not about program building.  Is Williams and this roster cohesive, and ready to start building a resume out of the gate?

The post Maryland Basketball 2026-27: Year Two of Buzz Williams appeared first on Baltimore Sports and Life.

Here’s what we learned in Week 3.

The (pass) defense still needs work

Make no mistake: if anything is holding this Ravens team back, it’s their defense—particularly, their 4th-quarter pass defense.

Way too often, thought they’re not perfect, the Ravens’ offense has given the defense plenty to work with, especially given injuries to Ronnie Stanley, Zay Flowers, and Ja’Kobi Lane. Though it’s early, Baltimore’s defense has still yet to click. They’re not bad, obviously, but if they don’t get their 4th-quarter (pass) defense corrected soon, the good vibes from yesterday will fade away in a hurry.

Through three games, Baltimore’s defense has given up an average of 321.3 yards per game, ranking 14th in the league. Not bad. Certainly, good enough to win on any given week.

But when it comes down to crunch time, and both teams know they other offense is going to pass, the Ravens have not found a good enough answer yet. The fact that every one of their defensive back starters are 1st round picks, and the Raven are still getting gashed is borderline embarrassing. It’s simply not good enough.

So far this season, the Ravens have allowed an average of 100.0 passing yards per game in the 4th quarter alone. Between Daniel Jones, Tyler Shough, and Dak Prescott, opposing quarterbacks have combined to throw for 300 yards on 25-for-34 passing (73.5 percent completion), 2 touchdowns, and zero interceptions.

Put differently, those 300 pass yards allowed in the 4th quarter account for 31.1 percent of all yards allowed by Baltimore so far this season. Just imagine what Josh Allen or Patrick Mahomes will do to this defense if these mistakes aren’t fixed. Also, this pass rush is as fortified now as it has been in years, so you can’t blame them either.

That said, I’m not a fan of identifying a problem and not a solution. If I was in charge, I would immediately stop putting Kyle Hamilton as an edge defender or middle linebacker in late-game passing situations. At least twice yesterday, he was literally standing still after the snap, watching the play develop—which was not his fault. That was just his role on a particular play.

Instead, I’d like to see Baltimore’s best defensive player be mobile. Cover George Pickens man-to-man. Go to a 3-high-safety look with Hamilton over top of the other team’s best defender. Do something that doesn’t involve him potentially being a spectator.

To be fair, even Mike Macdonald struggled in the beginning of his tenure as Ravens defensive coordinator to find the right mix of personnel and play calls, so this is not a knock on Jesse Minter. I think Minter is the right man to lead the Ravens, period. I’m confident he will get things right, but if everyone is being honest, this 4th quarter (pass) defense is just not sustainable. Kyle Hamilton said it himself after the game yesterday: “Guys had their moments on defense, but it is unacceptable for us to keep putting ourselves in this position in the fourth quarter,” Hamilton said. “They should not have to go out there and score 30 points for us to win. It is unacceptable to be saying we are a ‘Ravens defense’ or whatever that means at this point and be going out there and doing that. Obviously, we have a new staff in, so it is on the players. We have to get it fixed as players and do right by these guys to put us in better positions.”

Mark Andrews and Ronnie Stanley haven’t started the way they (or we) would’ve hoped

Mark Andrews and Ronnie Stanley are Ravens Ring of Honor candidates. They’re multiple time Pro Bowlers and still have a lot of good football left. That said, this season has not started the way I’m sure they envisioned.

Through three weeks, Stanley (59.7 percent) and Andrews (65.0 percent) have played less than 2/3 of Baltimore’s offensive snaps. For Stanley, the snap count percentage is more telling, as tight ends aren’t always used on every play.

Stanley’s injury history has been documented, and now in his 11th season, he’s given Baltimore sufficient value on the whole of his contracts. His cap number will go from $9.85 million in 2026 to $24.1 million in March of 2027. So even if, when he returns, he doesn’t play to 100 percent of his capability, what value he does give should be plenty for the Ravens offense to stay on track.

As for Andrews, his cumulative stat line in 2026 is as follows: 13 receptions on 18 targets (.722 reception rate), for 122 yards (9.4 yards per reception) and no touchdowns. So, like Stanley, not bad per se, but not exactly what he or we have come to expect from him. Obviously, Andrews’ job includes blocking, too. Pro Football Focus currently ranks him 8th in the NFL in tight end performance (75.1 grade).

The good news is that the Ravens host the Titans this week. Andrews is three receptions away from becoming the 18th tight end all-time to reach 500 career receptions, and given

his current form, he should certainly reach that mark on Sunday. This is the perfect opportunity for Andrews to break out and announce to the rest of the league that he is still a high-caliber player.

Penalties are still an issue

Through three games, here’s the breakdown of penalties assessed to the Ravens:

· 10 for 86

· 7 for 34

· 9 for 78

At an average of 66 penalty yards per game, the Ravens are essentially giving the opposition a touchdown via penalties, given that touchbacks bring the ball to the 35-yard line now. This team is not yet good enough to afford the opposition those kinds of extra chances and still win on a regular basis.

This group has a lot of collective courage

Tyler Loop. Enough said.

As Lamar said in the locker room after the game yesterday, “This is the start of the season right here.”

That was exactly the kind of ending to a game the Ravens needed to ignite their focus. The talent has been and still is there. The focus has waned, but because of their collective courage, they got the job done.

Looking forward…

Entering Week 4, the Ravens are in a good place. They have a winning record, are tied for 1st place in their division, but also have also made mistakes recently enough that they should be locked in from start to finish this Sunday. The Titans are currently 0-3, and since the beginning of 2022 until now, they’ve only won 19 games (.268 winning percentage).

Given that Week 2 happened and Derrick Henry is set to face the team that drafted him for the first time, I don’t think Baltimore will overlook Tennessee. Hopefully, the Ravens start fast and finish strong this week, and are able to rest some starters toward the end of the game. Sunday’s forecast calls for a high of 70 degrees with a 35 percent chance of rain; perfect weather to run the rock, force the Titans into pass-only situations, and have our defense score it’s first touchdown of the 2026 season.

Prediction: Ravens 27, Titans 13

The post What We Learned: Week 3 appeared first on Baltimore Sports and Life.

Adley Rutschman, traded to Boston at the deadline, is the most valuable defensive catcher on any playoff team, at +12 runs saved, and has won 41 of his 62 ABS challenges this season. In Milwaukee, DL Hall has finally stayed healthy, and his 1.91 ERA and 26.6% strikeout rate make him a real lefty weapon. Tampa Bay has two more: Cedric Mullins starts in center for his glove (+7.3 defensive runs) even though he hit just .205, and Tyler Wells has a 1.50 ERA in 18 relief innings.

The bracket

Twelve teams made the field, six per league. The top two division winners in each league get a bye to the best-of-five Division Series. The other eight play best-of-three Wild Card Series, with every game at the higher seed.

Yes, the 81-81 Astros host a series. Division winners are seeded ahead of wild cards, and a historically weak AL West gave Houston home field despite finishing 11½ games behind the fourth-seeded Yankees.

Wild Card Series TV schedule

All four series open Tuesday, Sept. 29th, and Game 2s are Wednesday. Any Game 3s are Thursday on NBC, Peacock or NBCSN (full matchup guide).

AL Wild Card Series

No. 5 Red Sox at No. 4 Yankees

Pick: Yankees in 3. This is the seventh postseason meeting between the rivals and a rematch of last year’s Wild Card Series, which New York won 2-1 behind Cam Schlittler’s Game 3 gem. The Yankees took the season series 7-6.

This matchup is about pitching, not slugging. These were the AL’s two best run-prevention teams, at 3.73 runs allowed per game for New York and 3.77 for Boston, while both offenses finished right around league average. The Yankees led the majors with a 3.24 team ERA. Schlittler (1.95 ERA, 239 strikeouts) is the AL Cy Young favorite, and Max Fried, Gerrit Cole and Carlos Rodón follow him. Schlittler and Fried both throw a four-seamer, sinker and cutter, which lets them change looks from one trip through the order to the next. David Bednar has settled the ninth, with Brent Headrick and Paul Blackburn setting up.

Aaron Judge is the wild card within the Wild Card. A rib stress fracture cost him June through August, and he strained his calf after just seven games back. Reports on his availability range from hopeful to doubtful. New York went 41-25 with him and 52-43 without, scoring nearly a run more per game when he played. Ben Rice (41 HR) has carried the lineup in his absence.

Boston’s season has been a roller coaster. The Red Sox started 10-17 and fired Alex Cora. Under Chad Tracy they went 77-58, including a franchise record-tying 15-game winning streak in July, and Tracy just signed a three-year deal. Then the bats went cold: Boston scored the fewest runs in the majors in September and went 12-12.

The matchup to watch is Boston’s lefties. The Red Sox have the most left-handed staff in nearly 40 years, with hitters facing a southpaw in nearly 60% of plate appearances. Ranger Suárez and rookie Payton Tolle (3.03 ERA, 2.52 since August) start, while Aroldis Chapman and deadline pickup Erik Miller (1.23 ERA, 40% strikeout rate since the trade) close games. Garrett Crochet, who hasn’t pitched since April 25, could also be a bullpen option. New York hits lefties well overall, but the matchups create lineup problems. Austin Wells has a .441 OPS against lefties this year and Ryan McMahon .509, which could push Anthony Volpe to third base, a position he first played last week. Sonny Gray, the one righty ace, gives Boston a different look in whichever game he starts.

No. 6 White Sox at No. 3 Astros

Pick: White Sox in 3 (upset). This is a rematch of the 2005 World Series, which Chicago swept, and the 2021 ALDS, which Houston won in four. The Astros took the season series 5-2.

Houston posted its worst full-season winning percentage since 2014 but still made its 10th postseason in 12 years, largely because of Yordan Alvarez. He led MLB in average, OBP and slugging (.316/.432/.601) with 42 homers, while the league as a whole hit .244/.319/.400. He is hitting .400 with four homers over his last 11 games and owns a .944 career postseason OPS. The rest of the roster is thin. Houston’s 4.45 team ERA ranked 24th, and after Hunter Brown the rotation is Peter Lambert and Hayden Wesneski. Josh Hader, Bryan Abreu and Tatsuya Imai, who has a 2.12 ERA since moving to relief, will be asked to cover a lot of innings.

The White Sox lost a record 121 games two years ago and are now the field’s feel-good story. They finished fifth in runs on the strength of three 30-homer bats: Miguel Vargas (33 HR, 100-plus walks), Munetaka Murakami (35) and Colson Montgomery (31). The worry is that Murakami (.154) and Montgomery (.158) have two of the lowest averages in the majors since Aug. 1. The rotation of Sean Burke, Davis Martin, Anthony Kay and Erick Fedde is the weakest in the field. The bullpen is not: Grant Taylor and Hagen Smith anchor it, and Jordan Hicks has struck out 39% of hitters since changing his arm slot in June. If Chicago pitches around Alvarez and its sluggers wake up, this upset is very live.

NL Wild Card Series

No. 5 Cubs at No. 4 Padres

Pick: Padres in 3. This is the closest series of the round and a rematch of last year’s Wild Card Series, which the Cubs won 2-1 at Wrigley. Chicago also went 5-1 against San Diego this season, including a 23-3 rout. That history is the best argument against this pick. Game 1 is Michael King vs. Matthew Boyd, and San Diego is a slight favorite.

The Padres are the hottest team in the field. They closed the season 17-3 and are 41-18 since July 24, the best record in baseball over that span. After ranking last in the majors in runs, average and OPS at the All-Star break, they led MLB in average after it, as Fernando Tatis Jr., Jackson Merrill and Ty France all hit like stars. First-year manager Craig Stammen, a longtime reliever himself, gets to deploy the deepest bullpen in the field. Mason Miller ranks first in the majors in expected ERA, and his slider gets a 56% whiff rate, the best of any qualifying pitch. Adrián Morejon and rookie Bradgley Rodriguez (2.38 ERA) also rank in the top 10 by expected ERA, and Yuki Matsui and a returning Jason Adam add depth.

Chicago has the best lineup and the best defense in baseball. The Cubs led MLB in runs and OPS, hit 220 homers and posted a 114 wRC+. Pete Crow-Armstrong put together one of the great seasons of the century: 45 homers, 41 steals, a 157 wRC+ and 10.6 WAR. He also ranked first in defensive value and a close second in offensive value, a combination no player has ever managed. His nine leadoff homers rank third in MLB, so watch the first pitch. As a team, the Cubs saved +68 runs in the field, the most of the Statcast era. Alex Bregman (28 HR, 5.6 WAR) is back from facial fractures, and Seiya Suzuki (26 HR) is in a contract year.

The pitching is the problem. The Cubs posted a 4.12 ERA and a 4.60 FIP, allowed 1.44 homers per nine and threw the softest fastballs in the majors. Shota Imanaga gave up 1.81 homers per nine. They’re also road-weary: rain from a nor’easter sent them from Chicago to Boston to St. Petersburg to San Diego in five days.

No. 6 Phillies at No. 3 Braves

Pick: Braves in 3. Atlanta went 9-4 against Philadelphia this season. But the Phillies have won all three previous postseason meetings, including as a wild card over division-champion Atlanta in both 2022 and 2023. The Braves haven’t won a playoff series since their 2021 title.

Chris Sale is the reason to like Atlanta. At 37 he posted a 2.16 ERA, a 2.28 FIP, a 30.9% strikeout rate and 5.8 WAR, and he has owned Philadelphia’s lefty sluggers: Bryce Harper is 2-for-21 against him and Kyle Schwarber 2-for-25. Tyler Mahle (1.28 ERA in eight starts after the deadline) is a strong No. 2, although he was hit for five runs in his final start. The bullpen is deep: Raisel Iglesias closes, Robert Suarez has a 0.82 ERA in 33 innings, and Didier Fuentes, the youngest pitcher on any big-league roster, has struck out 31.6% of hitters.

The lineup’s names are scarier than its numbers. Matt Olson (41 HR), Drake Baldwin and Michael Harris II all produced, but Austin Riley and Ozzie Albies had down years. The team posted a league-average offense by wRC+ despite topping 200 homers. Atlanta does have the NL’s highest rate of 75-plus mph swings, and Ronald Acuña Jr. hit seven homers with a 1.000-plus OPS in September.

Philadelphia’s stars are real, but the team is limping in. Zack Wheeler pitched Game 162 and won’t be on full rest at any point in this series. Jesús Luzardo (shoulder) has thrown only one relief inning since Sept. 7. Cristopher Sánchez had a 5.12 ERA in September and won’t be on full rest until Wednesday, so rookie Andrew Painter may start. The bullpen’s 5.79 ERA since Sept. 1 is the worst in MLB. On offense, only Harper and Schwarber (MLB-best 45 HR) finished above average, but they rank second and third in the majors in run value against fastballs. The Phillies are 8-4 in postseason games when Schwarber homers and 13-13 when he doesn’t.

The teams waiting on the bye

Tampa Bay Rays (AL No. 1, 98-64)

In their first year back at Tropicana Field, the Rays went 55-26 at home, the best home record in baseball, and they have home field until the World Series. They do almost nothing poorly. They struck out less than any team, hit an MLB-best .283 with runners in scoring position and led the AL in steals. Junior Caminero (42 HR, 142 wRC+, 5.3 WAR) has the fastest average bat speed in the majors, 79.6 mph, and hit the most no-doubt homers. Chandler Simpson is his mirror image: he stole 46 bases and hit .306 without a single homer or even a single barrel. Drew Rasmussen (2.67 ERA, 2.82 FIP, 5.0 WAR) leads the rotation, and closer Bryan Baker (1.44 ERA) heads a bullpen that also includes Kevin Kelly, Cam Booser and ex-Oriole Tyler Wells. The concerns: Caminero, Jonathan Aranda and Yandy Díaz hit more than half the team’s homers, Shane McClanahan’s status is uncertain, and the Rays are one of the six weakest lineups against left-handed pitching. That last one is a problem if Boston’s lefty-heavy staff advances.

Cleveland Guardians (AL No. 2, 85-77)

Cleveland won its third straight division title despite José Ramírez having the worst season of his career, and it enters as the hottest team in the AL by Bill James’ “team temperature” formula. As usual, the Guardians are built on pitching. Rookie Parker Messick (2.56 ERA, 193 strikeouts in 186⅓ innings) is a Cy Young and Rookie of the Year candidate, Gavin Williams misses bats, and closer Cade Smith saved 41 games with a 1.95 ERA. Keep an eye on Daniel Espino, who is averaging 98.8 mph out of the bullpen after years of shoulder injuries. The offense is the issue: it scored the fewest runs of any playoff team, had no 20-homer hitter and ranks among the six weakest against lefties. Cleveland went 27-22 in one-run games and will need more of those, with Steven Kwan (MLB’s leader in OBP since July) setting the table.

Milwaukee Brewers (NL No. 1, 103-59)

This is the best season in franchise history and the best record in baseball. Jacob Misiorowski was the best pitcher in the sport: 1.80 ERA, 2.17 FIP, 37.9% strikeout rate and 6.6 WAR in 174⅔ innings, with two of every three fastballs at 100 mph or harder. Logan Henderson (2.47 ERA) set a rookie record with an 0.84 WHIP among pitchers with 15-plus starts. Trevor Megill (1.85 FIP), Abner Uribe (1.97 ERA), Aaron Ashby and ex-Oriole DL Hall make up one of the two best bullpens in the field. The Brewers finished second in runs despite hitting only 154 homers, the fewest in MLB, by leading the majors in average and OBP. Brice Turang (5.9 WAR), Jackson Chourio (130 wRC+) and Jake Bauers (143 wRC+) lead that group. Two questions: who starts Games 3 and 4 after Kyle Harrison faded, and whether a low-power lineup can do more than the four runs it scored in four NLCS games against the Dodgers last year.

Los Angeles Dodgers (NL No. 2, 100-62)

The two-time defending champions are the betting favorite and are chasing the first NL three-peat. Their rotation is the deepest in the field. Yoshinobu Yamamoto posted a 2.53 ERA, deadline prize Tarik Skubal had a 2.36 FIP in 10 Dodgers starts, Blake Snell had a 1.90 ERA after returning, and Tyler Glasnow struck out 34% of hitters. Skubal’s changeup produced 27 strikeouts over his last two postseasons with Detroit, the most by any single pitch in that span. The worries are health and the back of the bullpen. The Dodgers have MLB’s oldest roster at 31.1 years. Shohei Ohtani (30 HR, 139 wRC+) is playing on a sore knee and won’t pitch again this year after posting a 1.79 ERA in 85⅔ innings. Edwin Díaz has an 8.68 ERA in 18⅔ innings, and hard-throwing reliever Edgardo Henriquez (back) may be unavailable, which leaves Tanner Scott (2.10 FIP) and Alex Vesia to close games. Kyle Tucker was a league-average hitter overall but got hot in September.

The field by the numbers

Money didn’t buy seeding this year: the two best records in the AL and NL belong to teams in the bottom half of the payroll table. Here’s how the 12 teams stack up on spending, hitting, pitching, defense and against each other.

Spending

Source: USA Today, MLB Labor Relations Department figures · 40-man Opening Day payroll in present-day value · 2026

The Dodgers opened the season spending about 4.6 times what the Guardians did. The Orioles’ $170 million payroll was bigger than those of four playoff teams, including both No. 1 seeds (full payroll list).

Offense

Source: Baseball-Reference team batting · 2026 regular season through Sept. 27

Only the Cubs and Dodgers beat the league average in both on-base percentage and slugging by a wide margin. Milwaukee got on base more than anyone but hit for league-average power, and Cleveland’s .380 slugging is the lowest in the field (team batting).

Pitching

Source: Baseball-Reference team pitching (ERA, FIP) · 2026 regular season

FIP strips out defense and luck on balls in play, so a big gap between the two numbers is worth noticing. Atlanta and Chicago both allowed roughly half a run fewer per nine than their FIPs suggest, and the Cubs’ 4.60 FIP is the worst in the field. Philadelphia is the only playoff staff whose FIP (3.79) is better than its ERA (4.04), which fits a bullpen that leaked runs all September (team pitching).

Defense

Source: Baseball-Reference team fielding (defensive efficiency) · 2026 regular season

Defensive efficiency is a blunt tool. It credits a defense for every ball in play that becomes an out, whether that took a diving stop or just a pitcher inducing a lazy fly ball, so it mixes fielding with the quality of contact a staff allows. Tampa Bay shows the gap: the Rays top this chart, but through 158 games they were tied for 21st in errors, at -4 in DRA and at -10 outs above average. Their number says more about the contact their pitchers allowed and where their fielders were positioned than about their gloves. The Cubs are the case where the two agree, since their third-place mark here comes with a defense that set a Statcast-era record for runs saved. The Phillies’ .678 is the lowest of any playoff team (team fielding).

