September 9, 2025 • 43 mins
Team insiders Ryan Mink and Garrett Downing share their takeaways from the film of the Ravens' 41-40 loss to the Bills, including what went wrong in the fourth quarter defensively, situational errors, standout games from the team's offensive stars, and much more.
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Speaker 1 (00:04):
Welcome into the Lounge presented by DraftKings.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
I'm Ryan Mink here with Garrett Downing, and we've taken
a look at the film from the Ravens opening loss
to Buffalo Bills forty one to forty still stinks. You know,
you watch this, but you see a lot that obviously
went wrong down the stretch in the Bills historic comeback,
but you also see a lot of things that the
(00:26):
Ravens did right, which we knew coming out of that game,
but the film kind of backs set up also.
Speaker 3 (00:31):
Garrett, Yeah, I mean I think that, like, as we
jump into the film, it really underscored a point that
I kind of articulated in our reaction podcast right after
the game, And I feel even stronger about this as
the dust is settled, Like it was a game where
there were so many kind of iconic, memorable things that
went right, Like this had all the makings of a
(00:53):
game that, like ten years down the road, you were
going to be talking about it from just how awesome
it was. Remember the Hopkins first touchdown, Cash Henry went
off that game. Save Flowers was awesome, Lamar was awesome,
like Tyler Loops hitting long field goals.
Speaker 1 (01:05):
Like all these things, a lot of things.
Speaker 3 (01:07):
You're just like, man, that was an awesome night, that
was an awesome game, and now obviously the whole thing
is tainted because of the final result. And when you
look at the film, it's it's kind of similar, like
there's a lot of things to like, particularly on offense,
they feel good about. But then you also it almost
in some ways makes the final It makes it more
painful because you're like, man, you did all of these
(01:29):
things right, and yet you still didn't come away with
the win, and so grappling with that is kind of difficult.
The Ravens are going through that right now, and we'll
dive into some of the specifics of how this team
got to this point and where they go from here.
Speaker 2 (01:43):
Well, just a big picture before you do that. I
also want to say that, you know, overreaction Monday, especially
in Week one of the NFL season, that's that's the
prime overreaction Monday, and you know, I think some of
it is certainly legit. The Ravens had a lot of
problems down the stretch that game, and there's defensive things
especially that they need to clean up. And it wasn't
(02:04):
perfect on offense either, despite scoring forty points, right, and
so like some of that stuff is fair and it's
fair to question things, and coaches do that and players
do that. Certainly, when I watched the film and I
stepped back after this game with a couple of days
removed from it, this is still a really good team
that's gonna win a lot of games this year. And
(02:27):
what they need to do is beat the Buffalo Bills
in the Kansas City Chiefs if they're ultimately going to
get to where they want to get to, and those
two that's been a problem.
Speaker 1 (02:36):
So they got to figure that out.
Speaker 2 (02:38):
But like, coming away from that game, certainly for the
vast majority of that game, you're like, man, you just
went into Buffalo, a place where they haven't lost in
they had eleven straight regular season wins.
Speaker 3 (02:50):
Hey, you gotta go back a couple of years for
the last loss at home.
Speaker 2 (02:53):
Exactly, Like they hadn't lost at home in a long time.
Week one, that place was pop and against a really
just good team, right, another Super Bowl contender, and like
you had him on the ropes and it wasn't even
really close, like they were just you know. And then
also on top of that, in order for the Bills
(03:16):
to win, Like they needed some they needed some things
to happen that, by the law of averages, shouldn't usually happen.
Usually you're not going to get a tipped pass in
the front of the end zone that's caught by your
same player in the back of the end zone on
fourth down like that. That's kind of a flukeish play, right.
If that doesn't happen, the Ravens win the game.
Speaker 1 (03:37):
Yep.
Speaker 2 (03:38):
Derek Henry usually doesn't fumble the ball. He had three
fumbles last year in like three hundred and twenty five carries.
Speaker 3 (03:43):
Yeah, especially late in that situation.
Speaker 2 (03:46):
Yeah, I mean he's not a fumbler. So, like that's
another kind of outlier, right, And you're never gonna play
the perfect games, certainly, But like there were a number
of things in that game. I Oh, Hamilton at the
end of the game came up a finger away from
blocking that field goal.
Speaker 3 (04:04):
I think just kind of I think he grazed it
a little bit. I think he got maybe a fingernail
on that thing we talked about game of inches. I mean,
I think he grazed that football. When you look at
the film, you're like, it looks like he may have
altered that trajectory just the tiniest, tiny bit crazy.
Speaker 2 (04:19):
Can you imagine that ending that would if he had
come through and blocked that field goal, that would have
been in sick.
Speaker 3 (04:24):
I kind of felt sick to my stomach looking at
that in really slow mode detail, just being like how
close he was to blocking that and how epic that
moment would have been.
Speaker 1 (04:34):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (04:34):
So, so I look at all those kind of collection
of things that went against the Ravens that ended up
in them losing a game that you know, they had
a nine to nine point whatever chance of winning.
Speaker 4 (04:47):
Uh.
Speaker 2 (04:48):
And so as much as that game stung, like there's
there's one of two ways the Ravens are going to
go from here. Either that game is a early season
bucket of cold what they got thrown your face that says, WHOA, Okay,
you know, we know we are really good coming this year,
and everybody's picking us to win the Super Bowl. Fifty
(05:08):
seven percent of people are picking the Ravens to win
before that game, Like, but hey, if we're if we don't,
if we're not about our business and we're not on
our p's and q's up until triple zeros on the clock,
we're gonna lose like it's either a wake up call
for them, or this is like a harbinger of some
(05:28):
underlying problems that we didn't see, and it's a self
fulfilling prophecy, and you say, oh, man, next time we're
in that scenario, we got a lead in the fourth quarter,
we can't blow it, we can't you know whatever, and
you start to think too much and you're not playing
the game. I like to think that you know, the
Ravens are gonna this is gonna kind of be a
you know, an air quotess, a wake up call, and say, hey,
(05:50):
we're we know we're good, but like we can be beaten.
And thus, from this point out win a lot of games,
including one like that where you're up big late.
Speaker 3 (06:01):
Yeah. I think that that's probably a good way to
look at it. And I also I think the reality
of it is that the teams who have been who
have beaten the Ravens in the playoffs the past few
years is the Chiefs and the Bills, as you mentioned. Yeah,
and so a lot of it truthfully comes down to
feeling like everything is building to those types of games
in the postseason, and so you've got to get good enough.
(06:22):
You're not playing the playoffs right now, You've got to
get to the playoffs first, and you got to put
your team in positions so that you're prepared all the
way across the board. And so I think that, like mean,
I'm not going to sit here and try to spin
it is like, hey, look it's actually good they lost
that game, because it's a wake up call. Like I'm
not going that direction. I know you're not either, yeah,
but like I do think that all of these things
(06:43):
are part of building the team and how you respond
to them and is critical and that will ultimately determine
how far the team ends up going. And so the
other thing too, I would say, just like had a
big picture and looking at these teams like these are
two of the best teams in the league with maybe
the two best players in the league, and the game
just if you like remove the emotional connection to it,
(07:05):
the game lived up to it. It was like in
my best game in the NFL.
Speaker 2 (07:08):
Actually, all my neighbors and stuff, everybody who have bumped
into who you know, they're kind of like tough one,
but man, that was a heck of a game, right
And I'm like, you know, I'm just not ready to
go there right now, right, how awesome.
Speaker 1 (07:20):
They're like that was amazing. Wow, what a game.
Speaker 3 (07:23):
But like, yeah, I like if you're a Cowboys fan
living in Dallas and you're just like I'm gonna watch
Lamar and Josh Allenson.
Speaker 1 (07:28):
Oh, you're like you got, you got, you got your
money's right exactly.
Speaker 3 (07:31):
And so I think that, like these are two teams
that are that are neck and neck, and like every
time they play, it's it's likely going to be a
close game. And that's that's my expectation. Like most of
the time these teams play one hundred times, it might
be fifty to fifty split. Like they're they're right there,
and so the Ravens need to do the things that
they that they know that they are capable of and
(07:53):
they can get the win.
Speaker 2 (07:54):
That think it's kind of winning the fringes and we
can we're gonna talk more about these things, but it's
you know, it's almost like between the hash marks. The
Ravens won, right, but it's like those fringe things. It's
the end of the first half scenario.
