This was a tough article to write…
There was not very much that went right for the Ravens, so much so that it was hard to focus on what went wrong in particular.
The inability to get off the field and seem to use situation awareness and down and distance to their advantage was the issue. At first glance, numbers on 3rd down were just not very good. And against Mahomes you have to get off the field. But the Chiefs were converting everything and seemed to have an answer for the Ravens at every step. I could break down some of the individual plays, but honestly, it doesn’t strike me as that useful. Instead I’m going to focus on what takeaways the Ravens have for building blocks for what to build on the next few weeks.
(You can discuss this on the BSL Board here.)
First, I think the Ravens need to simplify the reads for Patrick Queen or he needs to be a substitution player. He is getting lost often and is taking away his core strength which is his speed. It’s an interesting conundrum for Martindale because he likes to do so much. But build the defense around your weakest player and don’t ask him to do 100 things. Queen was easily fooled by misdirection or just flat out targeted in this game. In the first play of the second half, the Chiefs go right at Queen after attacking him the whole game, he whiffs on a jam to CEH. He over pursued running lanes, he constantly left his assignments, it was not a great game for Queen. I think he can bounce back, but I think the Ravens need to find a way to let him succeed before putting quite so much responsibility on him.
In the same sense, I think the Ravens need to let their best guys be there best guys at their best positions. Marcus Peters did not look good in the Cover-3 and we heard reports he wanted to leave the Rams because they were asking to play Cover-3. On a few big plays, Clark and Humphrey were rushing the passer while Judon, McPhee, and Bowser were asked to play coverage. That might work against Dwayne Haskins this upcoming week, but sometimes you’re going to face really smart QBs. You can use some deception, but your best guys are going to have to do their best things and you have to win and lose by those decision.
Finally, I thought the run defense was quite good and the boxscore bears that out. Edwards-Helaire had just 3.2 YPC and the other backs had 5 carries for 7 yards. The Ravens did this without having Madubuike and Washington active. This tells me the Ravens have a baseline run defense that is a bit more like what we’ve historically scene from this team. I thought Brandon Williams and Calais Campbell played tremendously well, if we continue to see this level of play from those two next to each other, I think that’s another building block for Wink to build on.
And as an added offensive bonus, the Ravens just need to run the ball. After the Duvernay TD, the defense got a 3 and out, and the Ravens passed it 3 consecutive plays. In just one minute of game play, the Chiefs were right back out on the field. Do what you do best, you had two ball carriers that had over 9 YPC in the game, they only had 13 carries.
Ravens Analyst
Jordan Kough is a graduate of University of Maryland, Baltimore County. He’s a long standing Ravens and Orioles fan of many years. He grew up just north of Baltimore and likes the statistical analysis of games as much as watching games themselves.