Head-to-head

Three of the four host teams won the season series. The exception is San Diego, which went 1-5 against Chicago, including a 23-3 loss, and still gets to host because it won more games overall.

Why October is a coin flip

Everything above measures six months of baseball. The next month gets decided in bursts of three, five and seven games, and short series are bad at sorting good teams from very good ones.

Source: Calculated from single-game win probability, treating each game as independent with the same odds

The math is humbling. Give a team a 60% chance to win every game, which is better than any club in this field managed over 162 (the Brewers won 63.6% against the whole league, not just playoff teams), and it wins a best-of-three only about 65% of the time, a best-of-five about 68% and a best-of-seven about 71%. A statistical study cited by CBS Sports found that baseball would need a best-of-75 series for the better team to advance even 80% of the time. CBS’s broader point is that the real source of October chaos is letting 12 teams in, not the bye or the layoff.

The hot-and-cold narratives don’t hold up much better. NBC Sports’ Eric Samulski checked every playoff team from 2016 to 2025 and found almost no correlation between September winning percentage and how far a team went. The 2021 Cardinals went 22-7 in September and lost the Wild Card game. The 2025 Tigers went 7-17 and won their Wild Card series. The 2023 Diamondbacks had the worst September OPS in the field and reached the World Series.

That cuts both ways for this bracket. Boston’s 12-12 September, the Phillies’ final-week meltdown and the Cubs’ road-weary finish are less damning than they look, and San Diego’s 17-3 closing kick guarantees nothing. Samulski’s advice is to trust season-long quality over a hot month, which favors teams like the Cubs, Dodgers and Brewers. It’s also why our picks lean on full-season rotations and run prevention rather than September form, and why no bracket, ours included, should be expected to survive October intact.

What this field tells us

October can’t be bought, at least not the easy way. Three of the four teams with byes carry three of the four smallest payrolls in the field: Cleveland ($70 million), Tampa Bay ($90 million) and Milwaukee ($125 million). The Dodgers are the only big spender who earned a week off. Four of the five biggest payrolls (Yankees, Phillies, Braves and Astros) have to survive a best-of-three first, and Houston spent $246 million to go 81-81.

Run prevention is what separated the bye teams. All four finished with team ERAs below the 4.17 MLB average, and Milwaukee (3.51) and Los Angeles (3.55) backed theirs up with FIPs under 3.75. Offense was a much looser filter. Four playoff teams scored fewer runs than an average club, the best record in baseball belongs to the team that hit the fewest homers, and only the Cubs and Dodgers were clearly above average at both getting on base and hitting for power.

The cheap contenders are also the young ones. The White Sox (25.8), Guardians (26.9) and Brewers (27.3) have the three youngest lineups in the field by average age (team batting), and all three cost less than $126 million. The Dodgers (30.9) and Phillies (30.1) have the two oldest and are among the four most expensive. Young, inexpensive, pitching-first rosters are how mid-market teams got in. The veteran payrolls still have the higher ceilings, but they also carry most of the health questions: Aaron Judge’s calf, Shohei Ohtani’s knee and Jesús Luzardo’s shoulder.

Finally, the gap between ERA and FIP flags which staffs may have had help. Atlanta (0.50 runs), Chicago (0.48), New York (0.47) and Tampa Bay (0.34) all allowed noticeably fewer runs than their FIPs predict, while Philadelphia is the only team that pitched better than its ERA. Over three or five games that matters less than who’s on the mound, but it’s a reason not to treat the Yankees’ MLB-best ERA as untouchable.

What we like most, and question most, about each team

Depth: what money buys, and what the farm buys

Payroll doesn’t guarantee a playoff spot, but it does buy insurance. A big payroll lets a team carry proven veterans all over the roster, so an injury or a slump gets covered by a capable replacement instead of a Triple-A call-up. The Yankees are the case study. Aaron Judge played just 66 games and four of their six starting pitchers missed significant time, yet New York still posted the AL’s best run differential, +138 (Pinstripe Alley). The Dodgers, with the oldest roster in the field and a long injured list, still won 100.

There is a second way to build depth, and it runs through the farm system. A strong system supplies cheap replacements when injuries hit and trade chips when a contender needs help at the deadline. Milwaukee showed the first half of that on the final weekend alone: Andrew Vaughn went to the injured list, Cooper Pratt was scratched, and the Brewers swept anyway, and 10 different pitchers recorded a save for them this season (Brew Crew Ball).

Source: MLB Pipeline farm system rankings (2023 preseason, 2024 midseason, 2025 preseason, 2026 midseason) · USA Today Opening Day payroll

The pattern is hard to miss. The four teams with byes had the four best average farm rankings in the field over these four lists, and three of them did it with bottom-four payrolls. The Dodgers are the only club doing both at once. They’re back at No. 1 even after sending two Top 100 prospects to Detroit for Tarik Skubal (MLB Pipeline, 2026).

The teams that spent big and let their systems thin out are all playing this week. Houston has ranked 29th on five straight lists, which leaves little cushion when the big-league roster underperforms, and a $246 million payroll finished 81-81. San Diego is 30th after years of trading prospects at the deadline. The Cubs have traded away 15 players who now appear on other teams’ Top 30 lists, more than anyone, and fell from eighth to 28th in a year and a half. The Yankees slid from 13th to 27th while trading to reinforce the big-league club. Those trades built the bullpens and lineups these teams are bringing into October. The cost shows up in depth.

Boston shows the trade-off in real time. The Red Sox fell 10 spots in one cycle, from 14th to 24th, after graduating three rookie pitchers and sending three of their six best prospects to Baltimore for Adley Rutschman. That same deal helped push the Orioles’ system from 13th to seventh (2023 rankings, 2024, 2025).

Comparing the leagues

Since the National League adopted the DH in 2022, both leagues play the same game, and since 2023 every team has played every other team. That makes AL-vs.-NL comparisons more direct than they used to be. Three things still differ: the league each team spends most of its schedule in, the division it plays 52 games against, and its home park.

Start with the leagues. The NL won the interleague series 381-334 this season, a .533 winning percentage (StatMuse). NL teams also scored 4.61 runs per game to the AL’s 4.35, and Coors Field isn’t the reason, since the Rockies scored almost exactly a league-average number of runs (team batting). The NL was the stronger league this year.

The divisions matter even more, because 52 of every team’s 162 games come against division rivals. Here’s how each division did against everyone outside it:

Houston is the extreme case: its division played .424 ball against everyone else, which is how 81-81 won a title. Cleveland and the White Sox also came out of a below-.500 division. Tampa Bay’s 98 wins and the Yankees’ 93 came with a third of their schedule against the best division in baseball, and Milwaukee’s 103 came in the NL’s best.

Parks are the last piece, and they’re why raw numbers can mislead. OPS+ and ERA+ adjust for both park and league, with 100 as average.

Source: Baseball-Reference team batting (OPS+) and pitching (ERA+) · 2026 regular season

On that scale, the Yankees (99 OPS+, 130 ERA+), Dodgers (109, 120) and Brewers (105, 120) are the most complete teams, and Houston is the only one with a below-average staff. Philadelphia’s .707 OPS looks close to average until you adjust for its park and league, which drops it to an 89 OPS+, lowest in the field. One more adjustment belongs on top: because the NL was the stronger league, a 105 for an NL team probably means a bit more than a 105 for an AL team. That’s a point in favor of the Brewers and Dodgers, and a small discount for the AL Central clubs.

Adjusting for who they played

OPS+ and ERA+ handle parks and leagues, but not opponents, and no two teams play the same schedule. The Yankees never bat against their own staff, the best in baseball, but see Tampa Bay and Boston pitching 13 times each. Houston’s hitters and pitchers spent a third of their season against the weakest division in the sport. To estimate how much that matters, we weighted each team’s schedule (13 games against each division rival, about six against each other team in its league and about three against each team in the other league) and compared the runs its opponents scored and allowed with the MLB average.

The effect is real but small: most teams move by less than a tenth of a run per game, and the order barely changes. The biggest adjustment belongs to Houston. Its pitchers allowed 4.73 runs per game while facing weak AL West lineups all year, and against an average schedule that figure would rise to about 4.83, so a staff that already ranked last in the field is a little worse than its raw numbers show. The two AL Central clubs slip a little too, while the Phillies, who played in a tough NL East, gain a bit. The lesson for the rest of this preview is about precision. A ranking like the Yankees’ sixth place in slugging deserves a grain of salt, since sixth and 15th are separated by just seven points of slugging, about the size of these schedule effects. Tiers are meaningful; exact ranks inside them usually aren’t. That’s also why the head-to-head records above, where two teams faced the same opponent in the same parks, are worth a look even in small samples.

Odds and our bracket

The Dodgers are the clear betting favorite, but a 10,000-simulation model sees a near dead heat between L.A. and Milwaukee.

Both sportsbooks rate the Astros above the White Sox, the reverse of the model and of our upset pick. Odds are as of Sept. 28th, from FanDuel Sportsbook and DraftKings.

Our picks

• Wild Card: Yankees over Red Sox in 3; White Sox over Astros in 3; Padres over Cubs in 3; Braves over Phillies in 3.
• ALDS: Yankees over Rays in 5; Guardians over White Sox in 4.
• NLDS: Brewers over Padres in 5; Dodgers over Braves in 4.
• ALCS: Yankees over Guardians in 5. Four starters who can pitch deep outlast Cleveland’s thin offense.
• NLCS: Brewers over Dodgers in 7. Misiorowski and Henderson flip last year’s result, and L.A.’s shaky late innings finally cost it.
• World Series: Brewers over Yankees in 6. Milwaukee wins its first title, and Orioles fans get to watch the Yankees lose a World Series.

The post 2026 MLB Playoff Preview appeared first on Baltimore Sports and Life.

Baltimore beat Dallas 34-31 at the Maracanã on Tyler Loop’s 56-yard field goal as time expired. A week after losing a fourth-quarter lead at home to New Orleans, the Ravens fell behind 10-0, scored 24 of the next 27 points, and lost the lead again in the fourth quarter. This time they got it back. They did it with Ronnie Stanley inactive, two centers injured by the final drive, and rookie guard Vega Ioane snapping the ball on the go-ahead touchdown and the winning kick.

This game could have gone either way.  It was a true swing game.  The Ravens found a way to win. Not only is it a more enjoyable 9 hour flight home, it’s the type of game that a team can build off of.

Between the lights of RIo, and playing ‘America’s Team,’ this felt like a big game.

Losing another tough game late would have been deflating.

Winning a game like that makes you hope the Ravens have now effectively exorcised their 4th Quarter Demons.

10-0

Dallas opened with an 11-play, 57-yard drive. Williams had six carries for 44 yards on it. Roquan Smith came untouched on a blitz and sacked Dak Prescott on third and goal, and Dallas kicked a field goal.

LaJohntay Wester muffed the ensuing kickoff and recovered at the 21. Three plays later, Baltimore faced fourth and 1 at its own 30 with 6:12 left in the first quarter. Minter went for it. Derrick Henry went up the middle, and Caleb Downs stopped him for no gain. Dallas needed five plays to score, helped by Trenton Simpson’s face mask on a 3-yard completion, and led 10-0.

Last week we defended Minter’s fourth down punt. This was a different decision: first quarter, his own 30, with his defense already having spent more than five minutes on the field. It cost seven points.

24-3

Baltimore answered with 24 of the next 27 points.

Brandon Aubrey’s kickoff went out of bounds, and Baltimore started at its 40. Lamar Jackson ran 21 yards on a designed run behind a good block from Mark Andrews. Zay Flowers caught his first pass since Week 1 for 22. Henry scored from the 4 on a direct snap with Emery Jones Jr. reporting as an extra lineman.

The next drive went 89 yards, and 68 of them came on two Dallas pass interference calls: DaRon Bland on a deep ball to Flowers, and Markquese Bell on a deep ball to Devontez Walker on third and 11. Henry scored from the 3 a play later. Per NFL+, Henry passed Eric Dickerson during the game and moved into ninth on the NFL’s career rushing list.

Dallas went for it on fourth and 1 at its own 44 in the second quarter and was stopped. Baltimore got Loop’s 27-yard field goal out of it after a third-down pass to Flowers fell incomplete at the 9.

In the third quarter, Trenton Simpson recovered Jake Ferguson’s fumble at the Baltimore 25. Keondre Jackson blocked Aubrey’s 59-yard try. Baltimore took the ball after the block and went 51 yards: Henry 29 around right tackle, his longest run of the season; Justice Hill 11; Jackson 12; and Jackson to Chris Moore for a 4-yard touchdown. That made it 24-13 with 3:44 left in the third quarter.

Flowers finished with five catches for 84 yards, plus a 20 yard jet sweep, in his first game back from the hamstring. Moore caught a touchdown the week after the third-and-1 deep ball.

The Defense

Against New Orleans, Baltimore had no interior pass rush; all three sacks came off the edge. Nnamdi Madubuike played for the first time in more than a year. The interior showed up. Calais Campbell had three quarterback hits. Travis Jones had two tackles for loss, including the stop that opened the second half. Madubuike was in on three tackles, two of them in the two-minute drill. He was also flagged for roughing the passer on a third-down completion that set up Dallas’ second touchdown.

At the end of the first half, Dallas reached the Baltimore 20 and kicked a field goal. On the third-down stop, Shaffer noted Trey Hendrickson complaining he’d been held, and Baltimore got home with a four-man rush.

Kyle Hamilton was again the best defender on the field, with eight tackles and two passes defensed. One breakup came on third down, and the other on a blitz where he got his hands up. He was evaluated for a concussion in the third quarter and returned the next series. Roquan Smith led the team with nine tackles and the sack. Trenton Simpson had seven tackles, two for loss, and the fumble recovery.

Dallas ran 71 plays in regulation to Baltimore’s 57, and CBS had Dallas at 35 plays in Baltimore territory by late in the third quarter. The Cowboys were 5 of 13 on third down, better for Baltimore than New Orleans’ 8 of 15. Williams finished with 19 carries for 98 yards.

Then came the fourth quarter. After the goal-line stop below, Dallas went 96 yards in seven plays. CeeDee Lamb caught a 49-yard ball on second and 9 from the Dallas 5, and KaVontae Turpin ran 9 yards for the go-ahead touchdown. On Dallas’ last drive, down 3 with 1:30 left, it went 60 yards to the Baltimore 2. Three completions went out of bounds, and Nate Wiggins’ pass interference took it from the 22 to the 2. Lamb finished with seven catches for 112 yards, and George Pickens had seven for 82.

From there the defense held. Wiggins broke up a pass to Pickens. Roquan Smith brought down Prescott after he escaped a sack. Luke Schoonmaker false-started, Prescott threw incomplete on third down, and Dallas kicked the tie from 23 yards. Holding them to a field goal is what the situation required, but letting them get to the 2 is part of the story too.

Short Yardage

I understand the plan. You have Derrick Henry, and when you need a yard, you line up and make the defense stop him. Early on it worked. Henry scored from the 4 with Jones as the extra lineman, and from the 3 on the next drive.

The fourth quarter went differently:

Five carries, minus 5 yards, no conversions. Jaishawn Barham, the rookie who played at Maryland before transferring to Michigan, made the stop on three of them and finished with seven tackles, two for loss. Dallas knew what was coming, and the extra lineman told them.

So at what point do you adjust? Jackson ran six times for 50 yards. Flowers went 20 on a jet sweep. When Baltimore finally used Jackson on a short-yardage down, on third and 1 at the Dallas 38, he ran for 12, and Carson Vinson’s illegal formation took it away.

In the moment, I wanted Baltimore to go for it on fourth and goal. They did, and it was stopped. Dallas then went 96 yards to take the lead, and Baltimore got the ball back down 4 instead of down 1. A field goal there would have meant needing only another field goal. Instead, Baltimore needed a touchdown. I’d have made the same call, but a reminder that decisions have consequences.

The adjustment came on the last drive. After Henry was stopped for no gain at the 2, Jackson threw on second and third down. The third-down throw went to Matthew Hibner for the touchdown.

The Finish

Down 28-24 with 5:45 left, Baltimore went 64 yards in 11 plays and 4:15. Jackson opened with a 17-yard scramble, then went 4 of 5 for 40 yards: Andrews for 10 on third and 6 after a catch short of the marker, Flowers for 14 twice, and Hibner for the touchdown. Along the way, Bell drew his second pass interference, and John Simpson had his third false start. It was 31-28 with 1:30 left.

Dallas used its last timeout with 14 seconds left, threw incomplete on third down, and kicked with 7 seconds remaining. That was enough time for one play.

Jackson hit Flowers over the middle to the Dallas 39. Per Brett Kollmann, Reddy Steward played it expecting help inside that wasn’t there. Baltimore used its last timeout with one second left, and Loop made it from 56.

Jackson finished 15 of 20 for 186 yards, two touchdowns and no interceptions, plus six carries for 50 yards. Henry had 26 carries for 89 yards and two touchdowns. The passing volume was low, but Jackson averaged 9.3 yards per attempt, and Baltimore ran for 5.1 a carry. The Week 3 piece argued this offense’s problem was snaps, not effectiveness. Time of possession was roughly even, and Baltimore scored 34.

Penalties And Calls

Baltimore was flagged nine times, and six were on the offensive line: three false starts by John Simpson, two ineligible-downfield penalties on Jovaughn Gwyn, and Vinson’s illegal formation that erased Jackson’s 12 yard run. With Rosengarten’s against New Orleans, that’s three ineligible-downfield flags in two weeks.

Three calls drew objections from the CBS booth. Jim Nantz and J.J. Watt thought Bland’s pass interference should have been offensive interference on Flowers. Gene Steratore would have ruled Ferguson’s fumble incomplete, though replay upheld it. In the final minute, Watt and Steratore both thought Wiggins’ interference on Lamb, which moved Dallas from the 22 to the 2, should have been offensive interference. Steratore explained afterward that it started as mutual hand-fighting, but Lamb’s arm lock at the end looked to him like offensive interference.

Two went Baltimore’s way and one didn’t. You win calls, you lose calls, and different people watching the same replay saw different things.

Injuries

• Stanley was inactive. Vinson started at left tackle.
• Gwyn left with an ankle injury.
• Ethan Pocic replaced him at center, hyperextended his knee on a helmet to the knee with 3:11 left, and was carted off.
• Ioane moved from guard to center for the final two drives.
• Andrews (hand) left in the first half and returned.
• Hamilton was evaluated for a concussion and returned.

Takeaways

Loop. You have to feel good for him. He entered the season with extended pressure on him. Hitting a 56-yarder game winner in Rio as time expired has to do wonders for his confidence. Also for the fanbase believing in him.

Jackson late. Through three quarters he had thrown 13 times. In the fourth he went 6 of 7 for 72 yards and a touchdown, and the one miss was the high throw to Bateman at the goal line. He opened the go-ahead drive with a 17-yard scramble, converted 3rd and 1 with a 12-yard run that Vinson’s penalty erased, and with 7 seconds left found Flowers over the middle to set up the kick.

Pressure, but one sack. Baltimore hit Prescott seven times: three from Campbell, two from Hendrickson, one each from Roquan Smith and Tavius Robinson. The only sack came on Smith’s untouched blitz on the opening drive. The four-man rush got stops, including the one before halftime, but it didn’t finish plays, and Prescott ran four times for 19 yards, including escaping a sack on the tying drive. How Baltimore gets home more often is an open question. Some of it may come as Madubuike’s snaps build after his first game in more than a year. Some of it depends on Hendrickson, who is playing with a cast on a broken finger and spent Sunday telling officials he was being held. And some of it is a choice for Minter about how often to blitz.

A healthy Flowers. Five catches for 84 yards on six targets, a 20-yard jet sweep, a 19-yard pass interference drawn, and the catch that set up the winning kick. He also had a drop on 3rd and 6 at the 9 that would have been right at the first-down marker. In Week 2 without him, Chris Moore started opposite Bateman nine days off the practice squad. Sunday, with Flowers back, Moore played a smaller role and caught a touchdown from the 4.

The rest of the room. Hibner caught two passes for 23 yards: a 21-yarder that answered Dallas’ two-point conversion and the go-ahead touchdown. Josh Cuevas’ 14-yard catch on a well-designed play set up the second-quarter field goal. Walker didn’t catch a pass, but his one target drew Bell’s 49-yard pass interference on 3rd and 11. Bateman and Andrews combined for five catches and 61 yards, including Bateman’s 31-yarder late in the third and Andrews’ conversion on 3rd and 6 after coming back from the hand injury. Justice Hill ran five times for 33 yards, including a 7-yard conversion on 3rd and 5 and an 11-yarder on the Moore touchdown drive.