Speaker 3 (08:07):
I mean, you could tell us you want to start.
I mean, you talk about the fringes in some ways,
literally it's the fringe of the field, keeping them in
bounds and running a situation at the end of.
Speaker 1 (08:15):
The half exactly get a kind of.
Speaker 3 (08:17):
A cheap field goal in that situation.
Speaker 2 (08:19):
Yeah yeah, I mean literally and kind of metaphorically, it's
like winning that stuff on the edges, Like the Ravens
need to do a better job of that, and that's
really where they struggled.
Speaker 1 (08:28):
So yeah, let's dive into this.
Speaker 2 (08:29):
And obviously the biggest question coming out of this game
is like what happened to the defense?
Speaker 1 (08:35):
I mean, you know, I'm.
Speaker 2 (08:38):
On the record in my season predictions as saying I
think this is going to be the number one defense
in the league. But that was not going to do it.
That game isn't helping finish number one. And so, Garrett,
when you looked at the film and heard from players
and coach Harball, you know Harball on Monday, what did
you take away from why they had such a tough night?
Speaker 3 (09:01):
Well, really in that and that fourth quarter is obviously
when it all turned. And I think that a couple
of things stand out to me. One is pass rush
and secondary play are married. They're always connected. And something
that that Harbaugh did mention in his Monday press conference
is pass rush lanes, and so what does that mean?
What are pass rush lanes? Basically, Like, it's not just
(09:22):
a matter of do whatever you can to get to
the quarterback you need to, there's a there's a path
for you to get to the quarterback. And if everyone
just runs to the outside, for example, then that leads
the middle of the field wide open and vice versa.
And so you would see in some of these situations
where an outside linebacker would potentially get too deep or
crash inside and then that would lose containing and Josh
Allen was able to get outside the pocket and look
(09:42):
for plays down the field.
Speaker 1 (09:43):
And that's that's really where he excels.
Speaker 3 (09:45):
That's that's where his now he's like the best. Him
and Lamar are really like the best in the business
at that. So it's like you have a tough assignment
in general, Like he can get out of the pocket
and he can look downfield and make plays. I'm not
going to act like that's an easy assignment, but in
too many situations, the Ravens right outside linebacker oftentimes would
just lose that pass rush lane and then he would
get outside the pocket to extend the play, look downfield
(10:06):
and more often than not, he came up with a
big play.
Speaker 1 (10:08):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (10:09):
I mean, I think the Bills actually did a pretty
darn good job of that with Lamar. Like, Lamar had
some design runs that he hit, and he had that
crazy one where he ran like twenty yards backwards and
then ended up getting a twenty yard game, which I
certainly was not.
Speaker 3 (10:21):
A design for the raven That was just a blown.
Speaker 2 (10:24):
Up play with Yeah, but like to the Bills credit
even on that play, like they just kept pushing him back.
Speaker 3 (10:30):
Yeah, yeah, right.
Speaker 2 (10:31):
It was like either Lamar had to get rid of
the ball or he just had to fade, like he
did not have a path in which to step up
and through, and the Ravens gave Josh Allen too many
of those opportunities. The one that really stood out was
at the end of the first half and and you know,
you're just you can't let him do that. You can't
let him step up and then rip a shot down
(10:51):
the field even late in the game, you know, the
fourth quarter, you saw too much of that, and so
you have to keep Josh Allen in the pocket. And
like the Ravens u sometimes when you try to evaluate,
oh they're not getting enough pressure on him, they're not
getting enough pressure. Sometimes that's okay, right, Like sometimes a
sack is not necessarily the ultimate goal. It's keep Josh
(11:14):
Allen in the pocket.
Speaker 3 (11:16):
And hurry the process of getting rid of the foot.
Speaker 2 (11:18):
Of course you can't just give them all day back there,
but like your interior rush matters a lot, and I thought,
I thought Namdi had a strong game.
Speaker 1 (11:25):
Five pressures.
Speaker 2 (11:26):
He had the team's loan sack, but like I'm not
necessarily looking for I take it, but like five sacks
on the game, like you know, keep them in the pocket.
That's that's kind of the outside linebacker's job. And too
often they were breakdowns in that regard.
Speaker 3 (11:42):
Yeah, and then you look at the back end of
the defense and you know, jay Or Alexander had a
tough night and his first game as a Raven tough assignment.
And mean you consider the fact that obviously it's a
new team. He missed a good portion of training camp
deal with Lundre, so he was stylined for the majority
of training camp. After signing. He did come back and
practice throughout the week, but like so he kind of
(12:04):
had a week to get ready and get back out
there on the field. It seemed to me like he
was often trying to just catch up, like he was
running behind. Guys were getting a step on him and
he was trying to catch up. And then late in
the game, I think that probably contributed to providing too
much cushion. Like on that last catch to Keyon Coleman
that set up the game winning field goal, had a
big cushion on that play. Coleman just ran an inside.
Speaker 1 (12:25):
Route and leverage.
Speaker 2 (12:26):
Yeah, when he's playing outside leverage and he just had
in the middle of the field is wide open, right,
and you're playing outside leverage, right, it's too easy.
Speaker 3 (12:34):
And that was kind of pitch and catch for those
two guys. And so I do think JayR will improve
from this. And he's a guy that, like I still
think has definitely good football in him, but tough assignment
and did not have his best game.
Speaker 2 (12:48):
I think also a factor to considering all that is now,
Ji Year did not play. You know, he played thirty
nine percent of the snaps, but overall, the Ravens defense
played eight five snatch I know I had that That
is an crazy that's a crazy high number. By comparison,
the Ravens offense had fifty one yep, fifty one to
(13:09):
eighty five, and so like, I think there could have
been an element late in that game, especially week one,
when kind of your conditioning endurance is put to the test.
Is the first time for really almost all the starters
playing a game all season long, Like and now, the
(13:30):
Ravens work hard in training camp. When you talk about
teams that come into the season in shape, like I'm
going to put the Ravens at the top of that
list or near it at least, but still eighty five
for your defense, it's just a physical challenge.
Speaker 3 (13:44):
And they were basically on the field, like the entire
fourth quarter the Ravens last few drives, it was three
and out. Then it was then it was the fumbable,
so even shorter than that. Then it was three and out.
So it was like three and out. Between that, you
get eight plays.
Speaker 1 (13:58):
And they're and then they're chucking and they're.
Speaker 3 (14:01):
They're going forward and fourth down they're in they're in
basically all out mode. And that's a tough assignment. Now
you know there's things within that that you want to
see improved, like like there's got to be get late
game situations where you need to get a stop. You
want to see the defense get a stop in those situations.
But I do think that that there's probably an element
of just the the game wearing it down a little
(14:24):
bit when you play that many snaps.
Speaker 1 (14:26):
Yeah, yeah, I certainly agree.
Speaker 2 (14:27):
And and like you said, jay Or missed a month,
what kind of physical shape was he in. I think that,
you know, coming back, what's his what's his kind of
confidence level, like that he can get up in those
corners faces and press and and play a little bit,
you know, more physical with them. I think all those
things are factors generally speaking.
Speaker 1 (14:45):
You know, there's just.
Speaker 2 (14:48):
I think the defense got some of the corners played
things a little bit too passively, you know, given too
much cushion there at the end of the game. You'd
like to see them be a little bit more aggressive
and physical outside.
Speaker 3 (14:59):
Yeah. And and when you talk about giving too much
cushion and allowing guys to get outside the end of
half situation that we reference, I mean, to me, that
was just a really bad one.
Speaker 1 (15:09):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (15:10):
Like the Ravens. The Ravens get a field goal, Buffalo
gets the ball back, no timeouts, and they're able to
put themselves in field goal range. And and I know
they add a second back on the clock. When you
look at the broadcast footage of that, he goes down
with time left on the clock, it.
Speaker 2 (15:24):
Still says, Yeah, I don't think it was the wrong call. Yeah,
Like it's an unfortunate break for the Ravens, Like it
was extremely close. I don't think that they made the
wrong call. I don't think the Ravens were wrong.
Speaker 3 (15:33):
Done that right, and so but on that play, if
you go back and look at that play on film,
the Ravens rushed nobody, not a single guy. They didn't
have anybody.
Speaker 2 (15:42):
So they had they took like linebackers and put them
like fifteen twenty yards off the ball on the sideline, right,
So they had an alignment of formation that because obviously
the one thing you cannot allow is to catch and
get out of bounce. If they catch it inbounds and
it's not in the end zone and they don't get
(16:02):
the hands, it's done.
Speaker 1 (16:04):
And so like they were playing that.
Speaker 2 (16:06):
But you know, and you obviously went your defensive backs
back there because you also.
Speaker 1 (16:11):
Had to beware of a hail Mary.
Speaker 2 (16:13):
You know, they have Kean Coleman who can go up
and get the ball, and you got Josh Allen, who
can certainly throw the ball there, get the ball there.
You know, so I understand you need some dbs in
the back. But also like the linebackers there in that situation,
like just they don't have the feel, they didn't have
the eyes. They they ended up not being a factory.
Like they were kind of the guard the guard keeper,
(16:35):
you know, the gatekeeper of the sideline, and they did
not they stormed the gates and so it just.
Speaker 1 (16:44):
It was not executed well at all.
Speaker 2 (16:46):
And then too like a bad leverage got Coleman got
underneath the leverage and it wasn't Josh Allen made a
good throw, but yeah, it's too easy.
Speaker 3 (16:57):
It was too easy. Yeah, it was just too easy,
and he was able to get out of back. And
you know, those are the types of plays.
Speaker 2 (17:03):
And the one before that that set up that, that throw,
the first throw over the middle was another as our
first point, rush lane integrity. Josh Allen steps up through
lane and now he's moving towards the light of scrimmage
and finds this guy right you know, combo of the
problems right.
Speaker 3 (17:19):
There, right right now.
Speaker 1 (17:20):
That was a big That was a big three points.
Speaker 3 (17:22):
That was really especially when you lose by one. Well, yeah,
certainly like that was And it's just kind of like,
I don't think that the momentum carried into the second half,
because the Ravens dominated the third quarter and into the
fourth quarter. So I don't think that it's like, man,
that that changed the momentum of a game, but the
points mattered, and I do think that like it just
(17:43):
I think it speaks to this.
Speaker 2 (17:44):
I think he could have sparked Josh Allen a little bit,
like I think for the first for the majority of
the first half, they did a pretty good job of
like containing him, making him get the ball out of
his hands quickly, check down throws, like Josh Allen was
not wheeling and dealing at that point. And I I
don't know, but I think that the end of that
(18:05):
first half could have gotten him a little bit more
into all right, into MVP mode, right.
Speaker 3 (18:11):
And it also just speaks to like the situations then,
and that is still something that I feel like, just
at a big picture level, the Ravens have to be
they have to do better in critical situations, end of half,
end of game, and that's something that has plagued this team.
And in John Harbaugh did say, during the press conmas
on Monday, the Ravens are taking a hard look at
(18:31):
just kind of their approach or philosophy when it comes
to like managing leads. And the Ravens have been a
team that has a lot of leads. They've had a
lot of two score leads, They've had a lot of
one score leads, they won a lot of games and so.
Speaker 2 (18:41):
And just to pause, yeah, just to cut in for
a second, that is part of the Ravens have had
too many fourth quarter blown leads end of sense, period, Right,
But when you're looking at just the sheer number that
they've had over recent years, you do also need to
consider that the Ravens have had a lot of second
(19:02):
of you know, double digit late game leads and so like,
when you have a lot of opportunities. Like when you
look at the percentages of leads that the Ravens are blowing,
it's still too high, but there's other teams that have
are higher. Right, It's not like, yeah, the number that
they've blown is kind of far away, far and away
(19:23):
the most in the league, but they've also far and
away been in the most situations. It speaks to how
good they are generally speaking.
Speaker 3 (19:30):
Yeah, yeah, I think that that is definitely the base
of it. But the Ravens also feel like they just
need to get a grip on the two score leads
and hold on to them.
Speaker 4 (19:39):
All that doesn't help, yeah, exactly, Like it's perspective, but
like this was a game the Ravens certainly feel like
they should have won, and so they're taking a look
at this, like how they approach things game management wise,
calls offensively and defensively, how you can what you can
do differently to manage a.
Speaker 3 (19:57):
Lead clock, all that stuff, all the stuff that we're
going to talk doing a little bit here, Like that's
something that they are taking a hard look at right now.
Speaker 2 (20:03):
Yeah, before we move to the offensive side the ball,
I do want to shout out Kyle Homiltson's awesome game.
Speaker 1 (20:09):
He was great, great, great.
Speaker 2 (20:10):
I mean, guy gets the massive extension. Look the best
player on the field defensively, certainly for the Ravens at
Oliver had a pretty darn good game for the Bills,
but I mean the best player under the Ravens defense
in terms of sniffing out plays like the diagnosing just
very quickly to blow up the play where he forced
(20:32):
the fumble really impressive diagnosis and just keying in on that.
I mean, got the interception on the two point conversion.
Try shutting of later on the ball, but got the interception. Yeah,
I mean he was just everywhere making tackles.
Speaker 1 (20:45):
PBUs.
Speaker 2 (20:46):
I thought Kyle Homiltson goodness gracious, that was the kind
of game where, especially in front of the nation, starts
the defensive MVP chatter. If he had blocked that field
goal to end the game, He's at the top of
the talk, the early talk.
Speaker 3 (21:01):
Yeah, he might be, honestly, if if he's going to
be in that conversation, not that like this is his
main priority defensives two hundred passing yards in the fourth quarter,
and that is correct. Yeah, So like if anybody's going
to get into that conversation on this team, I think
that the Ravens obviously just had to play better defensively
as a whole.
Speaker 1 (21:18):
Correct.
Speaker 3 (21:19):
But he was great. He was the highest great player
on Pro Football Focus. Also with him, not that this
is a surprise, Ravens continue to move him around. About
seventy five percent of the time was at safety that's
your traditional safety role, and then about twenty percent he's
kind of in the box. Up there at closer to
the line of scrimmage, so I would expect that that,
and then the other five was really as a slot corner.
Speaker 2 (21:39):
Yeah, I mean he's playing less slot corner. I mean
that's the biggest that's the change. Marlon Humphrey is playing
there an extensive amount, as we expected and talked about previously.
Speaker 1 (21:49):
And I like that lineup for the Ravens generally speaking.
Speaker 3 (21:52):
Two other notes that I have defensively, Teddy Buchanan, the
rookie fourth round pick, ends up really splitting the snaps
next to Roquan Smith along with Trends Simpsons.
Speaker 1 (22:00):
No, it's got slightly a few more.
Speaker 3 (22:03):
Basically, those guys kind of split that role. And you know,
I thought both of them neither of them jumped out
as like great or horrible. You know, they were kind
of in the middle.
Speaker 1 (22:13):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (22:13):
I thought Trenton had a tackle for loss and I
thought Teddy made some plays.
Speaker 1 (22:16):
He flashed for me a few times.
Speaker 3 (22:18):
Yeah, so that will be something to monitor. They just Teddy,
I mean, this is his first game.
Speaker 2 (22:22):
John Harball said that he expects that to continue. For
right now is kind of a fairly even split. One
guy could get a few more than the other just
depending on game situation.
Speaker 3 (22:31):
Yep. And then I do think that like we'll we'll
see just on defense on Green he had twenty six snaps,
So does that increase you know, he's playing about a
quarter of the snaps or a little bit more than that.
But like, he's a guy that we all have been
excited about. On one play in particularly, put Dion Dawkins
on his back, so you see the power that he has.
(22:53):
Also think the rush Land integrity that we talked about
a little bit earlier is true for him to and
maintaining that I think is going to be important. I
think he'll learn as a rookie, Like you know, he
could just beat anybody at the college level, but that's
not gonna be the case at the pro. So you
need to maintain that rush lane integrity. But I do
wonder if he's a guy that could see an upticking
(23:14):
snaps fairly soon or not.
Speaker 2 (23:17):
Yeah, I think Malachi Starts is going to be kicking himself.
Dropped an interception on the bills first drive that he
could have had. Sure not like loving that one. And
then I thought that the Bills tried to kind of
screen game him. They tried to come at him, especially
early in that game, and send some big.
Speaker 1 (23:34):
Blockers that way.