Week 4: Tennessee Comes To Baltimore

Sunday, October 4th, 1:00 p.m. ET, M&T Bank Stadium. Ravens -11.5, total 43.5. ESPN’s Match-Up Predictor gives Baltimore an 82.1% chance to win.

Tennessee

The Titans are 0-3 after losing 12-7 to the Giants in New York. We had them 30th in our Week 3 power rankings and projected them at 5-12.

We took Tennessee in that game because Jaxson Dart is out for the rest of the season, and the market moved the same way: the line went from Giants -6 to -2.5, and the total dropped from 40.5 to 37.5. The Giants won anyway, with Jameis Winston at quarterback. Their defense played without Banks and Adebo, lost Hood during the game, and saw Brian Burns helped off with his ankle.

Tennessee’s first half produced one first down, 54 yards and no points. Dike fumbled the opening kickoff. The Giants never reached the end zone; Zvada kicked four field goals, and New York was flagged 10 times for 88 yards. Ward finished 23 of 36 for 181 yards, a touchdown and an interception, and was not sacked. He overthrew an open Carnell Tate in the end zone, then hit Wan’Dale Robinson for four yards with 5:39 left to make it a one-score game. The last drive, starting with 3:13 left, came up short. Tennessee outgained New York 262 to 238, sacked Winston three times, and lost time of possession 34:26 to 25:34.

Week 1 was a 23-10 home loss to the Jets: 195 total yards and 11 first downs, with the only touchdown in garbage time.

Week 2 was the Titans’ best game of their 3 so far. Philadelphia opened with three straight drives of 11 or more plays in 98-degree heat, and Tennessee still led 20-17 with 1:56 left. Amani Hooker intercepted Jalen Hurts in the end zone and returned it 92 yards to set up the first touchdown. Marcus Harris’ interception set up Joey Slye’s go-ahead field goal. Hurts then covered all 65 yards on the winning drive and hit Darius Cooper with nine seconds left. He converted nine third downs at an average of 7.9 yards to go, and Philadelphia held the ball 36:25.

Tennessee has scored 10, 20 and 7. It has lost time of possession by more than eight minutes in each of the last two games. Its defense has kept every game within a score.

Saleh And Daboll

Robert Saleh is in his first season as Head Coach and hired Brian Daboll as Offensive Coordinator to develop Ward. After Week 1, Daboll said the offense wasn’t good enough and that it started with him. Three games in, it still isn’t.

Cam Ward

Tennessee leans on bunch formations. Per Next Gen Stats via Turron Davenport, Titans receivers have lined up bunched 22.0% of the time this season, fourth in the league, after leading the NFL at 25.1% last year. Ward averaged 5.9 yards per attempt throwing to bunch receivers in 2025. Through two games he’s at 13.4, on 67 yards, about five throws.

The 2nd year QB is in a tough situation where he doesn’t have a ton of surrounding talent, and there are also questions about his own development.

Things To Watch

Who snaps the ball? Gwyn’s ankle, Pocic’s knee and Stanley’s toe. Baltimore finished Sunday with a rookie guard at center.

Short yardage. Does Baltimore keep going to Henry with the extra lineman, or has Sunday changed the plan?

Does Baltimore have the ball? In Week 2, we predicted a big Henry game off Detroit’s tape against New Orleans, and he ran for 68. Tennessee’s offense hasn’t sustained drives, which should mean more Baltimore possessions. Check that before assuming a big day on the ground.

The interior rush. Madubuike’s snap count in his second game back, and whether Campbell and Travis Jones keep getting home.

Offensive line penalties. Six on Sunday. Would like to see that cleaned up.

Do The Ravens take care of business?  KC was pushed by Miami into the 4th Quarter today.  Washington beat Seattle.  The Bills found a way to win despite having 5 turnovers, and trying to give that game away to LA.  Today feels like a big win for the Ravens, but it’s only significant if they build on, starting with not allowing an inferior Titans team to hang around next Sunday. There isn’t a ton of talent around Ward, Tony Pollard, Calvin Ridley, and Carnell Tate isn’t nothing. Take the Titans out of the game early, and don’t give them a chance to hang around.

Our Pick: Ravens big.  27-7.

The post Ravens Win In Rio, Tennessee Comes To Baltimore appeared first on Baltimore Sports and Life.

Quick Hits

We were wrong about Ole Miss at sixth. Florida won 52-28, and it was not close after halftime. Jadan Baugh ran for 142 yards and three touchdowns, Duke Clark added 126, and the Gators ran for 302 yards and six scores. Florida scored touchdowns on five straight second-half drives. Baugh has topped 100 yards in five straight games, which puts him with Emmitt Smith and Fred Taylor in school history. Florida had lost 12 in a row to top-five teams.

Ole Miss played without Kewan Lacy, and his replacement ran 11 times for 31 yards. Trinidad Chambliss hurt his left thigh on the second series, rode the exercise bike between drives and still threw for 298. Pete Golding said his team got whipped. We would not argue.

Texas survived Knoxville. Texas won 20-17, and the defense did it again. Colin Simmons, whose boot was precautionary after all, had five sacks, tying Shane Dronett’s program record from 1990. Texas had ten as a team. Simmons also drew an unsportsmanlike flag for a celebration Steve Sarkisian had to answer for afterward. Arch Manning threw for 201 yards with an interception and was sacked six times. Texas committed 11 penalties for 115 yards, gave up a punt-return touchdown and let Tennessee recover an onside kick with 1:22 left. Jelani McDonald knocked down the Hail Mary on the final play. Tennessee still has not beaten the AP’s No. 1 team since 1985.

Oregon won at the Coliseum, and lost Dante Moore doing it. In the second quarter, USC linebacker Desman Stephens hit Moore late on a slide. Stephens was ejected for targeting. Moore left in an ambulance. Dan Lanning said afterward that Moore was moving and would not say more. Dylan Raiola, the Nebraska transfer, went 19 of 25 for 289 yards and two touchdowns, and Oregon won 41-27. The Ducks scored on seven of nine drives and averaged 7.4 yards a snap. Raiola isn’t Moore, but he didn’t play like a backup. USC has lost five straight to Oregon.

Iowa 20, Michigan 19. Hank Brown took Iowa 91 yards and threw a 16-yard touchdown to Reece Vander Zee as time expired. The Hawkeyes got set for that last snap because a Michigan defensive lineman was hurt on the play before and the clock stopped. ESPN’s win probability had Michigan at 98.6 percent with 11 seconds left. It was Iowa’s first road win over a ranked Big Ten team since 2015, and it ended Michigan’s 47-game winning streak when leading at halftime, the longest active run in FBS. Three weeks ago, Michigan beat Western Michigan in the same stadium with an extra second on the clock.

LSU 35, Texas A&M 6. We had A&M covering. A&M was outgained 506 yards to 197. Sam Leavitt went 17 of 23 for 312 and hit Jackson Harris for two touchdowns, one a 57-yarder on fourth down that Lane Kiffin nearly punted away. Marcel Reed completed 10 of 26 for 106 and was pulled in the fourth quarter. The Aggies were eighth in the preseason poll. They are 2-2. LSU paid a price: Leavitt pulled a hamstring, and linebacker Whit Weeks left in a walking boot.

Two home favorites lost to unranked teams. Wake Forest won at Louisville 30-27 as a two-score underdog. Carlos Hernandez caught nine passes for 194 yards, and Gabe Kirschke blocked a 57-yard try in the final seconds. Louisville was flagged nine times for 90 yards and played without two starting defensive backs. It was the third time under Jeff Brohm that Louisville has lost the week after beating a ranked team.

At Beaver Stadium, Wisconsin trailed 17-0 and won 24-20. Colton Joseph threw two early interceptions, then led two long scoring drives, the last ending in a 72-yard touchdown to Jacob Harris on third-and-13 with 1:13 left. It was Wisconsin’s first win in State College since 2003 and Matt Campbell’s first loss at Penn State. Rocco Becht was 12 of 29 for 129 without receiver Koby Howard, who is week to week.

Oklahoma State 41, West Virginia 24. This was our most model-dependent pick, and the market and SP+ were right. Drew Mestemaker threw for 389 yards and three touchdowns, and Oklahoma State outscored West Virginia 28-10 after halftime. West Virginia ran for 334 yards but threw for 132, and Michael Hawkins Jr. was sacked four times. The Cowboys’ Week 2 win over Oregon looks better every week.

The Heisman board moved. Kamario Taylor threw for 360 yards and three touchdowns, including the go-ahead 24-yarder with 3:57 left, as Mississippi State beat Missouri 31-24 to go 4-0. A month ago he was around 150-to-1. DraftKings now has him third at +480, behind Jeremiah Smith (+245) and Darian Mensah (+400). Smith caught 12 passes for 217 yards and four touchdowns against Illinois, and his 34 career touchdown catches tie David Boston for second in Ohio State history. Chambliss is no longer in the top three.

Power Rankings

Georgia moves up two. Oklahoma came in allowing 7.7 points a game. Georgia led 28-0 at halftime and won by 28 without its top running back, Nate Frazier, who sat with injured ribs. Chris Cole returned a fumble 85 yards for a touchdown. Georgia’s 219 points are the most by the program through four games since 1910. SP+ and FPI both now rate the Bulldogs first in the country. You could make the argument for Georgia at No. 2. We keep Ohio State there because its only loss is by a point at Texas, and Georgia has not played anyone close to that. SP+ ranks the Bulldogs’ schedule 89th.

Florida jumps ten. Four wins, two in the SEC, one on the road at Auburn and one by 24 over the team we had sixth. The Gators have scored at least 40 in every game, the first Florida team to do that since 2001, and Jon Sumrall is the first coach in SEC history with 200 points in his first four games. The models are catching up: SP+ has Florida 12th, FPI tenth and résumé SP+ fifth. Seventh is where the résumé puts them. The next month decides whether it holds: at Missouri on Saturday, at Texas on October 17th and Georgia in Atlanta on October 31st.

Utah rises seven. The Utes have led by 20 or more at halftime of all four games, and they opened Big 12 play with a 31-17 win at Iowa State. SP+ moved them up ten spots to ninth, with the 11th-ranked defense. FPI’s playoff odds now have Utah slightly ahead of Texas Tech, 49.2 percent to 48.3. Utah does not play Tech and does not see BYU until November 7th. We keep them one spot behind the Cougars until then.

Oregon moves up one, and Dante Moore is why it is only one. On merit, a 14-point road win over the team we had 12th is worth more. SP+ has Oregon eighth and FPI ninth. But we do not know when Moore plays again, and the Ducks are off this week. Raiola started two seasons at Nebraska and looked ready on Saturday. We will move Oregon when we know who starts at quarterback against UCLA on October 10th.

Ole Miss falls eight. Two wins over ranked teams got the Rebels to sixth. A 24-point loss to a team favored by 3.5 at kickoff takes them out of the top ten. The defense is the problem. SP+ now ranks it 75th and the team 32nd, and FPI has Ole Miss 19th. Lacy’s shoulder matters. But Florida ran for 302 yards against a defense that allowed 38 to Louisville in Nashville, and that is not an injury. We now have LSU ahead of Ole Miss despite the head-to-head. LSU lost by eight on the road; Ole Miss lost by 24. ESPN’s committee projection keeps the Rebels ahead, and the real committee probably would too. Ole Miss is off, then at Vanderbilt on October 10th.

Iowa climbs three. The 91-yard drive is what people will remember. The more useful fact is that Iowa scored on both red-zone trips and Michigan went 2 of 4. The Hawkeyes are 4-0 with a defense SP+ ranks tenth, and they have won their two real tests by a combined four points. We gave Iowa 20 percent in August. Ohio State comes to Kinnick on Saturday.

USC drops four. The Trojans rallied to tie Oregon with 12:41 left, then never stopped Raiola again. SP+ has USC’s offense third in the country and its defense 49th, down from 35th a week ago. That gap is the team. Lincoln Riley is still looking for the big win, nearly halfway through his fifth season.

Mississippi State enters at 18. Two road wins over power-conference teams, at Minnesota and at South Carolina, and now a home win over ranked Missouri. It was the first win by a ranked Mississippi State team over a ranked opponent since Dak Prescott’s Bulldogs beat Auburn in 2014. Fluff Bothwell ran for 122 yards and caught six passes for 55 more. The defense, 48th in SP+, is the concern. Alabama is next.

Penn State drops four. Up 17-0 at home, the Nittany Lions failed to get a first down on four of their last five possessions. Becht’s 129 passing yards were the story, and Howard’s absence explains some of it. SP+ still likes this team at 15th, on the strength of the 12th-ranked defense. Northwestern on Friday is no gift after what the Wildcats did in Bloomington.

Michigan drops seven. A stuffed fourth-and-1 at the Iowa 18. An interception at the Iowa 2. An unnecessary-roughness flag on third down on Iowa’s final drive. Michigan lost by a point. Running back Jordan Marshall appeared to aggravate an injury, and the line is still without Andrew Sprague. SP+ has the defense ninth and the offense 52nd. The first road game of the season is Saturday at Minnesota.

Texas A&M leaves the ranking. Eleven spots down last week, out this week. The Aggies have lost two straight SEC games, by ten at home and by 29 on the road, and SP+ dropped them 25 spots to 39th.

Texas stays first. Notre Dame and Indiana each slip one as Georgia passes them; Indiana needed Lee Beebe Jr.’s 203 rushing yards to beat Northwestern 29-23 after Turbo Richard was hurt. Miami moves up one as Ole Miss falls. Tennessee slips one as Utah and Iowa pass it, though a three-point loss to the No. 1 team is no demerit. Alabama, LSU, Texas Tech and BYU hold.

The outside check

CBS’s projection of the post-Week 4 AP poll moves Florida to fifth, drops Ole Miss to tenth and brings Mississippi State in at 18th. The real poll was not out at press time. FPI’s post-Week 4 run has Georgia first, Florida tenth and Ole Miss 19th. SP+ as of September 27th has Ole Miss 32nd. We sit between the projected poll and the models on both, with Florida seventh and Ole Miss 14th.

Texas stays first on the best win in the sport. CBS’s overreactions column called the Longhorns a paper tiger and argued they could easily be 2-2. The film supports some of that. Texas ran for 61 yards and converted 3 of 12 third downs in Knoxville, and SP+ has Texas seventh. But SP+ also ranks the Texas résumé third and its schedule fourth-hardest in the country. ESPN’s committee projection keeps Texas first, followed by Ohio State, Georgia, Miami and Notre Dame, and it still has Boise State bumping Oregon out of the bracket.

The Playoff Field

Florida gains 24 points on the week, the biggest rise we have made, and Ole Miss loses 22. Texas moves to 82 and passes Notre Dame; FPI gives the Longhorns 89.6 percent, the highest in the country. Georgia gains seven on a 28-point win over the best defense it has seen. Alabama gains six ahead of a stretch that runs through Starkville and then Georgia at home. Utah gains 16 and Iowa eight. Michigan loses 20, USC 16 and Penn State 14. Indiana gives back four after the Northwestern scare, with Richard and linebacker Rolijah Hardy both hurt. BYU gives back four in its off week as Utah closes in. Texas A&M falls into the field.

The Group of Six rises to 1.10. Boise State won by 25 at Western Michigan, and North Dakota State, 4-0 in its first FBS season, now carries a 28.5 percent playoff chance in FPI. The field grows to 1.39, with Nebraska, UCLA and Pitt all 4-0 and just outside the twenty.

Conference Projections

ACC. Miami 60 (up 5), Pitt 10 (up 4), Louisville 8 (down 8), Virginia Tech 7 (up 1), SMU 6 (down 2), Virginia 4, Duke 3 (new), Clemson 1 (down 2), field 1 (down 1). Louisville’s home loss to Wake Forest costs it half its number, and the Cardinals go to NC State on Saturday. Friday night in Blacksburg decides who is second. Miami’s only remaining ranked opponent is Notre Dame, which is not a league game.

SEC. Georgia 27 (up 3), Texas 24, Alabama 15 (up 1), Florida 12 (up 8), LSU 9, Ole Miss 5 (down 9), Mississippi State 4 (new), Texas A&M 1 (down 3), Oklahoma 1 (down 2), field 2 (down 2). Georgia moves ahead of Texas for the first time. ESPN’s analytics give the Bulldogs the easiest remaining schedule in the league; they miss Texas, LSU, Tennessee and A&M. Florida has Texas and Georgia in back-to-back games later in October.

Big Ten. Ohio State 35 (up 2), Indiana 25 (down 2), Oregon 16 (up 3), Iowa 8 (new), USC 5 (down 5), Nebraska 3 (new), Penn State 3 (down 4), Michigan 2 (down 4), field 3 (down 1). Oregon’s number assumes Moore comes back. Iowa has a league road win banked and gets Ohio State at home. Ohio State goes to Indiana on October 17th.

Big 12. Texas Tech 30 (down 2), Utah 26 (up 9), BYU 24 (down 3), Oklahoma State 5 (up 2), Houston 4 (down 1), Cincinnati 4 (new), Kansas State 3 (down 3), Arizona 2 (down 1), West Virginia 1 (down 3), field 1. TCU falls into the field after losing to UCF. Tech keeps the top spot on schedule; it plays neither Utah nor BYU. It won 49-14 on Saturday, though Will Hammond threw three interceptions. Cincinnati is 4-0 after beating Kansas State and still has BYU, Tech, Utah and Houston ahead.

Pac-12. Boise State 50 (up 4), Fresno State 15 (up 1), Texas State 11 (up 1), Oregon State 9 (up 2), San Diego State 6 (down 5), Washington State 5 (down 1), Utah State 3, Colorado State 1 (down 2). San Diego State lost 41-16 to Toledo and is 1-3 before its first league game. Boise hosts Utah State on Saturday night.

Conference Overviews

The order holds for a fourth week: the SEC, the Big Ten, the Big 12, the ACC and the Pac-12. For the first time, the models split on the top spot.

1. The SEC stays first on results. FPI has eleven SEC teams in its top 25. SP+ has eight, one fewer than the Big Ten, after Ole Miss, Texas A&M and Oklahoma all fell out. Texas beat Ohio State in Week 2, still the best nonconference win in the sport. Five SEC teams are 4-0: Texas, Georgia, Alabama, Florida and Mississippi State. Four of the top five teams in résumé SP+ are from the SEC. Saturday brings Alabama at Mississippi State, Florida at Missouri and Auburn at Tennessee.
2. The Big Ten has the depth argument this week. SP+ counts nine Big Ten teams in its top 25, FPI eight. Oregon won at USC. Iowa won at Michigan. Wisconsin won at Penn State. UCLA is 4-0 under first-year coach Bob Chesney and routed Maryland in College Park, and Nebraska is 4-0 after winning at Michigan State. Indiana has won 20 straight, the longest active streak in FBS, but needed a two-point stop to get past Northwestern. Against the SEC, the league has Michigan’s 17-10 win over Oklahoma. Against Notre Dame, it is 0-3.
3. The Big 12 holds third. SP+ has four Big 12 teams in its top 25 to the ACC’s three; FPI has it three to two. Utah, Texas Tech and BYU are the top tier, and ESPN’s takeaways column argues the league could put two teams in the field. West Virginia’s win over Virginia in Charlotte is still the head-to-head result between the two leagues. Below the top three it thins. West Virginia lost at home by 17, TCU lost to UCF and is 2-2, and Kansas State lost to Cincinnati.
4. The ACC has Miami and then questions. The Hurricanes beat Central Michigan 52-3 and lead the country in the share of plays that gain ten yards or more. Louisville, which we called clearly second a week ago, lost at home to Wake Forest. The new second tier is unbeaten: Pitt, Virginia Tech and Duke are all 4-0, and Pitt has climbed 17 spots to 20th in SP+. Wake Forest is 12-5 under Jake Dickert. Clemson is 3-1 but lost 51-10 at LSU in the opener and ranks 91st in SP+ offense.
5. The Pac-12 has Boise State and a lot of losses. The Broncos won 32-7 at Western Michigan, the reigning MAC champion. San Diego State lost to Toledo, Colorado State gave up 59 to UTSA, and Washington State lost to Arizona. SP+ ranks Boise 47th, and no other league team is inside the top 60. ESPN’s committee projection still gives Boise the Group of Six bid, but North Dakota State of the Mountain West is now close behind in FPI.

The Week 5 Board

All times Eastern. Spreads and totals are from DraftKings, percentages from ESPN’s Match-Up Predictor. Rankings are CBS’s projection of the post-Week 4 AP poll; the real poll was not out at press time. Pitt at Virginia Tech has the model and the market naming different favorites for the third straight week, and the line has moved further toward Virginia Tech since we took it. ESPN is also more confident than the market in Alabama and Florida. Percentages of 74.2 and 70.2 imply more than 4.5 points.

Predictions

Virginia Tech 24, Pittsburgh 21. In June, SP+ had Virginia Tech 33rd and Pitt 41st. Four games later it has Pitt 20th and Virginia Tech 28th, and ESPN makes Pitt a 57.8 percent favorite. The market has gone the other way. Pitt’s defense ranks 15th in SP+ and has allowed 14 points or fewer in all four games. Mason Heintschel has 13 touchdown passes, and last season Pitt won five straight after he took over as a freshman. Virginia Tech needed everything to beat Boston College 21-14 on Saturday. Friday night in Lane Stadium is worth something, and this should be close. Virginia Tech wins, Pitt covers. Under.

Notre Dame 34, North Carolina 10. Notre Dame had the highest number in our August playoff table, 78 percent, and nothing since has argued with it. The Irish have won 14 straight by double digits, tied for the longest FBS streak in ten seasons. CJ Carr has one interception all year, and SP+ ranks the defense second in the country. North Carolina ranks 88th in SP+ offense and scored 15 against TCU and 20 against Clemson. Notre Dame covers. Under.

Alabama 34, Mississippi State 27. We had Alabama at 40 percent in August. Keelon Russell is the reason it is 62 now. Alabama has scored 40 or more in all four games, and Russell accounted for five touchdowns against South Carolina. Kamario Taylor has 14 touchdown passes and two interceptions, and Mississippi State has gained 400 yards in four straight games. The Bulldogs’ defense is 48th in SP+. Alabama’s is 13th, but it let Florida State convert 8 of 15 third downs. ESPN’s 74.2 percent is more confident than the line, and we lean that way. Alabama covers. Over.

Ohio State 27, Iowa 16. Ohio State was No. 1 in the preseason poll, and we gave it 76 percent in August, second only to Notre Dame. Jeremiah Smith just had 217 yards and four touchdowns. But Illinois ran for 199 yards at six a carry on this defense. Iowa’s defense is tenth in SP+ and its offense 51st, and it has already won two games by a combined four points. Kinnick at 3:30 will not be comfortable. Both models put this around 11 or 12 points, under the 14. Ohio State wins, Iowa covers. Under.

Florida 31, Missouri 27. Florida was not in our August playoff table. Now it sits at 48 percent with the most productive offense in the SEC. Missouri’s defense ranks 14th in SP+, and the Tigers led Mississippi State 24-17 in the fourth quarter before losing. Austin Simmons threw for 295 yards and three touchdowns in Starkville, and Cayden Lee caught 11 passes for 156. Florida’s defense is 31st. This is also the game after the biggest win of the Sumrall era, with Texas two weeks out. SP+ makes it close; FPI makes it a touchdown. Florida wins, Missouri covers. Over.

Miami 31, Clemson 13. We gave Miami 71 percent in August; it is 80 now. Clemson opened with a 51-10 loss at LSU and has not scored more than 28 since. Its offense ranks 91st in SP+, and Miami’s defense ranks eighth. Darian Mensah is second in the Heisman odds, and Miami leads the country in explosive plays. Malachi Toney limped off at Wake Forest on September 18th, and his status is worth watching. Death Valley at night will keep it close for a half. Miami covers. Under.

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Mike Locksley has not been fired yet, but the writing on the wall is pretty clear. At the minimum, yesterday was the unofficial end of his era.

What come’s next?

Part I: The rationale for moving now

In-season firings used to be a sign of panic. They are now a sign of organization, and last year’s cycle made that clear.

Virginia Tech fired Brent Pry on Sept. 14th, three games into the 2025 season. The Hokies hired James Franklin on Nov. 17th on a five-year, $41.75 million deal, gave him a full portal cycle, and he brought 29 transfers with him. That Virginia Tech team came to College Park and won.

Moving on from Locksley is inevitable.  Knowing that, there isn’t great rationale for waiting, even when factoring in the $1M that could be saved by waiting until after the season.

The money

Half the buyout comes due as a lump sum within 60 days of termination. Locksley would be owed 65 percent of his remaining compensation under the “best interests of the University” provision, with no mitigation or offset, meaning Maryland pays in full regardless of what he earns elsewhere. His total contract runs $30.5 million through 2028, with 2026 compensation of $6.4 million.

Set that against the roster. Maryland is spending an estimated $21 to $25 million on players this year. The buyout is roughly 40 percent of one season’s roster budget, and waiting until December saves about a million dollars. A million dollars is real money. It is not worth six weeks of head start in a coaching market where the good candidates come off the board in November.

Worth remembering the context: last November, Athletic Director Jim Smith retained Locksley and publicly committed to more NIL money, explicitly noting a buyout that would then have been $13 million. Maryland chose to spend on the roster instead of the coach. The buyout has dropped by roughly $3 million in the meantime.

The roster argument

The strongest case for acting early has nothing to do with money. Maryland is going to lose a large portion of this roster in the portal no matter what happens, because that is what happens to a 2-2 team heading into a Big Ten schedule with a coach whose future is in the news every week. The only variable is whether the next staff is in place to start recruiting against that exodus in November or in January.

Franklin got the full window at Virginia Tech and turned it into 29 transfers and a 3-0 start. That is the entire argument.

Part II: What the Maryland job actually is

Every coaching search runs aground on the same thing: administrations describe the job they wish they had. Here is the one Maryland has.

The structural problems

• Maryland is not a historical power. The program has one claimed national title, in 1953, and has never been a consistent Top 25 presence in the modern era. It has produced nearly 200 NFL draft picks and fifteen first-rounders, including Vernon Davis and Darrius Heyward-Bey in the top ten, so the talent has always come through. The winning has not followed it.
• College Park sits between two pro markets. Baltimore and Washington both have NFL teams, and Maryland will never own a fall Saturday the way Penn State owns central Pennsylvania or Nebraska owns a state. Any plan that depends on becoming the region’s primary football interest is a plan that fails.
• The spending is mid-pack and the gap at the top is enormous. Maryland’s roster sits 36th nationally and 10th of 18 in the Big Ten, against a conference average of $27 to $31 million. Ohio State and Oregon spend $48 to $54 million. Maryland is not underfunded so much as unexceptional, and unexceptional in the Big Ten means losing to Ohio State by 40.
• The endowment is the smallest among the peers worth comparing to. $2.2 billion, roughly 25th to 30th among Power Four schools. Michigan is at $18 billion, Texas’ system at $42 billion. This is the ceiling on how fast Maryland can move.

The assets, which are more real than the fanbase thinks

• The recruiting base. The DMV produces elite talent every year, and Maryland has proven it can win those battles. Zion Elee is the highest-rated recruit in program history. The staff has also pulled blue-chip players out of Virginia, including Jaylen Gilchrist and Messiah Delhomme.
• The facilities are no longer an excuse. Jones-Hill House and the SECU Stadium upgrades brought Maryland into the modern era. This is not a program asking recruits to overlook the building.
• The alumni earn more than the peers Maryland loses to. Median alumni income ten years out is roughly $68,000, second in the Big Ten behind Northwestern and top five among all Power Four schools. That is ahead of Penn State at $65,000, Ohio State at $63,000, Georgia and Alabama. Maryland graduates make money.
• And they made it themselves. Roughly 90.7 percent of Maryland’s wealthy alumni are self-made, second nationally behind only Caltech and ahead of every SEC school, Michigan and Texas. Sergey Brin and Kevin Plank are the headliners. This is an entrepreneurial alumni base, not an inherited-wealth one, and it should be approached completely differently than Penn State approaches its own.
• Fundraising momentum is real. $945 million raised toward a $2.5 billion campaign by late 2025, with an annual target around $320 million. For a school that joined the Big Ten in 2014, that trajectory is good.

Part III: An honest ledger on Locksley

Whatever happens, the accounting should be fair, because the next hire depends on diagnosing the actual failure rather than the convenient one.

What he did well

• He took a program at its lowest point after the Jordan McNair tragedy and the DJ Durkin fallout, and he restored its credibility. That is not a small thing and it should not be written out of the story.
• Three straight winning seasons and bowl wins from 2021 to 2023, which Maryland had not managed in decades.
• He recruits. High school and portal both. The talent on this roster is better than the results, and the 2026 class and retention effort were genuinely good work.
• He is from here, he cares about here, and he has been an ambassador for the program in a way a hired gun would not be.

The primary knock

The criticism is not that Maryland lacks talent. It is that the talent does not get better once it arrives.

Maryland returned 71 percent of its production this season, second-most in the country. It brought back its quarterback, its best edge rusher and most of its young core, and Jim Smith gave the program more money to do exactly that. Four games in, the Terps have been outscored 89-29 in their last two and lost to a team that finished 3-9 last year by 51 points.

Development, not acquisition, is the failure. And that is the specific thing the next hire has to be evaluated on.

Part IV: Who is actually running this search

This gets skipped in most of these conversations and it probably matters more than the candidate list.

Jim Smith has never hired a football coach

Maryland’s Athletic Director since July 2025 is a revenue executive, full stop. He arrived from the Atlanta Braves, where he spent five years as senior vice president of business strategy. Before that he was president and CEO of the Ohio State University Alumni Association, running more than 80 staff and a $17 million budget. Before that he held senior roles at Arthur M. Blank Sports and Entertainment, running all revenue and marketing for the Atlanta Falcons and Atlanta United and helping develop the $1.6 billion Mercedes-Benz Stadium, including negotiating naming rights, sponsorships and suite sales. He is a Northwestern graduate with a master’s from Ohio State.

Three things follow, and all three shape what happens next.

• The search will be consultant-driven. Smith’s own hire was run by the firm TurnKeyZRG, and he said on arrival that he planned to lean on the counsel of Gene Smith, the retired Ohio State athletic director. That points toward a more professional process than Maryland’s hiring history suggests, and toward Ohio State-tree names surfacing.
• Retaining Locksley last November was a finance decision. A revenue executive looked at a $13 million buyout and declined, then publicly committed to spending on the roster instead. That number is $9.94 million now and drops to $8.9 million in January. He will move when the math clears, and he will be less sentimental about it than a football lifer would be.
• He is better equipped for Maryland’s revenue problem than its football one. That is not a criticism. It is the most important thing to understand about this administration, and we return to it in Part VI.

And Maryland already has a General Manager

Geroy Simon has held the title of Executive Director of Revenue Share Management and General Manager since January 2025, hired by former athletic director Damon Evans. Simon is a Maryland alum who ranks second in school history with 185 receptions, a Canadian Football Hall of Famer, and a decade-long CFL front office executive who was Edmonton’s assistant general manager and then interim general manager.

His job is narrower and more technical than the title implies. Maryland describes it as department-wide revenue-share management: player contracts, roster construction, multi-year salary cap management, analytical modeling and budget forecasting across football, men’s basketball and women’s basketball. He is effectively the chief financial officer of Maryland’s rosters rather than a football scouting director.

That distinction matters for what follows, because what Maryland lacks is not cap management. It is the football side of personnel.

Part V: The candidates, ranked

Ranked by fit with the job described above rather than by name recognition. The question is not who is the best coach. It is who is the best coach who would take this job and succeed at it.

1. Charles Huff, Memphis

Pros. The most obvious fit on the board, and ESPN named him specifically as a top candidate if Maryland opens. He is from Denton, Maryland. He won a Sun Belt title at Marshall in 2024, then improved Southern Miss by six wins in a single season, and now runs a Memphis program that has vaulted its last three coaches to Power Four jobs. He has SEC, Big Ten and NFL assistant experience, including time with Nick Saban. He has demonstrated the one thing Maryland most needs: taking over a roster and making it better immediately.

Cons. Four jobs in four years is a pattern, and Maryland would be asking a coach who keeps moving up to stop moving. If Memphis wins big this fall he will have better options than a Big Ten team that just lost 54-3. Maryland would likely have to be aggressive and early.

2. Jake Dickert, Wake Forest

Pros. Not on anybody’s Maryland list, which is exactly why he belongs on it. Dickert has taken two genuinely difficult jobs and won at both, going 32-24 between Washington State, which he held together through conference collapse, and Wake Forest, where a 9-4 debut with a roster projected among the ACC’s weakest got almost no national attention. He is 43. If the diagnosis is that Maryland needs someone who develops and overachieves rather than someone who buys talent, he is the profile.

Cons. He grew up in Wisconsin and played there, and ESPN links him directly to that job if it opens. Maryland would be a consolation prize in a cycle where he may have a better one. No DMV ties.

3. Billy Napier, James Madison

The JMU job changes everything about this candidacy. Napier is not a fired coach sitting at home. James Madison hired him on Dec. 6, 2025 on a five-year deal worth $1.05 million a year, to replace Bob Chesney, and he inherited a program that had just gone 11-1 and reached the College Football Playoff.

Pros. He is 62-35 as a head coach. At Louisiana he went 40-12 across four seasons with four Sun Belt title game appearances and two AP Top 25 finishes, both program firsts. He is 46. Every recruiting class he signed at Florida ranked in the Top 20 nationally, and he is regarded as a recruiter and developer first, which is precisely the diagnosis on Maryland. He learned under Nick Saban at Alabama as an analyst and then wide receivers coach. And Harrisonburg is two hours from College Park, inside Maryland’s recruiting footprint, which means he already knows the players and the high school coaches who matter here.

Cons, and they are specific rather than vague. Florida went 22-23, and the number that should worry Maryland is that his teams went 5-17 against ranked opponents and 0-14 against ranked opponents on the road. He was fired on Oct. 19th, 2025 after a 3-4 start, and he declined to give up playcalling even when his offense struggled and the calls to do so got loud. A Big Ten schedule is nothing but ranked opponents, many of them away from home. His career-long weakness is the exact thing this job demands most.

And he just got there. Leaving JMU after one season, having signed a five-year contract in December, is a real obstacle. Chesney stayed two years. Cignetti stayed five. Napier would be the fastest jump of the three, and JMU would have every right to be furious about it.

4. Glenn Schumann, Georgia Defensive Coordinator

Pros. ESPN describes him as possibly the most established name in a picked-over coordinator market. He is 36, has spent his entire career at Alabama and Georgia, and was a candidate for the North Carolina job that went to Bill Belichick. He would arrive with recruiting credibility and a defensive identity, which is the half of the roster Maryland has most consistently failed to build.

Cons. No head coaching experience, no regional ties, and an industry source told ESPN that Florida State makes more sense for him. Georgia is a great place to wait. Maryland would need to significantly outbid the market to move him, and hiring a first-time head coach is precisely the bet Maryland made in 2019.

5. Dan Mullen, UNLV

Pros. 113-65 as a head coach, with consistent success at Mississippi State, a national title game appearance as a coordinator, and one of the better quarterback development records of his generation. He went 10-4 in his first year at UNLV after three years away. ESPN specifically flags him as a fit for Big Ten or ACC openings this cycle. Maryland has a young quarterback who needs coaching, and Mullen is a quarterback coach first.

Cons. He is 54 and Florida ended badly, with real questions about his appetite for recruiting and the off-field demands of a modern job. Maryland would be hiring a proven ceiling-raiser who has already shown he can plateau. This is a three-to-five-year bet, not a ten-year one.

6. Bryant Haines, Indiana Defensive Coordinator

Pros. Broyles Award winner as the nation’s top assistant, architect of the No. 2 scoring defense on a national championship team, and the most prominent branch of the Cignetti tree. He is 40, with Midwest roots and coaching stops in Virginia and North Carolina.

Cons. ESPN notes NFL teams will likely want him as a coordinator, and he may go that route. He has never been a head coach, and the Indiana halo is doing a lot of work here. Being the coordinator on a title team is not the same as being the person who built it.

7. Mike Shanahan, Indiana Offensive Coordinator

Pros. Coached a Heisman winner and the No. 1 overall draft pick, ran an offense that finished third nationally in scoring and 12th in rushing. He is 36.

Cons. Same caveats as Haines, plus ESPN explicitly reports he is in no rush to leave Cignetti. Maryland has now hired an offensive-minded coach who could not fix an offense; hiring another offensive coordinator is a bet that the problem was the person rather than the approach.

8. Jim Schwartz, unattached

Schwartz was born in Halethorpe, went to Mount Saint Joseph in Baltimore, and was a four-year letterman at linebacker at Georgetown, where he was a team captain, an Academic All-American and a distinguished economics graduate. His first coaching job was as a graduate assistant at Maryland in 1989, working with linebackers. He later coached outside linebackers for the Ravens from 1996 to 1998. This is a Baltimore person whose career started in College Park.

Pros. He is available right now, which almost nobody on this list is. Schwartz resigned as Cleveland’s defensive coordinator in February after being passed over for the head job in favor of Todd Monken, and because he was under contract through 2026 he has been sitting out the season. No buyout to negotiate, no season to wait out. He has been a head coach, taking Detroit from 0-16 to a playoff berth in 2011. He won Super Bowl LII as Philadelphia’s coordinator and was AP NFL Assistant Coach of the Year in 2023, when his Cleveland defense led the league in total and passing defense and allowed the fewest yards per game by any team since the 2014 Seahawks. His trademark is building around dominant interior defensive linemen, and the list of players who became All-Pros under him runs Haynesworth, Suh, Dareus, Mario Williams, Fletcher Cox and Myles Garrett, who won Defensive Player of the Year twice in his scheme. Maryland’s defensive front is its most talented unit and its least productive.

Cons. The college experience is real but it is from 1989 to 1992. Four years as a young assistant at Maryland, Minnesota, North Carolina Central and Colgate, and nothing since. That means no current recruiting relationships, no NIL fluency and no experience managing a roster of teenagers in a portal era. He went 29-51 in Detroit. He is 59, and he stepped away from the Eagles entirely in January 2021 citing health, which is a fair thing to ask about rather than to speculate on.

Our read: the most interesting name nobody in College Park is saying out loud, and a genuinely better fit than the NFL-coordinator profile usually is, because he has actually run a building and he actually knows this one. Also the one candidate where a specific question needs a real answer before anything else: does he want to recruit?

9. Arthur Smith, Ohio State Offensive Coordinator

Pros. An actual former head coach, with three seasons running the Atlanta Falcons and three as an NFL coordinator before returning to college. He understands managing a building and a staff, which is a real and underrated part of this job.

Cons. His Atlanta tenure was mediocre, he has no college recruiting track record to speak of, and the NFL will likely come calling again. The profile is a program manager rather than a program builder, and Maryland needs the latter.

10. Brian Fleury, Seattle Seahawks Offensive Coordinator

Pros. The most interesting name on the list and the one with the deepest Maryland roots. Fleury is a Maryland native who began his playing career as a quarterback at Maryland before transferring to Towson, then returned to College Park as an intern and graduate assistant in 2003 and 2004. He later coached special teams and defensive backs at Towson. He is now the offensive coordinator for the defending Super Bowl champions, and his background is unusually broad: defensive quality control, offensive quality control, tight ends, run game coordinator, and stops with four NFL organizations.

Cons. He had never called plays at any level before this season. He has never been a head coach, never recruited, never managed NIL or boosters. The point our reader made is the right one and worth quoting back: this is not dropping down a level, it is a different job. Recruiting, collectives, donors, and coaching 18-year-olds instead of grown professionals. Being excellent at scheme does not make someone a leader of an organization, and the failure rate on NFL coordinators taking college jobs is high. If money is comparable, the question is genuinely which job he would rather do.

Our read: a fascinating candidate for a program with a stable infrastructure and a patient administration. Maryland is neither of those things right now.

The Biff Poggi question, which is its own category

Poggi belongs in this conversation and he does not belong on that list, and both things are true for the same reason.

He’s connected as anyone to Maryland’s actual recruiting base. He grew up in Baltimore’s Little Italy, graduated from Gilman in 1979, and coached there for nineteen seasons, winning thirteen state titles. In 2008 he wrote a $60,000 check to start a football program at Saint Frances Academy, a historically Black Catholic school in Johnston Square, then left Gilman to coach it and reportedly invested around $2.5 million of his own money, including funding 65 scholarships. He turned it into one of the best high school programs in the country, to the point that local teams stopped scheduling it.