Speaker 2 (23:35):
He got blocked out of bounds on one on that
first drive, and so I think as he continues to
evolve and get you know, see those blockers come and
establish himself, get a little more physical with that stuff,
the better off he'll be.
Speaker 1 (23:48):
Also.
Speaker 3 (23:49):
And the last one I have on defense, she know
it was a I thought he had a pretty good game,
had a drop pick which really would have ended the game.
And I think that that's one of the things that
I'm sure he's going to be kicking kicking self over.
I wouldn't say it was a block or dropped pick.
He had the he had the pick kind of in
his hands and went to the ground and it hit
the ground. So oh yeah, that would have been That
(24:11):
would have been close. It was really close. I mean
he had the celebration and they reviewed it instead of
hit the ground, which it it did. But that one
was really close.
Speaker 2 (24:19):
Gosh, I forgot. I totally forgot about that play.
Speaker 3 (24:22):
I mean, that would have that would have been in
the game. Really they were even would have had it
all back in Bill's territory up fifteen at that point,
So I I just think that, like, that's one of
the many examples of like the game of inchest thing
that one mouth.
Speaker 1 (24:35):
Dropped the picks. Thanks a lot, you're back in, Yeah,
thanks a lot.
Speaker 3 (24:41):
But overall, I do think that Cheeto, like he was
a guy excited when he signed, then he missed some
time in the off season and in training camp. Didn't
spend a ton of time talking about him. But I
think that, like, he looks like he's playing at a
pretty high level. And this is a guy that you know,
has been a really good player in his career, got
a really huge contract last year. Don't forget about this. Yeah,
And and so he's an important piece of this defense,
(25:02):
and I think he's going to have a huge role
right now.
Speaker 2 (25:03):
He's the number three corner, yeah, behind Nate Wiggans and
Marlon Humphrey seventy nine percent of the defensive snaps. And
now as Jaiyir kind of continues to work his way
back into game shape after're missing so much time, I mean,
JayR needs to play better too to get on the
field more. But so Cheetos certainly I think has earned
(25:24):
those reps as now.
Speaker 1 (25:25):
But we'll see how that continues to shake out. As
the season goes on.
Speaker 3 (25:29):
All right, So we're gonna take a quick break. We
come back, we'll dive into the offensive side of the football.
You're listening to the Lage Podcast. We're coming to you
from the Sea Geek Studio. We also want to mention
our partners with Traffickings sports Book. They are an official
sports betting partner of the Baltimore Ravens DraftKings Sportsbook. The
Crown is yours. So this was a historic day on offense.
One of the notes that stood out to me. I mean,
there's a lot of impressive stats about this offense. It
(25:50):
was the highest explosive play rate thirty two percent for
any team in the NFL over the last decade, according
to Next Gen Stats. So the Ravens were putting up
explosive and to be honest, that that's why, as we
mentioned earlier, the Ravens part of the reason they only
had fifty one snaps on offense because they were scoring
so fast and like in a crazy way like that's
(26:12):
part of the reason the defense was on the field
so much.
Speaker 2 (26:14):
Like they were to slow down guys, stop getting the
end zone so fast.
Speaker 3 (26:19):
Yea, some long drives here. Enough, these four play touchdowns drives.
Speaker 1 (26:22):
Yeah, Derek, come on, man, stop down.
Speaker 3 (26:23):
On the one like, but but they were. They were
just scoring at will, especially in those first three quarters,
and so highest again, highest explosive play rate of any
team in the last deck.
Speaker 2 (26:35):
I mean that's pretty crazy. Let that sink in. Yeah,
the last decade.
Speaker 3 (26:38):
Yep.
Speaker 2 (26:38):
The most explosive team in one game. I mean, we
spent a lot of time talking about myself included how
can this offense be better than last year? They were
so good number one in the league in yards per
game last year?
Speaker 1 (26:53):
Right, might they might be better?
Speaker 2 (26:55):
And they didn't have Patrick or card and Isaiah likely
in two of your key key players in this offense.
Speaker 3 (27:02):
Yep.
Speaker 2 (27:03):
Yeah, And you're going against a pretty darn good defense
with a very physical, very physical defense of the very
good front. Now they were missing corners. I think that, like,
take that for what it is, and so I think
the Ravens took advantage of that to some degree certainly,
but still pretty darn good defense in a hostile environment
that was rocking.
Speaker 3 (27:23):
Yeah, I mean it was. The offense was great. You
score forty points, it's a great day. And individually, there's
a lot of things to like a guy that I'll
start with is Jay Flowers. I just thought Zay looks
like he's taking another step in his game. He just
continues to kind of develop.
Speaker 2 (27:41):
And he had five He averaged five point three yards
of separation from the nearest defender when he was targeted. Yeah,
which led He led all wide receivers in Week one
in receiving yards, top of the league, yards after catch,
and expected points added EPA on his targets. So right now,
Zay Flower's best receiver in the NFL in Week one.
Speaker 1 (28:01):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (28:01):
So just a just a great game from him, and
if if he can continue to play at that level,
that's a difference maker for this offense.
Speaker 1 (28:11):
Put my point three.
Speaker 2 (28:12):
Yards of separation is like how much separation I get
against you run the forty Yeah, yeah, across the finish line.
Speaker 3 (28:17):
Five point three that's an insult to day. He even
suggests that you're that quick, but yeah, like that that
that's the thing about him, Like he can get open.
He just has been able to do that. He's so shifty.
But he's also doing it down the field. They're using
him in different ways. So awesome, awesome game from Zay.
Derrick Henry obviously he had a monster night two touchdowns.
(28:38):
The fumble is the thing that, you know, he's really
kicking himself over again. In his postgame press conference, he
said that he addressed the team after the game and
took responsibility for the loss, which is really tough on
a game where where he had one hundred and sixty
nine rushing yards and two scores.
Speaker 1 (28:52):
Yeah, Lamar Jackson wasn't having any of that.
Speaker 3 (28:55):
It's like, that's that kind of speaks to what I was
talking about earlier when it was like, there's so much
to like, but then it's all tainted, and that's I
think Henry is a kind of at the top of
that list.
Speaker 2 (29:07):
Well. And Derek Henry, just the guy he is, can
guarantee all the great things he did in that game.
Speaker 1 (29:14):
Are just flushed in his mind. Yeah, guarantee it.
Speaker 2 (29:17):
Yeah, he is going to be stewing over that fumble
all the way until we kick off against the Browns.
Like that's just the kind of player he is, like
he is and beyond yes, he is his own harshest critic.
And there's you can't even see the person in number two,
you know, So it's he's going to be very, very
motivated coming off.
Speaker 3 (29:37):
Of that one note on him that stood out to me.
Next gen stats on his top speed twenty one point
seven miles per hour. So has he lost a step? No,
The answer is no. He was the fastest running back
in the.
Speaker 2 (29:48):
NFL, second fastest ball carrier behind DK Metcalf offensive ball carrier.
Speaker 3 (29:54):
Yep.
Speaker 2 (29:54):
So his top speed from last year was twenty one
point seven to two. That was his top time of
all of last season. He wasn't too far off of that.
Speaker 3 (30:03):
That happened on the forty seven yard touchdown that he had.
That was the play where he hit that top speed. So,
I mean late in the game, and he's the fastest
running back in the NFL, so he continues to just
put up.
Speaker 1 (30:15):
He's a machine.
Speaker 3 (30:15):
He's no slowing down. If you had any doubts about that,
I think he answered that pretty convincingly.
Speaker 1 (30:22):
Yep. Absolutely agree. And I thought, Lamar, you know the
Ravens offensive stars like came out to play.
Speaker 2 (30:28):
Thought the Bills continued to blitz him at a high rate.
That seems to be what they they want to do.
That's how they want to attack Lamar Jackson is keep
him in the pocket. But you also have to get
pressure on him because they'll just dice, slice and dice
you if you don't if he's just sitting back there.
Speaker 1 (30:43):
So they blitzed him at a very high rate.
Speaker 2 (30:45):
Lamar still did pretty darn well against that, completed seven
of nine passes for one hundred and forty yards and
a touchdown against.
Speaker 1 (30:52):
The Bills blitz.
Speaker 2 (30:53):
So they blitzed on forty five point five percent of
Lamar's dropbacks, the second highest rate by the Bills defense
over the past three seasons.