That program is on Maryland’s roster right now. DeJuan Williams and Ryan Manning came out of Saint Frances. Carlton Smith spent his junior year there. Poggi made his money as a hedge fund manager, founding his own investment firm in 1986, which means he understands the collective and donor side of the modern job from the inside rather than as a thing coaches complain about. He was also generous enough with his assessment of this Maryland team in the preseason to predict eight wins, which has not aged well, but he gave it honestly.

Now the part that matters. He went 6-16 as the head coach at Charlotte and was fired with two games left in his second season. Michigan brought him back as associate head coach, named him interim for the Citrus Bowl after Sherrone Moore was fired, and then hired Kyle Whittingham for the full-time job while Poggi openly wanted it. He is 66 years old and is spending this fall as a Big Ten Network studio analyst, out of coaching entirely.

A 6-16 record at Charlotte is not a small thing to explain away for a Big Ten job, and Maryland cannot afford a hire that requires explaining. The honest read is that Poggi is the wrong answer to the question being asked and possibly the right answer to a different one.

Our recommendation: Maryland should hire Biff Poggi. Not as head coach, and not as general manager, because that job belongs to Geroy Simon and Simon is doing something different than the title suggests. Hire Poggi as director of player personnel, or whatever Maryland wants to call the football-side talent job, with real authority over evaluation, the collective’s football priorities and Baltimore-area recruiting.

The division is clean. Simon runs the cap across three sports. Poggi runs the football talent pipeline in the region he built his life in. His interim stint at Michigan drew praise specifically for culture work, reducing opt-outs and making the building a better place to be, which is the soft-skill problem a program about to lose its roster most needs solved. Pair him with a head coach who develops players and Maryland has covered both of its actual weaknesses. Hire him to be the head coach and it covers one and makes the other worse.

The James Madison pipeline, which Maryland should be studying closely

Three consecutive James Madison head coaches are now the most instructive thing on this entire board, and two of them have already been Maryland’s problem.

• Curt Cignetti coached the Dukes from 2019 to 2023, went 52-9, and turned it into the Indiana job, where he has been wildly successful and won a national championship.
• Bob Chesney replaced him, went 20-5 in two seasons, took James Madison to the College Football Playoff, and left for UCLA. He is 4-0 and beat Maryland 54-3 three weeks into his first season in Los Angeles.
• Billy Napier replaced Chesney and is there now, at a program that has produced two Power Four head coaches in consecutive hiring cycles.

James Madison is 130 miles from College Park. It is not a better job than Maryland by any conventional measure. It has a smaller budget, a smaller stadium, a smaller alumni base and no Big Ten media money. And it has become the single most reliable producer of Power Four head coaches in the country, while Maryland has produced two 4-8 seasons and a 54-3 home loss to the guy who just left.

That should be uncomfortable reading in College Park, and it is also the most useful thing available. Whatever James Madison is doing in evaluation, development and roster construction is working at a fraction of Maryland’s resources.  A program that wanted to learn something would send people to Harrisonburg rather than to a search firm.

The shape of the list

One pattern is worth naming. Of the ten names seriously in play above, only three are currently winning as head coaches somewhere. The rest are coordinators, former NFL head coaches or recent firings. That is what the market looks like for a job like this one, and it is why the search process matters more than the list. Maryland’s hiring history is a history of picking from the second tier and hoping. Huff, Dickert and Napier are the three currently doing a version of the job Maryland needs done. Everyone else is a projection of some kind.

Part VI: What Maryland should do regardless of who coaches

1. Get the roster spending to the conference median

Maryland spends $21 to $25 million against a Big Ten average of $27 to $31 million. Closing that gap costs roughly $6 million a year. That is less than the buyout, and it is the single clearest fixable disadvantage the program has. It will not make Maryland Ohio State. It will make Maryland competitive with Rutgers, Illinois, Purdue and Wisconsin, which is the actual competitive set.

2. The alumni giving gap is the biggest untapped asset in the athletic department

Maryland’s alumni participation rate is roughly 8 percent. Duke and Penn State are around 18 percent, Virginia 16, Michigan 12. Maryland has 431,000 living alumni who out-earn Penn State’s and Ohio State’s at the ten-year mark.

Put differently: Maryland has roughly 34,000 alumni donors. At Penn State’s participation rate it would have 77,000. The money exists in the base already. What does not exist is the habit, and habits are a marketing and stewardship problem, not a wealth problem.

And here is the part worth sitting with. Raising alumni participation is the single most relevant accomplishment on Jim Smith’s résumé. At the Ohio State Alumni Association he delivered a 15 percent increase in alumni participation alongside 10 percent annual revenue growth. Maryland hired, more or less by accident, the one executive in the country whose track record maps directly onto its largest structural weakness. Whatever happens with the football coach, that is what this administration should be measured on, and it is what it is actually built to do.

3. Build the pitch around self-made wealth, because that is what Maryland actually has

Ninety percent of Maryland’s wealthy alumni built it themselves, second nationally behind Caltech. That is a fundamentally different donor than a legacy-family SEC school has, and it responds to fundamentally different things: equity-style thinking, measurable outcomes, proximity to the thing being built, and founders talking to founders. Maryland should stop running the Penn State playbook on a Caltech donor base.

4. Under Armour is under-leveraged, but not in the way people assume

The relationship is foundational. Kevin Plank played football at Maryland, the Terps were the first college program to wear Under Armour in 2004, and the two sides signed a twelve-year extension through 2036.

What Maryland should not expect is a bigger check. Under Armour has cut its college commitments dramatically from a 2017 peak of $1.36 billion and paid UCLA $67.5 million in a 2022 settlement to escape a 15-year, $280 million deal. The money is not there and pretending otherwise wastes the relationship.

What is available is more valuable and cheaper, and it happens to be the exact skill set the athletic director brought from building Atlanta United and selling naming rights on a $1.6 billion stadium. Maryland should be Under Armour’s proving ground: first-to-wear product launches, uniform and gear innovation tested in College Park before it goes to market, and Baltimore-DC co-branding that treats the partnership as a regional identity rather than an apparel contract. Plank’s own story and the self-made profile of Maryland’s donor base point the same direction. A founder-themed collective, built around Plank and Brin and the entrepreneurial alumni network, is a more natural fit for this school than a traditional booster club will ever be.

5. Keep the gameday work in proportion

Jim Smith’s stadium plans are sensible. A parking and traffic study, value-priced concessions, fifty new televisions, water stations, and letting fans bring in a sealed bottle all address real complaints, and Maryland ranked second-worst in the Big Ten in gameday revenue.

But keep the scale honest. Maryland football produced about $300,000 in parking and concession sales against roughly $415,000 in game expenses in fiscal 2025. Those numbers are a rounding error against a $21 to $25 million roster. The gameday experience matters enormously for atmosphere, recruiting optics and season-ticket retention. It is not a revenue solution, and it should not be sold as one.

6. You can try to copy Indiana, but there are differences

The Cignetti comparison is the one every Maryland fan reaches for, but there are real differences. Indiana has a substantially larger alumni base, its spending went up dramatically, and Cignetti exploited a specific and now-closed window: experienced players with extra COVID eligibility, available in bulk. That inventory does not exist anymore.

UCLA under Bob Chesney is the better comparison, and Maryland just watched it up close, 54-3. Another JMU coach, another wave of players brought along from the previous job, and a roster he improved immediately through aggressive portal work. Chesney is 4-0 and has won 13 straight regular-season games going back to Harrisonburg. That is the template worth studying, including the uncomfortable part: he arrived with more talent than Maryland has, in year one, because he went and got it.

Part VII: Who we think Maryland actually hires

Huff is the pick because ESPN named him as a Maryland candidate before any of this happened, which usually means agents and industry people already expect it, and because his profile answers the actual criticism of Locksley. He improves rosters immediately at every stop.

Notice that the field is the second-largest number on the board, and that is deliberate. A consultant-run search with Gene Smith advising produces names nobody in College Park is saying yet. Maryland’s own history says the same thing from another direction. Friedgen was an alum, Edsall was a safe regional name, Locksley was in-house comfort, and the one time the program reached for a hot young coordinator it got DJ Durkin. This administration will hire for fit and story at a sensible price.

The variable that moves these numbers most is not anything happening in College Park. It is Memphis’s record. If Huff wins big this fall, Maryland is bidding against the SEC. If Memphis is ordinary, Maryland gets him comfortably.

Where this leaves things

Maryland is 2-2 with a trip to Nebraska on Saturday and a Big Ten schedule that no longer looks like an opportunity. The projection we have carried all season has the Terps at roughly six wins, which was always the number we said should not be enough for Locksley to keep his job.

One more note on the administration. Launching Atlanta United into a market that already had the Falcons, Braves and Hawks, and making it the most successful expansion launch in American soccer history, is the closest available analogue to the College Park problem. Maryland will never out-shout the Ravens and Commanders. Someone who has built an audience in a crowded market before is the right person to try.

The program’s real problem is not that it lacks money, facilities or recruits. It is that Maryland has spent a decade being the place talent passes through rather than the place talent gets better. Whoever coaches this team next has to fix that specific thing, and the search should be run with that specific question in mind.

One last note, and it matters. Mike Locksley took this job at the worst moment in its history and made it respectable again. When this ends, that should be the first paragraph of the story and not the last.

The post What Comes Next: Maryland’s Job, Its Candidates, and Its Actual Problem appeared first on Baltimore Sports and Life.

Sam Darnold was inactive with a hip. Kyler Murray went into the concussion protocol eleven snaps into Week 1. Caleb Williams was carted off in Chicago with a right hamstring. Jayden Daniels dislocated his left elbow – the same one that ended his 2025 season – on the final play of the first half in Arlington. Jaxson Dart went down on the Giants’ seventh snap Monday night with a knee injury John Harbaugh described as “in the neighborhood of” a sprained ligament. And Atlanta started Cooper Rush for a second straight week, then benched him for an undrafted rookie who threw a pick-six on his first pass.

What separated the teams was how much of the operation depended on the man who left. Seattle won by 24 with Drew Lock, who has four touchdowns, no turnovers and the fourth-best QBR in football. Minnesota became the first team in NFL history to win four straight games with four different starting quarterbacks – Brosmer, McCarthy, Murray, Wentz – and did it with a defense and special teams unit that both rank sixth in EPA. Chicago scored three points. The Giants gained 182 yards. Washington, tied in everything but the scoreboard when Daniels went down, lost by 17.

Three other patterns ran underneath it. Home favorites kept losing — Baltimore, Tampa Bay and the Chargers all did, the Chargers for a second straight week and both times as a touchdown-plus favorite. Games kept turning on possession, with underdogs playing keep-away and mostly staying close. And penalties decided drives everywhere: Green Bay lost 133 yards on 14 flags and still won, the Chargers have 13 offensive penalties in two games, and Chicago committed nine against the one defense in football that punishes a third-and-long more than any other.

All lines from DraftKings. All percentages from ESPN’s Match-Up Predictor.

Our picks going forward are straight winners. We’ll show the line and the total, but we’re only formally picking the game.

Week 2 In Review

Thursday: Bills 41, Lions 31. Buffalo opened its new stadium by scoring on its first four possessions. Josh Allen threw three touchdowns and ran for two more, and has nine total through two weeks; James Cook ran for 134. Detroit blitzed Allen on 55.3% of his dropbacks, the highest rate under Kelvin Sheppard, and per Next Gen Stats he went 12 of 17 for 137 and two scores against it. Jared Goff was excellent in defeat – 26 of 38, 327 yards, four touchdowns — behind a line playing three backups that allowed four sacks. Detroit was without both starting safeties.

Panthers 34, Falcons 3. A week after allowing 59 points and franchise records in points and rushing touchdowns, Carolina held Atlanta to 286 yards. Bryce Young threw for 287 and three scores, two to Darren Waller. Devin Lloyd had nine tackles without a miss, a sack and two interceptions, one returned for a touchdown. Cooper Rush lost a fumble on the first play and threw an interception on the second possession; Jack Strand threw a pick-six on his first pass.

Bengals 20, Texans 6. Joe Burrow threw both touchdowns to Ja’Marr Chase, the first a 32-yard toe-drag over Derek Stingley – their 19th 20-plus-air-yard touchdown connection since 2021, most of any duo. But the game was the defense. Cincinnati kept Houston out of the end zone, only the third time under Zac Taylor they have held a team without a touchdown, with four sacks and a Dexter Lawrence fourth-and-1 stop on David Montgomery at the Cincinnati 18. Houston outgained Cincinnati 374 to 267 and lost by 14. Without Nico Collins, C.J. Stroud threw 55 times for 353 yards; the Texans botched a snap on a 34-yard field-goal try, and DeMeco Ryans chose a 58-yard attempt over fourth-and-1 in the third quarter, which came up short.

Vikings 9, Bears 3. Chicago scored 59 in Week 1 and three in the rain against Brian Flores. Isaiah Rodgers recovered a goal-line fumble and blocked a field goal; Dallas Turner had two sacks including the game-ender. Flores has blitzed on 73.6% of dropbacks, the highest early-season rate since 2009, and per ESPN’s Bill Barnwell the Bears faced third-and-7 or longer eight times and converted two. Caleb Williams was 15 of 26 for 138 before the hamstring. Aaron Jones carried Minnesota with 105 yards.

Saints 24, Ravens 17. Our full review of the Ravens’ loss ran separately. Tyler Shough rallied New Orleans from 17-9 down for a second straight week, finishing with a 16-play drive and a fourth-and-goal sneak. His splits are extraordinary: 14.3 Total QBR through three quarters, 29th of 30 qualifiers, and 97.7 in the fourth and overtime, second in the league. He leads the NFL with 662 passing yards, and 350 of them have come in the fourth quarter or overtime.

Eagles 24, Titans 20. Philadelphia opened with three straight drives of 11-plus plays, then spent a 98-degree afternoon letting Tennessee back in. Amani Hooker’s end-zone interception, returned 92 yards, set up the Titans’ first touchdown; a second Hurts pick set up the go-ahead field goal with 1:56 left. Hurts then accounted for all 65 yards on the winning drive, hitting Darius Cooper with nine seconds to go. He had nine third-down conversions, a career high, and converted three third-and-12-or-longers, also a career high, while averaging 7.9 yards to go. Saquon Barkley took a stinger on the first play and finished with 9 yards on four carries; Dallas Goedert’s knee has put him on injured reserve.

Patriots 20, Steelers 3. New England lost six players in the first half and won by 17. TreVeyon Henderson scored on a 39-yard run in his season debut and out-snapped Rhamondre Stevenson 32 to 15 after Stevenson’s early fumble. Christian Barmore’s strip-sack of Aaron Rodgers was returned 19 yards for a touchdown by Elijah Ponder. Rodgers was sacked four times, fumbled twice, and is 8 of 24 under pressure this season. Christian Gonzalez shadowed DK Metcalf at times and held him to four catches for 27.

Packers 20, Jets 17 (OT). Green Bay snapped a six-game skid on Trey Smack’s 26-yarder after trailing 17-7 in the fourth, with 199 total net yards and 133 yards lost to 14 penalties. Jayden Reed (neck) and right tackle Zach Bako-Bewele (knee) were carted off on consecutive plays of the opening drive; by the end the Packers had lost both of their top two left guards and were playing a rookie making his NFL debut. Jordan Love has taken 18 quarterback hits in two weeks. Lukas Van Ness had nine pressures and 1.5 sacks and stuffed the Jets on third and fourth down late in regulation. Aaron Glenn’s clock management — no timeout before the Packers’ punt, ball first in overtime — will be the story in New York all week.

Browns 23, Buccaneers 19. Deshaun Watson went 24 of 30 for 238 and two touchdowns, his first win since September 2024, with the lowest average depth of target of his career at 3.7 yards. Cleveland ran for 44 yards and won on the road. A two-hour, twelve-minute lightning delay suspended the game at the two-minute warning with Tampa at the Cleveland 28; when it resumed, a Tristan Wirfs holding penalty set the Bucs back and Baker Mayfield’s fourth-down throw sailed wide. Tampa lost at home as an 8.5-point favorite and is 2-9 in its last 11.

Broncos 20, Jaguars 13. Denver trailed 13-3 with its offense 3 of 18 on third down across six quarters. Then Jaylen Waddle went for 138 yards on eight catches and rookie Jonah Coleman scored the go-ahead touchdown after J.K. Dobbins left with a hamstring. Bo Nix was not sacked and averaged 9.3 yards an attempt. Denver held Jacksonville to 95 rushing yards and Trevor Lawrence to 189, pressured him on 45.2% of his dropbacks, and got a third-quarter goal-line stand that turned the game.

Raiders 26, Chargers 14. Two home losses as touchdown-plus favorites, and Jim Harbaugh has never started a season 0-2 anywhere. Justin Herbert threw two interceptions — both to Hezekiah Masses — and the Chargers fumbled six times. Joe Alt had two false starts, the guard spot rotated, both tight ends got hurt, and they conceded a fourth-down conversion with twelve men on the field coming out of a timeout. Cody White caught two touchdowns; Tre Tucker had five for 119 with Brock Bowers out.

Seahawks 31, Cardinals 7. In his first start since 2024, Drew Lock threw for 235 and three touchdowns, all to Jaxon Smith-Njigba, who had 155 yards — more than Arizona’s entire offense. Seattle is the only team yet to allow a play of 25 yards, and Arizona did not score on its final seven possessions.

Cowboys 37, Commanders 20. Dak Prescott went 26 of 32 for 279 and four touchdowns, breaking Tony Romo’s franchise record of 248. CeeDee Lamb had 153 yards and two scores. Dallas scored on seven of eight possessions. Daniels was 11 of 17 for 96 with seven carries for 69 when Chris Paul stepped on his foot on the last play of the half.

49ers 35, Dolphins 13. San Francisco scored touchdowns on its first five possessions. Miami held the ball long enough that the 49ers ran two first-half drives — the first team to do that since November 2024 — and scored on both. Brock Purdy went 20 of 22 for 287 and leads the league in QBR at 94.9. Twenty-one of Miami’s first 26 snaps came in San Francisco territory and produced three points.

Chiefs 33, Colts 30 (OT). Patrick Mahomes threw 47 times for 382 yards and three touchdowns and Kansas City gained 523. Indianapolis reached the red zone in overtime on a 48-yard Daniel Jones strike to Laquon Treadwell, ran twice for minus-3, settled for a tying field goal, and watched Mahomes drive for Harrison Butker’s winner. The Colts have lost nine straight.

Monday: Rams 28, Giants 6. Matthew Stafford threw for 327 and four touchdowns, Davante Adams caught eight for 195 and two scores, and the Rams outgained New York 481 to 182 without Puka Nacua or Myles Garrett. Aaron Donald played 32 snaps in his first game in 32 months, with a 0.75-second get-off that Next Gen Stats ranked tied for third-fastest by any defensive tackle this season. Stafford’s 426th career touchdown pass moved him past Philip Rivers into sixth all-time. Dart left on the seventh snap; Jameis Winston went 11 of 27 for 111 with an end-zone interception.

Power Rankings

Pre = our preseason ranking. DVOA = FTN total DVOA through Week 2. ESPN = Week 3 power rankings. NFL.com = Week 3 power rankings. Prisco = Pete Prisco’s Week 3 rankings at CBS Sports.

San Francisco. DVOA has the 49ers first outright at 78.0%, second on offense and fifth on defense, and they are one of only three teams inside the top ten on both sides of the ball. We have them third anyway, on the opposition. Their two wins came against a Rams team that had flown 16 hours to Melbourne and back, and a Miami team that is last in DVOA and has not held a lead for a single second this season. Barnwell made the same point — the 49ers may not have played a difficult slate yet. We spent this piece discounting Chicago’s 59 points because Carolina allowed them and Buffalo’s four sacks because Detroit played three backup linemen. The same discipline applies here. Buffalo has beaten Houston and Detroit; Seattle has won twelve straight and has not allowed a play of 25 yards. Nobody outside has San Francisco first either.

Baltimore. Week 2 DVOA has the Ravens third overall at 38.3% and third on offense — after a loss. FTN’s Aaron Schatz calls it a reverse post-game win expectancy game: on the underlying stats he would expect Baltimore to win 70% of the time, citing a better running game, a better defensive performance and a 5.6-to-4.7 edge in yards per play. DAVE has them sixth. NFL.com has them fifth. ESPN dropped them 3 to 7. Prisco dropped them 6 to 11.

The Jets are the widest disagreement on the board. Eighth in DVOA with the third-best defense, and 25th to 27th everywhere else. Schatz gives them a 78% post-game win expectancy in a game they lost, which supports our read that 5-12 was too low. We have moved them eight spots and still have them below the model by a dozen.