Speaker 1 (31:02):
You know what, the other one was.
Speaker 2 (31:03):
The only time the Bills that blitz at a higher
rate was in the twenty twenty four AFC Divisional.
Speaker 1 (31:08):
Matchup last year in the playoffs.
Speaker 3 (31:10):
They clearly have a strategy for how they want to
attack exact offense. So it didn't really work well for
the majority of this game.
Speaker 1 (31:16):
Yeah, but they kept doing it, kept.
Speaker 3 (31:18):
Doing it, and so I think that, you know, they
think that speaks to Lamar's ability to have to be
able to handle that blitz. Yep, you know, I think
the other thing too. So there's lots alike on offense.
The offensive line play obviously, the line is always a
question and coming into the season, that's the that's the
case once again, and so what's your what do you
make of the line, because some hands said, hey, man,
(31:40):
you dominated the ground game, control the line of scrimmage,
put up all these points. But then late in the
fourth quarter, they when Buffalo was really coming downhill to
stop the run, they weren't able to get the push.
They weren't able to pick up a critical first down
to move the chains and end the game. So what
do you make of the offensive line play in this opener?
Speaker 2 (31:58):
I mean, I thought Ronnie Stanley and tire linn Bomb
had really very very strong games. And I thought that
there were just too many bad plays on film from
particularly follow Ali and Rosengarten. I mean, that's just what
it was. I didn't think they had their strongest games,
you know. I thought Daniel had a tough start to
last season also, and maybe she's just a guy that
(32:21):
needs to get his feet wet a little bit more.
But you kind of you see why the Ravens played
those two guys in the preseason, some you know, tried
to get them up and going. But I didn't think
it was their best game. I thought, ed Oliver, as
I mentioned earlier, the Bills defensive tackle had a ridiculously
a very good game. It's a good player and he
(32:42):
played one of his best games.
Speaker 3 (32:44):
Yeah, I thought Ed Oliver was was great. He was
a problem at times. And actually one of the points
I think in the next one that we're going to
get to is some of the game management stuff in
a big question. I've got fan questions here. I'll come
back to Ed Oliver here in a second, but this
is a question and we got from han Win. You
can email us at the lounge at Ravens dot NFL
dot net. Uh. The email here is what an unbelievable
(33:07):
and disappointing loss for us tonight. I can't help but
feel that we were conservative at the end. We should
have put the ball in Lamar's hands to run our
pass on fourth down. He's talking about the fourth and
three situation on the Ravens final possession of the game.
Defense couldn't be stopped there. The defense couldn't stop the Bills.
So put the ball on Lamar's hands and prove the
(33:28):
world that he is the rightful MVP is what his
point was, and so how.
Speaker 2 (33:32):
About we just win the game. That's where approve right there.
Speaker 3 (33:36):
So that's that's the email. As always you can email
us at the lounge at Ravens dot NFL dot net.
So this was a big talking point coming out of
this game. Should the Ravens have gone for it? Uh
in that situation? One point, just to provide additional.
Speaker 1 (33:49):
There's context needed.
Speaker 3 (33:50):
Yes, So Lamar said after the game he was he
was cramping up at at that point. I mentioned Ed
Oliver because on that play, on the third down play,
which was a completion for seven yards to DeAndre Hopkins,
at Oliver came inside on the stunt, got to a
point where he had a free shot on Lamar Jackson
and he delivered it.
Speaker 1 (34:11):
I mean, that was one of the biggest hits I've
ever seen Lamar Jackson take.
Speaker 3 (34:14):
He got crushed on that play, you know, hit him
right after he threw the ball. Huge hit.
Speaker 2 (34:20):
And Seohn Harbaal said that when he looked at Lamar's
face as he was coming off the field after that play,
that he could sell something was off.
Speaker 3 (34:26):
Yeah, And so Lamar kind of jogged off after that play.
And if the Ravens were gonna go for it in
that situation, then John said that they would have had
a call time out there like they were. They were
not in a position to just okay, we've got the
fourth down, call ready, get right up on the line
of scrimmers. They would have to call time out there
to get things situated and then get on the line
and then run the play.
Speaker 2 (34:45):
Which is fine, you can do that, right and the like.
I think there's a you can make a case that
they should have done that. I think that's fair to debate,
you know. I it's hard to say because the medical
component with the like, could they have taken a time
out and he go back in there and have been fine?
Speaker 1 (35:06):
I don't know.
Speaker 2 (35:06):
I don't know, like how long it would have taken
for Lamar to be feeling fine, right, fine enough to
run a play successfully and now you can go down
the All right, If let's just say Lamar can't run
a play, like, can you go wildcat with Derrick Henry
and try to pick that up?
Speaker 1 (35:25):
You can?
Speaker 2 (35:26):
You know, generally speaking, the medical component aside, like if
Lamar had not gotten his bell wrung on that play
or not been cramping or whatever it was, I would
say go for it.
Speaker 1 (35:38):
That would be my hunch.
Speaker 2 (35:39):
Yeah, I think that you've seen this with Josh Allen,
You've seen it with Mahomes.
Speaker 1 (35:44):
You've seen it with these guys.
Speaker 2 (35:45):
Certainly, the way that the game was playing out at
that point, with how many defensive snaps your defense was
playing to that point, I think it was worth the
risk not to mention like they have had a very
hard time stopping your offense all day long.
Speaker 1 (36:00):
I think that was worth the gamble.
Speaker 2 (36:03):
Additionally, even if you do give them the ball back
on your side of the field and they're almost in
field goal range already, okay, if they score faster, I'm
okay with that. The last thing I want is what
ended up playing out where you have no time on
the back end to go back down the field and
try to either kick a game winning field goal or
a touchdown. Yeah, and so like I'm kind of obviously
(36:28):
you pick it up, you win the game, but like,
if you don't, there's somewhat of a benefit to them
being closer to scoring.
Speaker 1 (36:34):
And so.
Speaker 2 (36:36):
You know, if John Harball had not seen Lamar's face
and been like, yeah, he is not ready to run
a play, then I think there would have been a
higher chance of him going for it. And generally speaking,
you know, you look at the analytics and the Ravens
are the most aggressive team on fourth down. I think
it was twenty nineteen. They haven't been as aggressive in
recent years. John Harball's like gut, like just for listeners
(36:59):
out there to know, generally speaking, I think that his
football gut says be aggressive. Like if I were to
just describe to the layman likes John Harball a conservative,
aggressive coach. Aggressive is how I would describe him. Yeah,
I don't know how much the look that he saw
in Lamar Jackson's face change that.
Speaker 3 (37:19):
Yeah, and a new idea what Lamar said to the
coaches as he came off the field or whatever.
Speaker 1 (37:23):
Again, when you see.
Speaker 2 (37:24):
Your star quarterback coming off, and this is a guy
Lamar Jackson who's many times been like, let's go for it, coach,
I want the ball, Let's go for it. When you
see him jogging off doesn't instill confidence exactly well.
Speaker 3 (37:35):
And he also said, like Lamar said, had he not
been cramping, is what he said after the game, then
he would have been advocating to go for it in
that situation. So I think that the hit, the cramping
like whatever it was, like, all of that is something
that is important contact when discussing whether or not they
should have gone for it on fourth down. The other
point I think is just the play calling that led
(37:56):
up to that. Harwall did talk about that on Monday,
and you know, there's just like this, it doesn't work,
so everything gets second guess. But like, on one hand,
you like the Ravens base that they ran it twice.
The Bills burn their timeouts and so you want to
run clock. That's what you wanted to do, and so
should they should they have thrown it. Something that Hardball
(38:16):
said is maybe would have liked to see like a
play action naked boot in that situation. Everyone's comes out
on Derrick Henry and Lamar rolls out and can either
throw it or run it in that situation, and you
know you like your chances there.
Speaker 2 (38:29):
Yeah, I mean if if I've also seen people be
like that Lamar was throwing it, he was dicing them up,
like throw it, take him by surprise, throw the ball.
If if that's an incompletion, the Ravens coaches are getting
killed for not running clock in that situation, like just killed,
and so it's a pretty that's a pretty darn big risk.
(38:50):
And that's why I kind of I agree with John.
I like then naked bootleg because it gives you the
option to throw, but also like, hey, Lamar running the ball,
I'm always okay.
Speaker 3 (38:59):
With that option too, And like the other side of
it too, is just like you know what, you got
the best late game closer running back in football historically.
Just give him the ball and let him go to
work well and right.
Speaker 2 (39:11):
And that's kind of the killer of like why you know,
when you're you're talking about how the Ravens have blown
so many late fourth quarter leads, Like, theoretically the Ravens
should have an awesome offense for closing out games. I've
had the best rushing attack in the league for the.
Speaker 1 (39:27):
Last number of years.
Speaker 2 (39:29):
Here, you know, like that's what it takes to close
out games, being able to run the ball. But it's
also like being able to run the ball when you
have to run the ball. And you know, when you
have this this the most mobile, awesome running quarterback of
all time who can keep it and run the ball.
So like that's kind of part of the puzzling thing
about why the Ravens have struggled in these situations more
(39:52):
than they should is that, like, you have the recipe
to be very good in this situation.
Speaker 3 (39:58):
Right, right, I totally agree. Here's a thought here again
and email. This one's from Dusty. You emailed us the
lounge at ravenst NFL dot net. Made a number of points,
but he said all of the Ravens need to put
last night's loss firmly in the rearview mirror. I also
believe that they need to keep the pedal, the foot
on the pedal, especially on offense, until they're up at
(40:19):
least three to four scores in the fourth quarter, or
whenever the player you four scores, you know four, whenever
the players or coaches start to get a little lax,
somebody needs to step up and say the words, remember Buffalo.
I believe those words could galvanize this Ravens team and
remind them not to ever go into cruise control at
any point in any game this year. That's kind of
(40:40):
the point that it's not the exact same, but it's
it's the cold water point that you made that this
game can kind of serve as a reminder.
Speaker 2 (40:46):
And I think it's to the point that John Harwall
talked about how they're going to take a deep dive
on what their approach is in these game situations, like
how aggressive do we want to be? That's the question,
because you know you can, you can be aggressive and
get it and you get you know, burned by it, certainly.
But if you're not aggressive enough, sometimes these you get
(41:07):
these like and the other team starts to get a
little bit of hot, a little hot, a little confidence
in the snowball. It's just the snowball gets rolling downhill.
And so I think to a degree it is a
philosophical kind of question as much as it is like
what are our plays called?
Speaker 1 (41:24):
All the specifics and all that stuff.
Speaker 2 (41:25):
I like the four score rule. Let's call it the
Abraham Lincoln rule. Four score and seven years ago you got.
Speaker 3 (41:32):
Four scores in order to relax in the fourth quarter.
Anything else on offense or game management wise? Do you
want to hit? No? Okay? One more email here. This
is from Ashley Fleegel said, I'm having days off view
to start the season. We lost lost a tough one
in Kansas City last year, and then we came back
and ended up losing our home opener to the Raiders.
I'm hoping we do not have a similar situation like
(41:54):
last year after the letdown of the first game. I'd,
you know, be lying if I said that, like those
memories didn't come back in my mind as well, knowing
that you played one of the you played the team
that you lost in the playoffs the year before. In
Week one you lost a heartbreaker, and then you came
home and it's the home opener against the team who
you're heavy favorites, and everyone's picking you to win. And
so I do think, like my feeling is that the
(42:18):
memory of last year's game and what happened will help
the Ravens this week. I think that they will. They
will be reminding themselves.
Speaker 1 (42:24):
Oh, there will be a lot of talk about last
year and the Raiders.
Speaker 3 (42:27):
We were in this position last year and we dropped
the ball against the Raiders. Can't let it happen again.
I think that will be a talking point for this
team this week.
Speaker 2 (42:34):
I agree, let's be frank, you know, and we're going
to talk about the Browns later in this week. But
the Browns are always a tough out for this team
like that, and by the way, they should have beaten
the Bengals. Yeah, Like this is a pretty darn good
team with a good defense led by you know, arguably
the defense player of the year, Miles Garrett, and so
I think they're a better team than the Rai Raiders
(42:56):
were a year ago. Just say that much.
Speaker 3 (42:58):
Yeah, So again, we'll talk about that all throughout the
course of the week, but I do think that that
storyline is going to be a reminder for the team
throughout this week. So as always, you can email us
at the lounge at Ravens dot NFL dot net. Thank
you so much to everybody who emailed. It is kind
of funny, like game ends. I always love it after
a win, so it wasn't quite I wasn't as eager
to read the emails this time, but as soon as
(43:19):
the clock hit zero, the emails started hitting the inbox
and I held off for about twenty four hours for
diving into them for obvious reasons. But again, we love
hearing from you, so thank you for this emails. Make
sure you leave a rating in a review. Thank you
for listening, and we will be back with you again
later this week.
Welcome into the Lounge presented by DraftKings.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
I'm Ryan Mink here with Garrett Downing, and we've taken
a look at the film from the Ravens opening loss
to Buffalo Bills forty one to forty still stinks. You know,
you watch this, but you see a lot that obviously
went wrong down the stretch in the Bills historic comeback,
but you also see a lot of things that the
(00:26):
Ravens did right, which we knew coming out of that game,
but the film kind of backs set up also.
Speaker 3 (00:31):
Garrett, Yeah, I mean I think that, like, as we
jump into the film, it really underscored a point that
I kind of articulated in our reaction podcast right after
the game, And I feel even stronger about this as
the dust is settled, Like it was a game where
there were so many kind of iconic, memorable things that
went right, Like this had all the makings of a
(00:53):
game that, like ten years down the road, you were
going to be talking about it from just how awesome
it was. Remember the Hopkins first touchdown, Cash Henry went
off that game. Save Flowers was awesome, Lamar was awesome,
like Tyler Loops hitting long field goals.
Speaker 1 (01:05):
Like all these things, a lot of things.
Speaker 3 (01:07):
You're just like, man, that was an awesome night, that
was an awesome game, and now obviously the whole thing
is tainted because of the final result. And when you
look at the film, it's it's kind of similar, like
there's a lot of things to like, particularly on offense,
they feel good about. But then you also it almost
in some ways makes the final It makes it more
painful because you're like, man, you did all of these
(01:29):
things right, and yet you still didn't come away with
the win, and so grappling with that is kind of difficult.
The Ravens are going through that right now, and we'll
dive into some of the specifics of how this team
got to this point and where they go from here.
Speaker 2 (01:43):
Well, just a big picture before you do that. I
also want to say that, you know, overreaction Monday, especially
in Week one of the NFL season, that's that's the
prime overreaction Monday, and you know, I think some of
it is certainly legit. The Ravens had a lot of
problems down the stretch that game, and there's defensive things
especially that they need to clean up. And it wasn't
(02:04):
perfect on offense either, despite scoring forty points, right, and
so like some of that stuff is fair and it's
fair to question things, and coaches do that and players
do that. Certainly, when I watched the film and I
stepped back after this game with a couple of days
removed from it, this is still a really good team
that's gonna win a lot of games this year. And
(02:27):
what they need to do is beat the Buffalo Bills
in the Kansas City Chiefs if they're ultimately going to
get to where they want to get to, and those
two that's been a problem.
Speaker 1 (02:36):
So they got to figure that out.
Speaker 2 (02:38):
But like, coming away from that game, certainly for the
vast majority of that game, you're like, man, you just
went into Buffalo, a place where they haven't lost in
they had eleven straight regular season wins.
Speaker 3 (02:50):
Hey, you gotta go back a couple of years for
the last loss at home.
Speaker 2 (02:53):
Exactly, Like they hadn't lost at home in a long time.
Week one, that place was pop and against a really
just good team, right, another Super Bowl contender, and like
you had him on the ropes and it wasn't even
really close, like they were just you know. And then
also on top of that, in order for the Bills
(03:16):
to win, Like they needed some they needed some things
to happen that, by the law of averages, shouldn't usually happen.
Usually you're not going to get a tipped pass in
the front of the end zone that's caught by your
same player in the back of the end zone on
fourth down like that. That's kind of a flukeish play, right.
If that doesn't happen, the Ravens win the game.
Speaker 1 (03:37):
Yep.
Speaker 2 (03:38):
Derek Henry usually doesn't fumble the ball. He had three
fumbles last year in like three hundred and twenty five carries.
Speaker 3 (03:43):
Yeah, especially late in that situation.