Pittsburgh is the hardest entry to write, and NFL.com put it best: a defensive front among the most complete in football attached to an offense that cannot function. First in defensive DVOA, 31st on offense, dead last in pass-rush win rate. We have moved them down two and could defend anything from 14th to 24th.

The five biggest movers from August. San Francisco up eleven, Las Vegas up ten, Minnesota up nine, the Jets up eight, Kansas City up seven — and the Chargers down nineteen.

Projected Win Totals and Division Finishes

Thirty-two wins are banked league-wide, leaving 240 to project across fifteen remaining games per team. The set below sums to 272. Preseason numbers are from our August preview.

AFC East

The Jets move most. Eighth in DVOA, third-best defense, no Geno Smith turnover in 74 dropbacks, and two games they could have won. Miami is last in DVOA at -69.5% and is the only team that has not held a lead for a single second this season.

AFC North

Holding Baltimore at 11-6 after a home loss is the call we would most expect to be challenged, and DVOA is the reason we are comfortable. Cincinnati is 2-0 and leads the division today; the two head-to-head meetings decide it. Pittsburgh gets a win back on the strength of the best defense in football.

AFC South

Houston at 10-7 from 0-2 requires 10-5 the rest of the way, which is the most aggressive projection on this page. The case: DAVE has them eighth, their two losses came to Buffalo and Cincinnati, and the defense has largely held up. The case against: 32nd in red-zone touchdown rate since the start of last season, and Nico Collins is hurt.

AFC West

The four-win swing on the Chargers is the largest revision in the set, and it is still charitable. ESPN’s Benjamin Solak reads their next seven – at Buffalo, at Seattle, Denver, at Kansas City, at the Rams, Houston, at Baltimore — as a stretch where three wins would be a miracle. Las Vegas gains three and we are still below DVOA, which has them tenth.

NFC East

Both quarterback injuries land here. Dallas rises on an offense that scored on seven of eight possessions and grades fourth in DVOA – the reverse of the preseason thesis, which was built on the defense becoming average.

NFC North

Minnesota is the biggest riser in the set. Ninth in DVOA with the fourth-best defense, 2-0 with two division wins, and Kyler Murray back this week. Chicago holds: Williams is week-to-week rather than out, and a rain game against Flores is not a season.

NFC South

We took the over on New Orleans in August and Schatz had them 31st. Two fourth quarters later, they are the division favorite. No NFC team in 30 years has started 0-3 and made the playoffs, which is what Tampa Bay is playing for Sunday.

NFC West

The division flips. We had the Rams at 13-4 and first; Seattle is 2-0, has not allowed a play of 25 yards, and won by 24 with a backup quarterback. The Rams are 12-5 and second on the tiebreaker we cannot yet project. San Francisco leads DVOA outright at 78.0% and is still third here, which tells you what we think of the division.

Projected Seeding

AFC: 1. Bills 12-5 · 2. Chiefs 12-5 · 3. Ravens 11-6 · 4. Texans 10-7 · 5. Bengals 10-7 · 6. Broncos 10-7 · 7. Patriots 10-7. First out: Pittsburgh, Las Vegas and Jacksonville, all 9-8.

NFC: 1. Seahawks 12-5 · 2. Eagles 11-6 · 3. Vikings 11-6 · 4. Saints 9-8 · 5. Rams 12-5 · 6. 49ers 11-6 · 7. Lions 10-7. First out: Dallas 10-7.

Two changes from August worth naming. We had Kansas City as the first AFC team out at 10-7; they are now the projected second seed. And we had the Chargers winning the West at 10-7; they are now 6-11 and out of the picture entirely. Those two calls were the ones we flagged in the preview as most likely to be wrong. Both were, in opposite directions.

Week 3 Preview

Thursday, Sept. 24th

Atlanta at Green Bay, 8:15 — Packers -7, total 43.5. ESPN gives Green Bay a 74.1% chance to win.

Key to the Game: Michael Penix Jr. is expected to make his first start since tearing an ACL last November, for a team that has not run a red-zone play this season – the first in 18 years to manage that through two games. Green Bay, on three days’ rest, lost 133 yards to 14 penalties on Sunday, gained 199 net yards, and will field one of the league’s least experienced lines without Reed and with Josh Jacobs on the commissioner exempt list. Green Bay is last in the league in pass-block win rate at 18%; Za’Darius Smith leads all edge rushers in pass-rush win rate.

Our Pick: Packers. Green Bay is 22nd in DVOA and does not look right. Atlanta is 31st with the fifth-worst two-week pass offense since 1977.

Sunday, Sept. 27th — 1:00

Carolina at Cleveland — Panthers -3, total 42.5. ESPN gives Carolina a 63.5% chance to win.

Match-Up to Watch: Bryce Young is averaging 8.0 yards per dropback, fifth in the league, after 5.6 over the past two seasons. Cleveland won in Tampa with 44 rushing yards and Watson’s career-low depth of target.

Our Pick: Panthers.

Cincinnati at Pittsburgh — Bengals -3.5, total 42.5. ESPN gives Cincinnati a 61.1% chance to win.

Key to the Game: Pittsburgh has the best defense in football by DVOA and the 31st-ranked offense. Cincinnati’s rebuilt front is tied for the league lead with eight sacks and is allowing 16.5 points a game; Houston sacked Burrow five times. Whichever line holds up decides it – and Cincinnati’s defensive front is the weakest inclusion on our published top-8, with the Week 4 republish coming.

Our Pick: Bengals. It’s a division road game against the league’s best defense so far by DVOA. This could go the other way.

Houston at Indianapolis — Texans -3, total 43.5. ESPN gives Houston a 52.5% chance to win.

Key to the Game: Two 0-2 teams, market on the road team, model near a coin flip. Houston is 32nd in red-zone touchdown rate since the start of last season; Indianapolis has the worst defense in DVOA and just allowed 523 yards. Collins’s hamstring and Alec Pierce’s heel are both in doubt.

Our Pick: Texans.

Kansas City at Miami — Chiefs -11.5, total 45.5. ESPN gives Kansas City an 85.8% chance to win.

Key to the Game: Miami is last in DVOA and has not led for a single second this season. Kansas City held the ball for all but 2:22 of the third quarter Sunday night.

Our Pick: Chiefs.

L.A. Chargers at Buffalo — Bills -7, total 50.5. ESPN gives Buffalo a 78.9% chance to win.

Key to the Game: Buffalo has the best offense in DVOA at 56.8%, and Allen is averaging a career-best 9.7 yards per attempt on his deepest average target depth since his rookie year. The Chargers arrive with 13 offensive penalties, seven fumbles and a quarterback Solak calls the most visibly rattled he has been.

Our Pick: Bills.

New England at Jacksonville — Jaguars -3, total 45.5. ESPN gives Jacksonville a 57.5% chance to win.

Key to the Game: The interior. Denver pressured Lawrence on 45.2% of his dropbacks and he completed 33.3% under pressure against 76.5% clean; New England has Barmore, first among all defensive tackles in pass-rush win rate, and Milton Williams. Jacksonville’s own front is thin – 30th in team pass-rush win rate, with its tackles producing five pressures on 106 snaps and Josh Hines-Allen shut out on 24 rushes in Denver. Against that, New England is missing A.J. Brown (high ankle), Mike Onwenu (broken right ankle) and three more defenders from Sunday, in Florida heat with no depth.

Our Pick: Jaguars. Low confidence, and Solak argues the other way convincingly. New England’s defense is sixth in DVOA, but the attrition and the setting are hard to ignore.

N.Y. Jets at Detroit — Lions -6.5, total 48.5. ESPN gives Detroit a 75.5% chance to win.

Key to the Game: Does Sheppard blitz like that again? Detroit is 28th in defensive DVOA after ten days off. The Jets are eighth overall with the third-best defense.

Our Pick: Lions. The numbers say this is closer than the line.

Seattle at Washington — Seahawks -6.5, total 39.5. ESPN gives Seattle a 67.2% chance to win.

Key to the Game: Marcus Mariota’s first start against the only defense yet to allow a 25-yard play, in the lowest total on the board. Washington is 28th in DVOA and has lost Daniels, Laremy Tunsil for most of the year, and Sam Cosmi.

Our Pick: Seahawks.

Tennessee at N.Y. Giants — Giants -3, total 40.5. ESPN gives Tennessee a 54.6% chance to win.

Key to the Game: Dart’s knee. Winston went 11 of 27 for 111 in relief and the Giants gained 182 yards. Cam Ward ran for two touchdowns against Philadelphia, the fifth Titans or Oilers quarterback in fifty seasons to do that in a game, and Tennessee nearly stole one in Nashville.

Our Pick: Titans. A true tossup, taken on the injury alone. If Dart plays, it flips back. The line and the model now disagree — the number moved from Giants -6 to -3 while ESPN flipped to Tennessee.

4:05

Arizona at San Francisco — 49ers -8.5, total 47.5. ESPN gives San Francisco a 90.3% chance to win.

Key to the Game: San Francisco leads DVOA at 78.0%, second on offense and fifth on defense, with a receiver room down Demarcus Robinson, Mike Evans, De’Zhaun Stribling and Ricky Pearsall. Purdy leads the league in QBR. Arizona gained 151 yards Sunday.

Our Pick: 49ers.

Minnesota at Tampa Bay — Vikings -1.5, total 42.5. ESPN gives Minnesota a 52.2% chance to win.

Key to the Game: The league’s most aggressive blitz against a line that has allowed seven sacks and a quarterback with four turnovers, ranked 29th of 32 in EPA per dropback. Two complications: Kyler Murray returns from the protocol, upgrading a 26th-ranked offense, and a dome team blitzing three of every four dropbacks in Tampa heat in the late window needs fresh legs late. No NFC team in 30 years has started 0-3 and made the playoffs, so Tampa is playing its season.

Our Pick: Vikings. CBS Sports is taking Tampa. Do wonder how the Vikings will do in the Tampa heat.

4:25

Baltimore at Dallas — Maracanã, Rio de Janeiro — Ravens -3, total 52.5. ESPN gives Baltimore a 53.9% chance to win.

Our full preview is here. Third and seventh in DVOA. Dallas has given up the third-most rushing yards in the league and grades 32nd in team run-block win rate; Baltimore is first in run blocking and averaging 155 rushing yards a game. The counterweight is that Jackson’s two lowest pass-block win rates as a starter have come in the first two weeks. Field conditions seem like a question.

Our Pick: Ravens.

Las Vegas at New Orleans — Saints -3, total 43.5. ESPN gives New Orleans a 64.3% chance to win.

Match-Up to Watch: Shough leads the league in passing yards and has taken the second-most sacks; Las Vegas is tied for the league lead with eight. New Orleans lost Kelvin Banks Jr. to a sprained ankle and is 28th in pass-block win rate. Las Vegas is last in the league at 2.8 yards a carry, so the Jeanty plan may not be available.

Our Pick: Saints. Not an overly confident pick. The Raiders are 10th in DVOA to New Orleans’ 24th.

8:20 — Sunday Night

L.A. Rams at Denver — Rams -2.5, total 45.5. ESPN gives the Rams a 65.1% chance to win.

Key to the Game: The Rams looked like themselves Monday — 481 yards to 182, four Stafford touchdowns, 195 for Adams, Donald back after 32 months. DVOA has them eighth on offense and ninth on defense, one of only three teams top-ten in both, and third in DAVE; they are 14th overall only because they are dead last in special teams again. Denver is giving up 157.5 rushing yards a game, fourth-most in the league, after finishing second-best last season, and may be down to a rookie back.

Our Pick: Rams. Denver is at home, and had another day to prepare; but still taking the Rams.

Monday, Sept. 28th

Philadelphia at Chicago, 8:15 — Eagles -3.5, total 44.5. ESPN gives Philadelphia a 57.1% chance to win.

Key to the Game: Ben Johnson has called Williams week-to-week and says Tyson Bagent can run the offense without changing the scheme. Philadelphia is the lowest-ranked 2-0 team at 16th in DVOA, ranks fifth-lowest in yards before contact per rush, and has now lost Goedert to injured reserve. Chicago’s run game took Vic Fangio’s defense apart last season.

Our Pick: Eagles. Solak picks Chicago. We will take Hurts, who was the best player on the field in Nashville.

The post 2026 NFL: Previewing Week 3 appeared first on Baltimore Sports and Life.

Baltimore had a 14-6 lead at halftime, and a 17-9 lead entering the 4th Quarter, but were not able to make it hold up.

A Week 2 loss doesn’t change the expected trajectory of the season, but it’s disappointing all the same.

The Fourth Quarter

Baltimore was outscored 15-0 in the fourth.

The Ravens led 14-6 at halftime and 17-9 with just under four minutes left in the third. From there: a punt, a punt, and an interception on the final snap. New Orleans scored a touchdown and a two-point conversion to tie it, then went 16 plays and 68 yards over 6:38 to win it.

The closing drive is the game. Sixteen plays, and Baltimore had four chances to end it. New Orleans converted two third downs and two fourth downs – Shough sneaking for a yard at the Baltimore 44 with 5:41 left, and then going for it on fourth-and-goal from inside the one rather than taking the chip shot that would have given them the lead. Tyler Shough scored on a keeper. The play was reviewed and the ruling on the field stood; the CBS broadcast crew said on air they believed he was short.

Third Downs

New Orleans converted 8 of 15.

The distances are what make that number bad. Baltimore stopped almost nothing in the 8-to-13 range. Shough converted a third-and-7 to Devaughn Vele in the first quarter, a third-and-13 by stepping up through interior pressure for 29 more to Vele, a third-and-8 to Chris Olave for 11 with Kyle Hamilton showing at the line and Roquan Smith actually rushing, a third-and-13 to Juwan Johnson for 25 in the third quarter, and a third-and-16 to Johnson for 10 that still left New Orleans short.

In our season preview we wrote that this scheme gives a quarterback a clean look, rushes four, concedes the underneath throw and dares an offense to be patient. New Orleans was patient for sixty minutes. Shough finished 27-of-34 for 252 yards. That is a 79 percent completion rate against a defense that was not, by design, trying to stop those throws.

Hamilton was the exception everywhere. He is in on tackles from one end of the play-by-play to the other, and on the 16-play drive that decided the game he is credited on seven of them — Etienne twice, Olave, Vele, Kamara, and both Shough runs inside the 5, including the third-and-goal stop that forced New Orleans into going for it on fourth down.

The Interior Rush

Baltimore had three sacks – Hendrickson, Tavius Robinson and Mike Green. All three came off the edge.

Nothing came from inside. Jonas Shaffer put it plainly afterward: the Ravens need Nnamdi Madubuike back, and there was not much from their interior rush today. That is two straight games without him. Travis Jones generated push early – he beat his man on a second-and-15 that held New Orleans to two yards — and the pocket was clean enough the rest of the afternoon that Shough completed 27 passes.

Hendrickson and Green are both on the board, which is what we asked for last week. Michael Fast predicted Hendrickson’s first sack as a Raven would come Sunday, and it did. His other call — Malaki Starks’ first home interception – did not, though Starks did make the tackle that kept Juwan Johnson out of the end zone on the final drive and forced New Orleans into fourth-and-goal.

Hendrickson did it with a cast on his hand; Ian Rapoport reported Sunday morning that he broke a finger into several pieces this week and was expected to play. Rod Woodson’s explanation for the Week 1 zero — that Indianapolis slid protection to him, brought tight ends over and bumped him off the line — held up as far as it went, and the finger was a second reason we did not know about when we published.

The pass rush question we posed last week was whether pressure was enough or Baltimore needed sacks. The answer was sacks. Baltimore generated pressure on Shough repeatedly and he stepped through it for conversions, and the drives that actually ended were the ones where the rush finished — Robinson on New Orleans’ first possession, and Hendrickson and Green on the same third-quarter series.

New Orleans punted three times. Baltimore’s three sacks came on two of those drives.

Bateman And Andrews

Both of them answered.

Rashod Bateman caught 7 of 9 targets for 88 yards and a 22-yard touchdown at the end of the first half. He had zero catches in Week 1. He converted on the first drive of the second quarter, caught the touchdown in a two-minute drill, and dug Baltimore out of a first-and-21 with an 18-yard deep out that required timing and protection at the same moment.

Mark Andrews caught 6 of 7 for 49 yards. The incompletion was a third-and-6 on Baltimore’s opening three-and-out. After that he converted third-and-5, third-and-4 and third-and-3, opened the third-quarter field goal drive with an 8-yard catch, and picked up 14 on third-and-3 on the final possession. He was the third-down offense.

In the season preview we said Andrews and Bateman both needed to get back toward their 2024 production. They did it in the same game, on the afternoon Zay Flowers was inactive.

Matt Jergensen wrote last week that with Flowers out, Bateman should be in line for a much bigger role and that the time for him to step up was now. He got nine targets and delivered. Jergensen also said Andrews needed more than the four catches for 49 yards he had in Indianapolis; Andrews got six for 49, which is more work at the same yardage, in higher-leverage spots.

The one question Jergensen asked that has an uncomfortable answer is whether Chris Moore was really a player who could and should get an expanded role. Baltimore started him. He caught the deep ball that wasn’t there on third-and-1, held on a play that erased a first down, and nearly lost a kick return. None of that is an indictment of Moore. It is what happens when a team asks its fifth receiver to be its second.

Devontez Walker, who has 7 career catches, caught one for 47 on his second target. Ja’Kobi Lane is on injured reserve with a fractured wrist and is out at least four games — our Week 2 piece treated him as week-to-week, and that was wrong. LaJohntay Wester caught a 15-yard screen. Chris Moore started opposite Bateman nine days after being elevated off the practice squad.

The Offensive Line

Baltimore gained 312 yards a week after gaining 506.

Ronnie Stanley left the game and Carson Vinson replaced him at left tackle. Jeff Zrebiec reported before kickoff that Stanley was dealing with a toe injury, and that Emery Jones Jr. was active over Andrew Vorhees in part because Jones can play tackle. When Stanley went out, it was Vinson. There has been no further word.

Chase Young got him for 11 on a second-and-10 at the New Orleans 28, a play on which Andrews was chipping and the CBS broadcast called a scheme error. Young and Nathan Shepherd split another for 12 on third-and-10 at the New Orleans 19, which turned a red zone trip into a 49-yard field goal. He went down again after Vinson came in.

Roger Rosengarten was flagged for being illegally downfield on a shovel pass to Andrews that had gained 11.

Derrick Henry

Sixteen carries, 68 yards, one touchdown. Five of those carries came in the second half.

New Orleans did not stop him. He averaged 4.3 a carry, moved the chains on third-and-2 and third-and-1 on the touchdown drive, and ripped off an 8-yard run to the 1 to set up the score. The touchdown itself was the best play of the day schematically – second-and-goal from the 1, Carson Vinson reported eligible, direct snap to Henry, in the same red zone where Week 1 produced a holding penalty that erased a touchdown and a failed fourth-and-goal from the three.

The issue was volume. After Loop’s 49-yarder made it 17-9 with 3:23 left in the third, Baltimore ran six offensive plays before its final possession. Two three-and-outs, both of which ended with Jackson on the ground. You cannot hand it to Henry when you are not on the field.

That matters more with him than with most backs. Henry’s afternoons are built on accumulation. Carry after carry, defenders getting tired of putting a shoulder into him, arm tackles starting to appear in the second half, and the runs getting longer as the game goes on. Sixteen carries does not get a defense to that point. Neither does five in a half.

Jonas Shaffer noted that Jahmyr Gibbs had a run of explosive carries against this same New Orleans defense last week behind a banged-up Detroit line. Detroit also ran it 33 times and held the ball for nearly 37 minutes. That is the difference, and it isn’t about the back.

The premise was everywhere this week, including here. Michael Fast wrote that the best thing Baltimore could do was look at what Gibbs and the Lions did to the New Orleans run defense, and predicted 150-plus yards and two touchdowns for Henry. We wrote that New Orleans would not be able to slow Henry and Jackson. Neither of us was wrong about the matchup. We were both assuming the Ravens would have the ball.

Third And One

Tied at 17, 8:14 left, third-and-1 at the Baltimore 37. The Ravens threw deep to Chris Moore. Incomplete, and they punted.

Punting on fourth-and-1 from your own 37 in a tie game is defensible. You are backed up, and you want your defense to come up with a stop and improve your field position. I can also understand those that would have preferred to see the Ravens aggressively go for it there. I’m not focused on the 4th down decision.

The third-down call is the one that annoys me.

One yard, with the game tied, in the fourth quarter. Make New Orleans stop Henry. Put a front that had been on the field for most of the afternoon in a position where it has to hold up against Henry with a yard to gain. If they do, fine — you punt from the same spot you were always going to punt from, and you have learned something about this offense. If they don’t, the drive continues and the clock keeps moving.

Instead the down came off the board on a low-percentage throw, and the punt team came on anyway.

There is a second coaching decision to log. Minter challenged a three-yard completion in the second half and lost, costing a timeout. Zrebiec flagged it while the Saints were driving. Baltimore spent its remaining two timeouts on the goal-line sequence and took over with 1:21 and none, which forced a spike at the New Orleans 37 and left them two plays from the 37 with 20 seconds instead of three.

Tyler Shough

What we published about him held up: the league’s worst pressure-to-sack ratio last season, 56 attempts in Week 1 that led the NFL by 14, 410 yards against Detroit. What we never mentioned was that he runs. Shough carried nine times for 23 yards today — more carries than Travis Etienne — scrambled 11 yards on third-and-14 in the second quarter to set up a field goal, and scored the winning touchdown on a keeper from inside the one. Both fourth-down conversions on the final drive were his legs.

He also took hits and kept throwing, which Bill Barnwell and others noted after the Detroit game. Baltimore got pressure on him all afternoon and he completed 79 percent of his throws.

Two of his receivers beat Baltimore’s best coverage players. Olave caught 8 of 10 for 86 and the touchdown, converting three times on the drive that tied it, including a catch behind the line of scrimmage on third-and-2 with Marlon Humphrey in coverage that he turned into a first down. We called Nate Wiggins against Olave the best individual matchup on the field. Olave won it. Vele added 5 for 64, Johnson 4 for 66 on four targets.

Alvin Kamara was not on a pitch count. He touched it ten times in the first half and finished with nine carries for 15 yards. We wrote that if he played, he was probably on a snap limit; instead New Orleans made him the lead back and got 1.7 yards a touch, while Etienne — the one who was actually productive in Detroit — carried eight times. New Orleans kicked field goals on three straight possessions in the middle of the game rather than finishing them, and the run game is a reasonable place to look for why. Etienne scored the two-point conversion that tied the game.

Special Teams

This was the strength a week ago and it was a problem today.

Carl Granderson blocked a 49-yard Tyler Loop attempt in the second quarter, on a drive that had reached the New Orleans 28 before Young’s sack. Loop later hit from 49. The kickoff after Bateman’s touchdown was returned to the Baltimore 44 with 15 seconds left in the half, and New Orleans turned it into a 47-yard field goal. Moore fumbled a kick return in the third quarter; replay ruled him down by contact.

Moore started at receiver, returned kicks, drew the drive-killing holding penalty and was the target on the third-and-1 deep ball. That is a lot to ask of a man who was on the practice squad nine days ago, and it is a depth problem rather than a Moore problem.

The Penalties

Seven for 34 yards. New Orleans had five for 35.

The count is not the story. Four of the seven arrived on plays that changed the game: Moore’s hold erasing a Jackson first down, Rosengarten illegally downfield wiping out 11 yards, a defensive holding call on Jaylinn Hawkins that gave New Orleans a second attempt at the tying two-point conversion after Trenton Simpson had brought Shough down on the first, and the roughing call on Hendrickson during the final drive.

Pete Gilbert had it in real time — penalties and third downs. He is right about both, and the penalty version needs the qualifier that the volume actually improved.

Thoughts Two Weeks In

Total yardage was 312 to 298. This was not a game where Baltimore got run off the field. It was a game where New Orleans held the ball for 32:45 and converted third downs at long distances – 8 of 15, at an average distance around eight yards.

New Orleans had eight possessions: punt, punt, field goal, field goal, field goal, punt, touchdown, touchdown. Baltimore’s three sacks account for two of the three punts – Robinson ending New Orleans’ first possession, Hendrickson and Green on the same third-quarter series.

Over the course of this season, the Ravens are going to need consistent production from Bateman and Andrews. Their performance today was encouraging; the next step is getting that with regularity.

It was also good to see Walker stretch the field with his 47 yard grab.

Not having Flowers and Lane available today changes the offense.

What really impacted the offense was the defense allowing several long possessions, and not giving Jackson more attempts. Further aided by the Ravens offense not converting that 4th Quarter 3rd and 1.

Hard for Henry to rack up carries, when the Ravens offense doesn’t have the ball.

Madubuike has now missed the first two games. The obvious hope is that he gives the Ravens an interior pass rush when he becomes active.

We noted last week that the first seven opponents all missed the playoffs last season, and that everyone expected a quick start. Baltimore is 1-1 with a home loss to one of them.

Look at the rest of the conference while that sits there.

Buffalo is 2-0 and has looked strong.

Cincinnati is 2-0 and now owns a head-to-head win over Houston, another expected AFC threat, in Houston.

Kansas City looked a bit better in Week 1 than many people anticipated.

The Ravens have post-season aspirations. You have to reach the post-season first, and dropping games you should win is how you end up not winning divisions or having your seeding impacted.

The Ravens were extremely difficult to beat at home for years, but weren’t able to defend M&T last year and have now started the ’26 campaign with another loss at the Bank.

The Ravens’ struggles with leads in the 4th Quarter over the last 5 years is well documented. For there to be a Coaching change, and to see that same storyline continue with Minter in his Ravens home-debut, is a bit deflating.

Our Call, Scored

We said Ravens 31, Saints 20. Baltimore wins and covers. Take the over on 46.5.

Wrong three times. Baltimore lost outright as a home favorite — the line had moved from -7.5 at publication to -8.5 by kickoff. The game finished at 41 combined points, under the total. Not a near miss on any leg.

The reasoning was that New Orleans would not be able to slow Henry and Jackson, and that if the Saints loaded the box it would create one-on-one chances outside. Baltimore did win that part — Bateman got his one-on-ones and won them. What we did not account for was Baltimore’s inability to get off the field on third down, or that Henry would finish with 68 yards.

Box score

Week 3: Ravens at Cowboys, in Rio de Janeiro

Sunday, September 27th, 4:25 p.m. ET on CBS, Maracanã Stadium, Rio de Janeiro. Ravens -3, total 52.5.
ESPN’s Match-Up Predictor gives Baltimore a 60.2% chance to win.

Dallas is the designated home team. Baltimore is the visitor. The Ravens are not giving up a home date, and this is a normal Sunday afternoon kickoff rather than the Friday or Saturday that international games sometimes get, 5:25 p.m. local time in Rio.

The Field

There is a real chance this game is not played in Brazil.

Mike Florio reported Saturday that the grass at the Maracanã is in poor condition, citing Mauricio Rodriguez of AtoZSports. The complaints are coming from the soccer players who play on it. Flamengo goalkeeper Agustín Rossi said both penalty areas are in bad shape and there are bumps everywhere, and noted that an NFL game was coming. Midfielder Giorgian De Arrascaeta said the field keeps getting worse and it is getting harder to control the ball. Fluminense’s Guga said on September 5 that he could not recall playing on a field as bad anywhere in Brazil.

Tony Lombardi at Russell Street Report laid out the stadium’s side. Maracanã’s management attributes the wear to heavy rainfall, high temperatures and a heavy run of matches. Stadium CEO Fred Nantes acknowledged the field is not at the quality the stadium wants while saying the venue has not been negligent. Crews are working overnight, and the administration contacted the people who run the São Paulo venue to learn what was done there after the NFL games in 2024 and 2025. Maracanã is studying a full replacement of the field after the NFL game.

The precedent is real. In 2018 the NFL moved a Chiefs-Rams game from Mexico City to the Los Angeles Coliseum over field conditions, six days before kickoff. If this one moves, it moves to Arlington, because Dallas is the home team. As of Saturday afternoon the NFL had not announced any change.

The precedent that matters more is what happened in São Paulo. Players slipped repeatedly during the 2024 game at Arena Corinthians, and afterward multiple players told theScore it was among the worst surfaces they had played on. The NFL spent a reported $1 million on that field to prepare it.

We are publishing this without knowing where the game will be played. Flamengo hosted Bragantino at the Maracanã on Sunday, and the league’s read on the field after that match is the thing to watch.

Dallas

Dallas beat Washington 37-20 at home on Sunday and is 1-1.

Dak Prescott went 26 of 31 for 279 yards and four touchdowns, and passed Tony Romo for the franchise record in touchdown passes. Romo’s mark was 248; Prescott tied it on his second scoring throw to Jake Ferguson and broke it with a fourth-quarter strike to CeeDee Lamb. Lamb finished with 8 catches for 153 and two scores, 19.1 a catch. Ferguson had 4 for 43 and two touchdowns. George Pickens caught 6 for 40. Javonte Williams ran 12 times for 30.

Jayden Daniels dislocated his left elbow on the final play of the first half and was carted off. Everything after that was Dallas playing Marcus Mariota. Washington actually outgained Dallas 389 to 332 and ran for 182 yards. Mariota wasn’t bad, but the game changed when Daniels went out.

Dallas lost 28-20 at the Giants in Week 1. Dak Prescott went 22-of-34 for 175 yards with two touchdowns – to CeeDee Lamb and Javonte Williams – and an interception just before halftime. Williams ran for a score. George Pickens had drops. Brandon Aubrey missed an extra point after a taunting penalty moved it back. Safety Malik Hooker left with a forearm injury and linebacker DeMarvion Overshown left in the fourth with a hamstring.

The Matchup

In Week 1 the Cowboys allowed 9 of 11 third-down conversions, missed seven tackles per Next Gen Stats, gave up 165 combined rushing yards and let the Giants hold the ball for nearly 37 minutes. Jaxson Dart finished 23-of-29 with three touchdowns and ran for 54 himself. In a Blogging The Boys roundtable, four Dallas linebackers – Winters, Overshown, Houston and Lawrence – were noted as grading between 34 and 42 at PFF.

Christian Parker was calling his first NFL game as defensive coordinator. Dallas allowed the most points in the NFL last season at 30.1 a game, and Quinnen Williams pointed at the third downs afterward, saying they had a lot of them and didn’t get off the field.

Two weeks in, the pattern holds. Washington went 6 of 8 on third down in the first half before Daniels got hurt. Add the 9 of 11 the Giants managed and Dallas has allowed 15 of 19 third-down conversions against starting quarterbacks – 79 percent.

The quarterback runs are the specific problem. Jaxson Dart ran for 54 on 11 carries in Week 1. Daniels had 69 on seven before the injury. That is 123 yards on 18 attempts over six quarters, 6.8 a carry, which is Joe Hoyt’s number and the most relevant statistic in this preview. Marcus Mosher’s read is that Dallas is playing light boxes against heavy personnel and getting run on, which makes it a stated choice rather than a personnel failure. Nick Harris described the third-quarter forced fumble as the Dallas defense’s first big play of the season, in Week 2.

Now the counterweight, and it is the pivot of this game rather than a footnote.

Dak Prescott is a better quarterback than any Baltimore has faced, and on Sunday he did to Washington what Shough did to the Ravens – efficient, unhurried, converting. Twenty-six of 31. Baltimore has gone two weeks without an interior pass rush.

The Giants ran for 165 on the Cowboys while holding the ball nearly 37 minutes. Baltimore had the ball 27:15 on Sunday and handed Henry sixteen carries. A defense that cannot tackle is only a matchup if you are on the field long enough to make it one.

Availability

Madubuike has missed two games with the neck. He was described as “really, really close” before Week 2 and did not dress.

Teddye Buchanan has also missed two with the knee.

Zay Flowers sat Sunday with the hamstring to try to avoid this becoming a lingering or more serious issue.  If this game moves to Dallas, it’s fun to picture his speed on the turf.

Ronnie Stanley left with what Zrebiec reported as a toe injury. No update yet.

Ja’Kobi Lane is on IR with a fractured wrist obviously, and will miss a few more weeks.

Hendrickson is playing with a cast on a broken finger.

For Dallas: Safety Malik Hooker and LB DeMarvion Overshown both left the Giants game early and were confirmed inactive against Washington, along with linebacker James Houston, cornerback Caelen Carson, running back Tyler Goodson, guard Ajani Cornelius and receiver Camden Brown. Overshown and Houston are two of the four linebackers whose Week 1 grades drew attention, and Overshown is the player you would want spying Jackson. Whether any of them are back for Rio is a question for Dallas’ Wednesday report.

The linebacker room is reshuffled rather than empty. Rookie Jaishawn Barham – Michigan, and Maryland before that – forced the fumble that Dee Winters recovered at the Washington 13 to set up a Ferguson touchdown. Winters is himself one of the four who graded poorly in Week 1.

Olave had a strong game today vs. the Ravens. Have to imagine Lamb, and Pickens are excited about their chances to do the same.

Things To Watch

Does Madubuike play, and does it change the interior rush? Three sacks against New Orleans, all from the edge, and a quarterback completing 79 percent.

Can Baltimore get off the field on third down? Eight of 15 allowed, at an average distance around eight yards.

Does Baltimore run it? Sixteen carries for Henry, five after halftime, against a defense that gave up 165 on the ground in Week 1. Dallas has been showing a lot of light boxes. You have to make them pay for that.

Is Stanley available? .If he’s available, how effective is he?

Does Jackson run? Daniels ran for 69 yards in the 1st half today.

Does Bateman build off his outing vs. NO? Seven catches for 88 and a touchdown, with a week for Dallas to plan for it. If Flowers is back, the room looks entirely different.

Where is the game being played?

Our Call

The Ravens have a better roster than New Orleans (even with those inactive today), but the Saints left Baltimore with the win.
Baltimore is supposed to have a better roster than the Cowboys, but Dallas has darkhorse Super Bowl aspirations.

The defense has given up long, patient drives in both games. Dak Prescott is a different problem than Daniel Jones or Tyler Shough.

Dallas allowed the most points in the NFL last season, its defensive coordinator is calling his third NFL game, it has given up 15 of 19 third downs to starting quarterbacks, and it is playing light boxes against heavy personnel.

The case against against Baltimore is that Prescott is not Shough. Four penalties at the worst moments, a special teams unit that gave away points, a line that could not keep Jackson upright in the fourth quarter, and no interior pass rush to bother the best quarterback on the schedule so far.

If the game is played in Rio: Ravens 24, Cowboys 21. Neither team has a home crowd (maybe more Dallas fans with their name recognition?), and a questionable surface tends to shorten games and punish precision more than power, which favors Henry and a defense that can win rushing four. The problem is everything around the game. This is a nine-hour trip to an unfamiliar facility, in the middle of a week of league events, on a field nobody has practiced on. Dallas makes the same trip, but the Cowboys have been building their week around this since April as the home team. Baltimore is a guest at someone else’s event.

If the game is moved to Arlington: Ravens 24, Cowboys 23. A relocation hands Dallas a genuine home game it was not supposed to have, on a fast indoor surface that suits Prescott, Lamb and Pickens, against a defense that has not gotten off the field on third down in two weeks. The counterweight is that for Baltimore, Arlington is a normal road game. Short flight, familiar building, ordinary routine, home that night. Whatever the Ravens lose to the crowd they get back in not having to do anything unusual.

Which is why the two numbers end up in the same place. The version of this game I would least want as a Baltimore fan is the one where they fly to Brazil on a short turnaround after a loss, play on a field the professionals who use it say is unsafe, and try to fix a third-down defense in a hotel ballroom.

Either way I have Baltimore at 2-1.

The post Saints Leave Baltimore With A Win; Ravens Face Dallas Next appeared first on Baltimore Sports and Life.

We start with what we got wrong.

Where Our Virginia Tech Preview Missed

We called Maryland’s interior rush against the Hokie line “the single best matchup the Terps have on the field.” It was the worst. Maryland had ten sacks in its first two games and one against Virginia Tech. It had four tackles for loss. The Hokies converted eight of nine third downs in the first half, scored touchdowns on five of their first six possessions, and won time of possession by more than thirteen minutes. Daniel Wingate’s own explanation was bad angles and missed tackles.

We also built the preview around Maryland’s offensive line against Virginia Tech’s edge rushers. That matchup did not decide the game. Malik Washington threw for 359 yards. Protection mostly held.

We got two things right. We wrote that Luke Reynolds against Maryland’s second level was the likeliest way Virginia Tech would score efficiently, and that Maryland had not faced a tight end like him. Reynolds caught 12 passes on 12 targets for 107 yards and a touchdown. His fourth-and-1 catch, which stood after review with Maryland out of timeouts, ended the game. We also said the missing piece was the run game against a real defense. It was missing.

The pick was Virginia Tech by three. The margin was nine, and it was never that close.

What Happened

The first half decided it. Virginia Tech led 27-14 at the break with 302 yards and went up 35-14 early in the third quarter. Ethan Grunkemeyer finished 31 of 39 for 314 yards and three touchdowns. He added an 18-yard touchdown run on third-and-goal, two plays after Nahsir Taylor sacked him in the red zone. Maryland made the play and then could not finish the series.

Maryland’s offense was fine when it had the ball. The Terps averaged 6.6 yards per play to Virginia Tech’s 5.9 and scored touchdowns on all four red zone trips. It did not have the ball much. Three Hokie touchdown drives ate 6:45, 5:49 and 6:12 of clock, and Maryland’s first two possessions of the second half ended in a three-and-out and a turnover on downs.

The run game was the other half of it. Without DeJuan Williams, Maryland ran 21 times for 64 yards. Running backs accounted for 48 of those at 2.8 a carry. Three first-quarter runs lost yardage. Mike Locksley said afterward that Maryland did neither of the two things it had emphasized since January: run the ball and stop the run.

Penalties came back. Maryland had five in the first half for 39 yards. The yardage was small and the timing was bad. Amari Jackson was flagged for pass interference on third-and-eight to extend the drive that made it 27-14. Eyan Thomas jumped offsides inside the five on that same drive, and Virginia Tech scored on the next snap.

Then the two-point tries. Maryland went for two after its first fourth-quarter touchdown and again after its second. Both failed. Kick both extra points and the score is 35-28 with the same clock. Locksley said Maryland was playing to win and declined to hide behind analytics. There is some math backing the decisions; I hated the call on first try. Get the deficit to 14, and not put yourself in a position where you would need to convert a 2 point attempt. The second attempt, their chasing the previous miss, and when you fail to convert you need multiple scores without enough clock left.  The 21 points Maryland allowed before halftime mattered more, but this was still annoying.

Some of the night was good. Washington completed 30 of 43 passes for 359 yards and three touchdowns with no turnovers. Through three games he is 83 of 115 for 892 yards, six touchdowns and no interceptions. Chris Durr Jr. caught 12 passes for 109 yards and two touchdowns, his second straight game with double-digit catches. Kaleb Webb caught five for 98. Dorian Fleming caught six passes, more than he had in the first two games combined, including his first touchdown of the season from two yards out. Maryland outscored Virginia Tech 12-0 in the fourth quarter, the reverse of last season’s pattern, though the Hokies were protecting a three-score lead.

One more detail. Jeffrey Overton Jr. had a 49-yard receiving touchdown and a rushing score. He is a Northern Virginia product Maryland recruited.

Locksley Watch

In our season preview we wrote that 4-8, 5-7, or 6-6 with a bowl should not be enough for Locksley to keep his job, and that 7-5 would at least make an argument. After the Virginia Tech loss, 6-6 is Maryland’s single most likely finish.

Who UCLA Is

UCLA went 3-9 in 2025. Chesney came from James Madison, which made the College Football Playoff last season, and brought eleven former Dukes with him. UCLA used 37 new players in the opener. Chesney has won 13 straight regular-season games dating back to Harrisonburg. He is the third UCLA coach in fifty years to start 3-0, after Terry Donahue in 1976 and Jim Mora in 2012.

The results are 45-24 at Cal, 28-10 over San Diego State and 52-38 over Purdue. The comparison everyone is reaching for is Curt Cignetti at Indiana. Purdue’s Barry Odom made it first, saying Chesney’s team has a style and identity that shows up in all three phases.

Two notes keep this in proportion. UCLA needed 21-point fourth quarters to put away both Cal and San Diego State, and it was shut out in the first half against the Aztecs. And Purdue has now lost 19 straight Big Ten games.

These teams met last October. UCLA won 20-17. Maryland pressured Nico Iamaleava throughout. He went 21 of 35 for 221 yards with a touchdown, threw two interceptions including one returned for a score, and fumbled away a sack. Almost everything around Iamaleava is different now.

The Matchup Is The Run Game

UCLA ran for 369 yards against Purdue and finished with 645, its most in a conference game since 2019. Chesney’s summary was that Purdue knew the run was coming and could not stop it. Wayne Knight, the James Madison transfer, ran for 177 yards and two touchdowns. He had 168 yards and six touchdowns through the first two games, which puts him at about 345 and eight. Anthony Woods is the complement. He ran for 118 yards and two scores at Cal.