Speaker 2 (03:46):
Yeah, I mean he's not a fumbler. So, like that's
another kind of outlier, right, And you're never gonna play
the perfect games, certainly, But like there were a number
of things in that game. I Oh, Hamilton at the
end of the game came up a finger away from
blocking that field goal.
Speaker 3 (04:04):
I think just kind of I think he grazed it
a little bit. I think he got maybe a fingernail
on that thing we talked about game of inches. I mean,
I think he grazed that football. When you look at
the film, you're like, it looks like he may have
altered that trajectory just the tiniest, tiny bit crazy.
Speaker 2 (04:19):
Can you imagine that ending that would if he had
come through and blocked that field goal, that would have
been in sick.
Speaker 3 (04:24):
I kind of felt sick to my stomach looking at
that in really slow mode detail, just being like how
close he was to blocking that and how epic that
moment would have been.
Speaker 1 (04:34):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (04:34):
So, so I look at all those kind of collection
of things that went against the Ravens that ended up
in them losing a game that you know, they had
a nine to nine point whatever chance of winning.
Speaker 4 (04:47):
Uh.
Speaker 2 (04:48):
And so as much as that game stung, like there's
there's one of two ways the Ravens are going to
go from here. Either that game is a early season
bucket of cold what they got thrown your face that says, WHOA, Okay,
you know, we know we are really good coming this year,
and everybody's picking us to win the Super Bowl. Fifty
(05:08):
seven percent of people are picking the Ravens to win
before that game, Like, but hey, if we're if we don't,
if we're not about our business and we're not on
our p's and q's up until triple zeros on the clock,
we're gonna lose like it's either a wake up call
for them, or this is like a harbinger of some
(05:28):
underlying problems that we didn't see, and it's a self
fulfilling prophecy, and you say, oh, man, next time we're
in that scenario, we got a lead in the fourth quarter,
we can't blow it, we can't you know whatever, and
you start to think too much and you're not playing
the game. I like to think that you know, the
Ravens are gonna this is gonna kind of be a
you know, an air quotess, a wake up call, and say, hey,
(05:50):
we're we know we're good, but like we can be beaten.
And thus, from this point out win a lot of games,
including one like that where you're up big late.
Speaker 3 (06:01):
Yeah. I think that that's probably a good way to
look at it. And I also I think the reality
of it is that the teams who have been who
have beaten the Ravens in the playoffs the past few
years is the Chiefs and the Bills, as you mentioned. Yeah,
and so a lot of it truthfully comes down to
feeling like everything is building to those types of games
in the postseason, and so you've got to get good enough.
(06:22):
You're not playing the playoffs right now, You've got to
get to the playoffs first, and you got to put
your team in positions so that you're prepared all the
way across the board. And so I think that, like mean,
I'm not going to sit here and try to spin
it is like, hey, look it's actually good they lost
that game, because it's a wake up call. Like I'm
not going that direction. I know you're not either, yeah,
but like I do think that all of these things
(06:43):
are part of building the team and how you respond
to them and is critical and that will ultimately determine
how far the team ends up going. And so the
other thing too, I would say, just like had a
big picture and looking at these teams like these are
two of the best teams in the league with maybe
the two best players in the league, and the game
just if you like remove the emotional connection to it,
(07:05):
the game lived up to it. It was like in
my best game in the NFL.
Speaker 2 (07:08):
Actually, all my neighbors and stuff, everybody who have bumped
into who you know, they're kind of like tough one,
but man, that was a heck of a game, right
And I'm like, you know, I'm just not ready to
go there right now, right, how awesome.
Speaker 1 (07:20):
They're like that was amazing. Wow, what a game.
Speaker 3 (07:23):
But like, yeah, I like if you're a Cowboys fan
living in Dallas and you're just like I'm gonna watch
Lamar and Josh Allenson.
Speaker 1 (07:28):
Oh, you're like you got, you got, you got your
money's right exactly.
Speaker 3 (07:31):
And so I think that, like these are two teams
that are that are neck and neck, and like every
time they play, it's it's likely going to be a
close game. And that's that's my expectation. Like most of
the time these teams play one hundred times, it might
be fifty to fifty split. Like they're they're right there,
and so the Ravens need to do the things that
they that they know that they are capable of and
(07:53):
they can get the win.
Speaker 2 (07:54):
That think it's kind of winning the fringes and we
can we're gonna talk more about these things, but it's
you know, it's almost like between the hash marks. The
Ravens won, right, but it's like those fringe things. It's
the end of the first half scenario.
Speaker 3 (08:07):
I mean, you could tell us you want to start.
I mean, you talk about the fringes in some ways,
literally it's the fringe of the field, keeping them in
bounds and running a situation at the end of.
Speaker 1 (08:15):
The half exactly get a kind of.
Speaker 3 (08:17):
A cheap field goal in that situation.
Speaker 2 (08:19):
Yeah yeah, I mean literally and kind of metaphorically, it's
like winning that stuff on the edges, Like the Ravens
need to do a better job of that, and that's
really where they struggled.
Speaker 1 (08:28):
So yeah, let's dive into this.
Speaker 2 (08:29):
And obviously the biggest question coming out of this game
is like what happened to the defense?
Speaker 1 (08:35):
I mean, you know, I'm.
Speaker 2 (08:38):
On the record in my season predictions as saying I
think this is going to be the number one defense
in the league. But that was not going to do it.
That game isn't helping finish number one. And so, Garrett,
when you looked at the film and heard from players
and coach Harball, you know Harball on Monday, what did
you take away from why they had such a tough night?
Speaker 3 (09:01):
Well, really in that and that fourth quarter is obviously
when it all turned. And I think that a couple
of things stand out to me. One is pass rush
and secondary play are married. They're always connected. And something
that that Harbaugh did mention in his Monday press conference
is pass rush lanes, and so what does that mean?
What are pass rush lanes? Basically, Like, it's not just
(09:22):
a matter of do whatever you can to get to
the quarterback you need to, there's a there's a path
for you to get to the quarterback. And if everyone
just runs to the outside, for example, then that leads
the middle of the field wide open and vice versa.
And so you would see in some of these situations
where an outside linebacker would potentially get too deep or
crash inside and then that would lose containing and Josh
Allen was able to get outside the pocket and look
(09:42):
for plays down the field.
Speaker 1 (09:43):
And that's that's really where he excels.
Speaker 3 (09:45):
That's that's where his now he's like the best. Him
and Lamar are really like the best in the business
at that. So it's like you have a tough assignment
in general, Like he can get out of the pocket
and he can look downfield and make plays. I'm not
going to act like that's an easy assignment, but in
too many situations, the Ravens right outside linebacker oftentimes would
just lose that pass rush lane and then he would
get outside the pocket to extend the play, look downfield
(10:06):
and more often than not, he came up with a
big play.
Speaker 1 (10:08):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (10:09):
I mean, I think the Bills actually did a pretty
darn good job of that with Lamar. Like, Lamar had
some design runs that he hit, and he had that
crazy one where he ran like twenty yards backwards and
then ended up getting a twenty yard game, which I
certainly was not.
Speaker 3 (10:21):
A design for the raven That was just a blown.
Speaker 2 (10:24):
Up play with Yeah, but like to the Bills credit
even on that play, like they just kept pushing him back.
Speaker 3 (10:30):
Yeah, yeah, right.
Speaker 2 (10:31):
It was like either Lamar had to get rid of
the ball or he just had to fade, like he
did not have a path in which to step up
and through, and the Ravens gave Josh Allen too many
of those opportunities. The one that really stood out was
at the end of the first half and and you know,
you're just you can't let him do that. You can't
let him step up and then rip a shot down
(10:51):
the field even late in the game, you know, the
fourth quarter, you saw too much of that, and so
you have to keep Josh Allen in the pocket. And
like the Ravens u sometimes when you try to evaluate,
oh they're not getting enough pressure on him, they're not
getting enough pressure. Sometimes that's okay, right, Like sometimes a
sack is not necessarily the ultimate goal. It's keep Josh
(11:14):
Allen in the pocket.
Speaker 3 (11:16):
And hurry the process of getting rid of the foot.
Speaker 2 (11:18):
Of course you can't just give them all day back there,
but like your interior rush matters a lot, and I thought,
I thought Namdi had a strong game.