Maryland’s run defense numbers still look good on paper. Opponents have run 98 times for 208 yards, 2.1 a carry. Virginia Tech ran 36 times for 131, a manageable number. The Hokie damage came on third down, after the catch, and on missed tackles. Against UCLA those problems will look like run defense. Through two games, before Purdue, Knight was averaging 8.0 yards a carry and Woods 9.3. If Knight gets four yards on first down, the Bruins are always in third-and-short, and Maryland could not get off the field on third-and-long against Virginia Tech.

The other side is just as plain. Maryland’s run game went from 9.1 yards a carry against Hampton to 3.5 at UConn to 3.0 against Virginia Tech. DeJuan Williams misses UCLA, Nebraska and Ohio State, likely Rutgers too, with a realistic return against Illinois on Oct. 31st. Iverson Howard and Harry Dalton have to carry it. Howard has 37 carries for 143 yards and Dalton 30 for 113, both under four a carry, and that includes Hampton. If they can’t do more, this becomes Washington throwing 40 times against a team that wants to shorten the game.

UCLA linebacker Sammy Omosigho has forced four fumbles in three games, two against Purdue. Knight turned both into touchdowns. Maryland has not lost a fumble this season.

Where Maryland Can Attack

Through Cal and San Diego State, UCLA’s defense allowed opponents to complete 32 of 65 passes for 336 yards combined, and held them to 3.4 yards a carry. Then Purdue put up 488 yards and 38 points. Ryan Browne threw for 378 yards and three touchdowns. Xavier Townsend had 162 receiving yards, 152 of them after the catch, including a 75-yard touchdown on the first play of the game.

Browne is the best quarterback UCLA has faced, and Washington is at least his equal on paper: 83 of 115 for 892 yards, six touchdowns, no interceptions. Maryland has three receivers who can win. Durr has 28 catches for 256 yards and three scores. Na’eem Abdul-Rahim Gladding has 17 for 239 and two. Webb has 11 for 167. If the run game gives Maryland anything at all, play-action is the most direct path to points.

Iamaleava is worth watching this week. He left the Purdue game twice, once after cutting a finger on his throwing hand and once after a third-quarter hit, and returned both times. He went 19 of 31 for 276 yards and three touchdowns, his first touchdown passes of the season, two of them to Semaj Morgan.

Keys To The Game

• Win first down. UCLA ran for 369 yards against Purdue. Through the first two games, Knight averaged 8.0 yards a carry and Woods 9.3. Maryland allows 2.1 a carry on paper, but missed tackles on third down cost it against Virginia Tech. Wingate, Carlton Smith and the front have to stop Knight and Woods on first down and force third-and-long. If UCLA stays in third-and-short, it controls the clock the way Virginia Tech did.
• Make UCLA tackle in space. Ryan Browne threw for 378 yards against this defense, and Xavier Townsend gained 152 of his 162 receiving yards after the catch. Durr, Gladding and Webb have to do the same. Cal and San Diego State found almost nothing against this secondary, so Maryland’s receivers decide which version shows up. Early points are also the fastest way to pull UCLA off its running script.
• Omosigho against Maryland’s clean record. He has forced four fumbles in three games. Two came against Purdue, and Knight scored after both. Maryland has not lost a fumble this season. A strip that hands Iamaleava a short field swings the game to UCLA.
• The fourth quarter. UCLA put away both Cal and San Diego State with 21-point fourth quarters. Maryland won the fourth 12-0 against Virginia Tech. Whichever team holds its identity over the last 15 minutes wins a game the market sees as close.
• Also watch the tight ends. Fleming caught six passes against Virginia Tech and his first touchdown of the season. The room now has 14 of Maryland’s 90 receptions, about 15.6 percent. Last season the tight ends drew roughly 18 percent of targets.

The Rosters

These teams were built in opposite ways. UCLA rebuilt nearly the whole roster in one winter. Maryland kept its own.

Chesney signed 40 transfers during the January portal window.  On3 ranked the class No. 11 nationally and No. 2 in the Big Ten. ESPN’s Bill Connelly called it the seventh-best portal haul of the offseason. Many of the additions followed Chesney from James Madison, including Wayne Knight and defensive lineman Sahir West. Omosigho arrived as a four-star transfer. UCLA also signed 18 high school freshmen.

The portal class went heaviest at the lines: nine defensive linemen and eight offensive linemen. An offensive line assembled in January just ran for 369 yards against Purdue.

UCLA ranks No. 25 in the 247Sports Team Talent Composite. Maryland ranked 46th when we checked before the Virginia Tech game. That metric counts only how players graded as high school recruits and ignores what they did after, so it undersells rosters built on transfers who outplayed their ratings.

UCLA has more talent across the two-deep. Maryland has more players who have played together. Through three games, UCLA’s roster has looked more comfortable in its own system than Maryland’s has against a real opponent.

What’s At Stake

ESPN’s Match-Up Predictor gives Maryland a 57.4 percent chance against UCLA. DraftKings has UCLA favored by 2.5 on the road, with a total of 56.5. The model and the market disagree on who the favorite is. A 2.5-point spread works out to roughly a 43 percent chance for Maryland. We side with ESPN. UCLA’s 645 yards came against a Purdue team that has lost 19 straight Big Ten games, and the Bruins are crossing the country to play.

The table below uses ESPN’s game-by-game numbers. At the market’s price instead of ESPN’s, Maryland’s bowl odds fall from 60.0 percent to about 55.

Maryland projects to 5.82 wins. The most likely finish is 6-6 at 30.8 percent. Preseason, the projection was 5.30 wins and a 44.0 percent chance at a bowl. Before the Virginia Tech game it was 6.33 wins and 73.5 percent.

ESPN’s Football Power Index, updated today, ranks UCLA 40th nationally, 7.4 points better than an average team on a neutral field. Maryland is 48th at 5.5. That gap is under two points, which is why home field makes Maryland the model’s favorite. FPI’s own season simulations project Maryland at 5.8-6.2 with a 58.1 percent chance of six wins, close to our numbers. They project UCLA at 7.6-4.4 with a 90.5 percent chance.

The index also shows how the rest of the schedule splits. Ohio State is No. 1, Penn State 11th, USC 18th and Nebraska 21st. Illinois (44th), Wisconsin (53rd), Purdue (75th) and Rutgers (90th) all rank below Maryland.

Most of the schedule moved against Maryland after last night’s loss. Rutgers fell from 84.6 to 81.6, Wisconsin from 66.4 to 59.9, and Illinois from 63.9 to 59.6. Purdue rose from 60.9 to 64.1 after its 0-3 start. Maryland is still favored in five of its nine remaining games. The most winnable are Rutgers at home, Purdue on the road, and Wisconsin at home.

A win over UCLA does not change the most likely finish. At 3-1, 6-6 is still the likeliest result, at 33.2 percent. A loss does change it. At 2-2, the most likely finish becomes 5-7, also at 33.2 percent.

The order of the schedule makes this game matter more. After UCLA, Maryland goes to Nebraska (19.2 percent) and Ohio State (4.4 percent). Lose to UCLA and there is a 77 percent chance Maryland is 2-4 when Rutgers comes to College Park on Oct. 17th. From 2-4, the Terps would need four of their last six, and ESPN’s numbers give that about a one-in-three chance.

Beat UCLA and Maryland is 3-1 with a 74 percent bowl probability. Lose and the season becomes about whether the Terps can win nearly every game they are supposed to win.

Prediction

Last night, I found myself wishing Zahir Mathis was healthy, and giving MD another pass rusher.
I also found myself missing Dontay Joyner in the Secondary.
Also lamented not having DeJuan Williams available at RB.

But you play with who you have available. That’s part of the game.

Maryland couldn’t run effectively last night, nor could they make the plays to get off the field defensively.

If that story continues vs. UCLA, Maryland will lose another swing game.

UCLA’s run game against looks like the biggest threat.

I expect UCLA to look like a team crossing the country, and hoping MD will respond to their loss last night.

Washington and his receivers should find some of the same room Purdue did, especially off play-action. Maryland pressured Iamaleava into three turnovers last October, and his health is a question this week. If the Terps win first down on defense and hold onto the ball, they win.

We picked Virginia Tech by a field goal last week and were short by six. The market has UCLA by 2.5.

Last night was a swing game for MD’s season, and they loss.

Saturday vs. UCLA is another opportunity, and we will see if they can take advantage.

Picking MD here feels homer ish, and more hopeful vs. logical.   Admitting that, I’ll go with Washington to find a way.

EDIT: September 24th

Based on the released injury list, I can’t take MD here.

My pick flips back to UCLA. The report hits Maryland exactly where this game is decided.

Maryland’s running back room is depleted. Dalton, Samuels, Worthy, Boley and Foye are all out, on top of DeJuan Williams. Iverson Howard is the only back on the two-deep not on that list. Howard is at 37 carries for 143 yards. Against a team that wants to shorten the game, it looks like Maryland could be one-dimensional. .

Iamaleava is not on the report. That closes the biggest open question in the preview, and it closes it in UCLA’s favor.

The one break Maryland gets is real. UCLA is missing three defensive backs in Tao Johnson, Dixon and Jamier Johnson, plus two receivers. That is the secondary that gave up 378 yards to Purdue. Washington, Durr, Gladding and Webb should move the ball. Maryland’s problem is that scoring quickly against a team built to run the clock is not the same as controlling a game.

Also Preston Howard is out at tight end, which is another loss.

The pick: UCLA 34, Maryland 27. Maryland’s passing game keeps it close into the fourth quarter, and UCLA’s run game closes it.

The post Maryland Loses To Virginia Tech; Hosts UCLA Next appeared first on Baltimore Sports and Life.

The public version of the dispute is simple: owners want a salary cap to fix competitive balance, players refuse to have their earnings artificially limited. That version is true as far as it goes, and it is not what either side is actually fighting about.

The tell

Two facts reveal the real shape of the negotiation.

The first is that MLB has conditioned essentially every concession it has made on the union accepting a cap. The June 25 package was substantial by any measure: a minimum salary increase to $1 million, free agency after five years for players 30 and older, elimination of the qualifying offer, elimination of deferred compensation, and a “Cornerstone Player” provision modeled on the NBA’s Bird Rights. The August 27 roster proposals added more. Every item was contingent on a payroll cap and floor.

That is not how a side negotiates over money. It is how a side negotiates for a structural change. A league trying to buy competitive balance trades pieces. A league trying to install a new economic system bundles everything behind one gate and waits.

The second fact comes from ESPN’s reporting that stagnating franchise values motivate a meaningful bloc of owners as much as competitive balance does. Fixed labor costs make a business easier to sell and raise the multiple it sells at. The Padres recently fetched $3.9 billion, a record for a baseball franchise, which complicates the narrative but has not changed the calculation. This is, in substantial part, a valuation play wearing a parity jersey.

The union’s position has a symmetrical hidden core. Interim executive director Bruce Meyer has argued that player share in 2026 is already well above 50 percent using MLB’s own definitions of revenue, and that had the league’s proposal been in force this season, players would have lost more than half a billion dollars. Meyer has called a cap “a form of institutionalized collusion.”

But the sharpest objection is to the escrow mechanism buried in MLB’s proposal. Escrow, used in the NBA and NHL, withholds a percentage of salaries and returns it to the league if revenues fall short. NBA players forfeited close to $500 million that way last year. Escrow converts guaranteed contracts into conditional ones, and guaranteed money is the one structural advantage MLB players hold over every other unionized athlete in North America. When a player says “we’re not playing if there’s a cap,” that is what the sentence is protecting.

Where the two sides actually are

The gap is enormous. It is also narrower in places than the rhetoric suggests.

Both sides have proposed centralizing and sharing more local television revenue. MLB wants full centralization with equal distribution among all 30 clubs. The union proposed a $50 million per-team contribution with two-thirds of the remainder pooled and split. This is the single largest structural fix available to the sport, and it is already common ground in principle.

Both sides have proposed forcing low-revenue teams to spend. MLB’s floor is $171.2 million. The union’s “competitive integrity tax” would penalize teams spending less than half the base luxury-tax threshold, which at their proposed $300 million base implies roughly $150 million. That is a $20 million gap on a concept neither side disputes.

Both sides agree young players are underpaid. MLB offered a $1 million minimum; the union asked for $1.5 million. MLB has already accepted the union’s proposals on earlier free agency for players 30 and older and on eliminating the qualifying offer.

What remains irreconcilable: the hard ceiling, the escrow system, the definition of “baseball revenue,” maximum contract lengths, and the amateur entry overhaul. On that last item, MLB has proposed barring anyone under 20 from the domestic draft, cutting it from 20 rounds to 12 with a hard-slotted $200 million bonus pool, and instituting an international draft on the same terms. The union countered in July with the mirror image: preserve high school and junior college eligibility, keep 20 rounds, raise the pools, keep bonuses negotiable.

The arguments in circulation

A handful of fan arguments have hardened into conventional wisdom. They deserve to be taken seriously, and most of them are half right.

Some would suggest the cap threat is a bluff, because owners of low-revenue clubs will never actually accept a floor that eats their profit margins. This is the most interesting argument in circulation, and it underrates how the package is constructed. The floor is funded by the local-TV centralization. If Miami’s and Pittsburgh’s revenue base rises because local media money is pooled and split equally, a $171 million floor becomes affordable rather than ruinous. MLB paired the two proposals for exactly that reason.

The genuine internal ownership tension runs the other direction. The large markets are the ones surrendering something real by centralizing local TV, and reporting suggests Manfred secured their agreement contingent on getting a cap. Which produces an uncomfortable implication for the union: if the cap dies, the centralization offer probably dies with it, and the sport loses its best available parity fix as collateral damage.

Some would suggest a cap only helps the handful of wealthy teams that aren’t the Dodgers, and won’t put stars in Milwaukee or Kansas City. True of a bare cap. Less true of this package. A ceiling combined with a floor and equalized local media does move money downward in a way a ceiling alone would not. The more durable version of the objection is that it changes talent distribution less than advertised, because the relationship between payroll and regular-season winning is weak, and the Rays, Brewers and Guardians keep demonstrating that the binding constraint is competence rather than cash.

Some would suggest a cap is fundamentally un-American, an artificial limit on what a person can earn. The counterpoint writes itself: the draft, hard bonus slotting, six years of team control, the reserve system’s residue, and baseball’s antitrust exemption are all restraints that already exist and that fans largely enjoy. The question was never restraint versus freedom. It is which restraints, and who captures the surplus they create. Fans who admit they prefer a more constrained sport while acknowledging the hypocrisy are being more honest than either negotiating party.

Some would suggest agents, particularly Scott Boras, are the real obstacle to labor peace. Plausible in prior cycles, overstated in this one. Boras’s influence has visibly receded since the sluggish 2023-24 free agent market, and the union’s posture is being set by Meyer and general-counsel-turned-deputy Matt Nussbaum, not by any agency. The obstacle here is structural.

Some would suggest the wave of new television partnerships gives owners too much to lose, and they will therefore concede. This may be exactly backward. The media rights reset after the 2028 season cuts toward owner patience rather than urgency. A cost-certain, capped league is an easier product to sell to rights buyers. An owner can construct a defensible argument that absorbing damage in 2027 to enter the 2028 negotiations with a cap already in hand is a positive trade. That arithmetic is the most alarming thing about this dispute.

Some would suggest fans should refuse to take sides, since this is billionaires arguing with millionaires. Understandable, and it obscures a useful distinction. Neither proposal lowers a ticket price, a parking fee, or a streaming subscription. On the consumer side, fans lose regardless. The only way fans gain anything is through structural changes that make following the sport better, and those changes are available in this negotiation.

Leverage, and the calendar that actually matters

The time asymmetry matters more than the war chests. A December 1 lockout costs owners almost nothing, because no games are scheduled, and costs players nothing directly, because no paychecks are due. December through February is theater. The first real financial pressure arrives when spring training reporting dates pass in mid-February. The operative deadline is mid-to-late March. In 2022, the sides settled on March 10 after a 99-day lockout and played a full 162 with doubleheaders.

Owners hold: fan polling that favors a cap, a reported $2 billion fund to absorb a stoppage, the 2028 media reset and potential expansion fees as future sweeteners, and an ownership group Manfred has publicly described as the most unified he has seen.

Players hold: a licensing-funded lockout fund, an institutional memory of winning in 1995, and an executive board that has closed ranks behind Meyer despite his interim title.

The union’s vulnerability is not leadership. Meyer led the 2020 agreement, the 2022 agreement, and the 2023 minor league deal, and players surveyed anonymously by ESPN described the new leadership group in consistently positive terms. The vulnerability is arithmetic. That same survey broke roughly 16 players in firm opposition to a cap against five who were open to further discussion. Solid, not unanimous. MLB’s June 25 package was built precisely for that seam: real gains for young players and for 30-year-old free agents, with the cost falling on the top of the market. If unity fractures, it fractures in March, and it fractures among pre-arbitration players who have never missed a paycheck.

The owners’ vulnerability is the nuclear option. Declaring impasse and unilaterally implementing new terms is what converted 1994 into a canceled World Series and an NLRB injunction. The 1998 Curt Flood Act preserved player antitrust claims against MLB on labor matters, meaning a decertification threat carries weight it did not carry three decades ago. Any move toward implementation turns a lockout into a two-year war.

What a sensible deal looks like

There is an agreement available that delivers most of what fans say they want without a hard cap.

Centralize and equally share local media revenue, decoupled from the cap fight. Both sides have already proposed versions of it. It is the real parity fix and it should not be held hostage.

Install a hard, enforceable floor in the $165 to $175 million range, funded by the above, with penalties that actually bite: forfeited revenue-sharing receipts, lost draft picks, lost international bonus pool money. The union’s competitive integrity tax is directionally correct and far too weak.

Replace the ceiling with a punitive top tax tier. A base near $290 to $300 million with escalating rates that become close to confiscatory above roughly $350 million functions as a soft cap without touching guaranteed contracts. This is the only face-saving landing zone visible from here.

Leave guarantees alone. No escrow, no maximum contract lengths. These are where the union will genuinely choose a lost season over a concession.

Front-load gains where most players live. A minimum above $1.2 million, arbitration eligibility at two years, a pre-arbitration bonus pool well north of $100 million, plus the free agency and qualifying offer changes already agreed. Roughly seventy percent of major leaguers never sign a nine-figure contract. This is where solidarity is purchased.

Take the international draft, drop the high school ban. The international signing system has real and long-documented corruption problems, and a draft is overdue. Barring domestic players under 20 is a transparent mechanism for delaying debuts, suppressing the age at which stars reach free agency, and shifting development costs onto college programs. The union will read it that way because that is what it is.

Put expansion on the table. Two franchises at $2 billion or more apiece, two additional floor-level payrolls, and the realignment fans have wanted for years. Nobody has formally raised it. Whoever does is signaling they want to close.

Expected outcomes

Reasonable probabilities as of mid-September 2026:

The single most likely path: a lockout running from December through somewhere between mid-March and mid-April 2027, resolved without a hard cap but with centralized local television, a genuine spending floor, a steeper top tax tier, and meaningful gains for young players. A compressed spring training, a delayed opener, a schedule of 150 to 158 games padded with doubleheaders. Something close to 2022 with more scar tissue and a worse aftertaste.

Losing the whole season remains unlikely but is no longer unthinkable. The 2004-05 NHL precedent exists, the owners have the fund to sustain it, and the 2028 media reset gives them a reason to be patient that the players do not have.

Seven things to watch

1. Does MLB ever de-link a concession from the cap? One unconditional offer means the cap is a bargaining chip. Zero by February means it is not.
2. Does the local-TV centralization offer survive if the cap falls away? This reveals whether large-market owners were ever genuinely bought in.
3. Does the union counter with any ceiling mechanism at all? Even a punitive super-tax tier would mark the landing zone.
4. Player unity in late February, when checks stop. Watch for a public break from a mid-tier veteran rather than a star.
5. Any movement toward declaring impasse and implementing terms. That is the 1994 trigger, and it invalidates every projection above.
6. Decertification talk from the union. Post-Flood Act it is a live weapon, and the threat alone moves owners.
7. Expansion entering the conversation. That is what the endgame looks like.

The honest summary for anyone who simply wants baseball in April: neither proposal lowers what you pay. Neither side is negotiating on your behalf. The version of this fight where you get more competitive balance without losing a season runs through centralized local television and a hard spending floor, and both sides have already endorsed both ideas.

Whether they are willing to detach those from the thing they cannot agree on is the entire ballgame.

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