Speaker 1 (11:25):
Five pressures.
Speaker 2 (11:26):
He had the team's loan sack, but like I'm not
necessarily looking for I take it, but like five sacks
on the game, like you know, keep them in the pocket.
That's that's kind of the outside linebacker's job. And too
often they were breakdowns in that regard.
Speaker 3 (11:42):
Yeah, and then you look at the back end of
the defense and you know, jay Or Alexander had a
tough night and his first game as a Raven tough assignment.
And mean you consider the fact that obviously it's a
new team. He missed a good portion of training camp
deal with Lundre, so he was stylined for the majority
of training camp. After signing. He did come back and
practice throughout the week, but like so he kind of
(12:04):
had a week to get ready and get back out
there on the field. It seemed to me like he
was often trying to just catch up, like he was
running behind. Guys were getting a step on him and
he was trying to catch up. And then late in
the game, I think that probably contributed to providing too
much cushion. Like on that last catch to Keyon Coleman
that set up the game winning field goal, had a
big cushion on that play. Coleman just ran an inside.
Speaker 1 (12:25):
Route and leverage.
Speaker 2 (12:26):
Yeah, when he's playing outside leverage and he just had
in the middle of the field is wide open, right,
and you're playing outside leverage, right, it's too easy.
Speaker 3 (12:34):
And that was kind of pitch and catch for those
two guys. And so I do think JayR will improve
from this. And he's a guy that, like I still
think has definitely good football in him, but tough assignment
and did not have his best game.
Speaker 2 (12:48):
I think also a factor to considering all that is now,
Ji Year did not play. You know, he played thirty
nine percent of the snaps, but overall, the Ravens defense
played eight five snatch I know I had that That
is an crazy that's a crazy high number. By comparison,
the Ravens offense had fifty one yep, fifty one to
(13:09):
eighty five, and so like, I think there could have
been an element late in that game, especially week one,
when kind of your conditioning endurance is put to the test.
Is the first time for really almost all the starters
playing a game all season long, Like and now, the
(13:30):
Ravens work hard in training camp. When you talk about
teams that come into the season in shape, like I'm
going to put the Ravens at the top of that
list or near it at least, but still eighty five
for your defense, it's just a physical challenge.
Speaker 3 (13:44):
And they were basically on the field, like the entire
fourth quarter the Ravens last few drives, it was three
and out. Then it was then it was the fumbable,
so even shorter than that. Then it was three and out.
So it was like three and out. Between that, you
get eight plays.
Speaker 1 (13:58):
And they're and then they're chucking and they're.
Speaker 3 (14:01):
They're going forward and fourth down they're in they're in
basically all out mode. And that's a tough assignment. Now
you know there's things within that that you want to
see improved, like like there's got to be get late
game situations where you need to get a stop. You
want to see the defense get a stop in those situations.
But I do think that that there's probably an element
of just the the game wearing it down a little
(14:24):
bit when you play that many snaps.
Speaker 1 (14:26):
Yeah, yeah, I certainly agree.
Speaker 2 (14:27):
And and like you said, jay Or missed a month,
what kind of physical shape was he in. I think that,
you know, coming back, what's his what's his kind of
confidence level, like that he can get up in those
corners faces and press and and play a little bit,
you know, more physical with them. I think all those
things are factors generally speaking.
Speaker 1 (14:45):
You know, there's just.
Speaker 2 (14:48):
I think the defense got some of the corners played
things a little bit too passively, you know, given too
much cushion there at the end of the game. You'd
like to see them be a little bit more aggressive
and physical outside.
Speaker 3 (14:59):
Yeah. And and when you talk about giving too much
cushion and allowing guys to get outside the end of
half situation that we reference, I mean, to me, that
was just a really bad one.
Speaker 1 (15:09):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (15:10):
Like the Ravens. The Ravens get a field goal, Buffalo
gets the ball back, no timeouts, and they're able to
put themselves in field goal range. And and I know
they add a second back on the clock. When you
look at the broadcast footage of that, he goes down
with time left on the clock, it.
Speaker 2 (15:24):
Still says, Yeah, I don't think it was the wrong call. Yeah,
Like it's an unfortunate break for the Ravens, Like it
was extremely close. I don't think that they made the
wrong call. I don't think the Ravens were wrong.
Speaker 3 (15:33):
Done that right, and so but on that play, if
you go back and look at that play on film,
the Ravens rushed nobody, not a single guy. They didn't
have anybody.
Speaker 2 (15:42):
So they had they took like linebackers and put them
like fifteen twenty yards off the ball on the sideline, right,
So they had an alignment of formation that because obviously
the one thing you cannot allow is to catch and
get out of bounce. If they catch it inbounds and
it's not in the end zone and they don't get
(16:02):
the hands, it's done.
Speaker 1 (16:04):
And so like they were playing that.
Speaker 2 (16:06):
But you know, and you obviously went your defensive backs
back there because you also.
Speaker 1 (16:11):
Had to beware of a hail Mary.
Speaker 2 (16:13):
You know, they have Kean Coleman who can go up
and get the ball, and you got Josh Allen, who
can certainly throw the ball there, get the ball there.
You know, so I understand you need some dbs in
the back. But also like the linebackers there in that situation,
like just they don't have the feel, they didn't have
the eyes. They they ended up not being a factory.
Like they were kind of the guard the guard keeper,
(16:35):
you know, the gatekeeper of the sideline, and they did
not they stormed the gates and so it just.
Speaker 1 (16:44):
It was not executed well at all.
Speaker 2 (16:46):
And then too like a bad leverage got Coleman got
underneath the leverage and it wasn't Josh Allen made a
good throw, but yeah, it's too easy.
Speaker 3 (16:57):
It was too easy. Yeah, it was just too easy,
and he was able to get out of back. And
you know, those are the types of plays.
Speaker 2 (17:03):
And the one before that that set up that, that throw,
the first throw over the middle was another as our
first point, rush lane integrity. Josh Allen steps up through
lane and now he's moving towards the light of scrimmage
and finds this guy right you know, combo of the
problems right.
Speaker 3 (17:19):
There, right right now.
Speaker 1 (17:20):
That was a big That was a big three points.
Speaker 3 (17:22):
That was really especially when you lose by one. Well, yeah,
certainly like that was And it's just kind of like,
I don't think that the momentum carried into the second half,
because the Ravens dominated the third quarter and into the
fourth quarter. So I don't think that it's like, man,
that that changed the momentum of a game, but the
points mattered, and I do think that like it just
(17:43):
I think it speaks to this.
Speaker 2 (17:44):
I think he could have sparked Josh Allen a little bit,
like I think for the first for the majority of
the first half, they did a pretty good job of
like containing him, making him get the ball out of
his hands quickly, check down throws, like Josh Allen was
not wheeling and dealing at that point. And I I
don't know, but I think that the end of that
(18:05):
first half could have gotten him a little bit more
into all right, into MVP mode, right.
Speaker 3 (18:11):
And it also just speaks to like the situations then,
and that is still something that I feel like, just
at a big picture level, the Ravens have to be
they have to do better in critical situations, end of half,
end of game, and that's something that has plagued this team.
And in John Harbaugh did say, during the press conmas
on Monday, the Ravens are taking a hard look at
(18:31):
just kind of their approach or philosophy when it comes
to like managing leads. And the Ravens have been a
team that has a lot of leads. They've had a
lot of two score leads, They've had a lot of
one score leads, they won a lot of games and so.
Speaker 2 (18:41):
And just to pause, yeah, just to cut in for
a second, that is part of the Ravens have had
too many fourth quarter blown leads end of sense, period, Right,
But when you're looking at just the sheer number that
they've had over recent years, you do also need to
consider that the Ravens have had a lot of second
(19:02):
of you know, double digit late game leads and so like,
when you have a lot of opportunities. Like when you
look at the percentages of leads that the Ravens are blowing,
it's still too high, but there's other teams that have
are higher. Right, It's not like, yeah, the number that
they've blown is kind of far away, far and away
(19:23):
the most in the league, but they've also far and
away been in the most situations. It speaks to how
good they are generally speaking.
Speaker 3 (19:30):
Yeah, yeah, I think that that is definitely the base
of it. But the Ravens also feel like they just
need to get a grip on the two score leads
and hold on to them.
Speaker 4 (19:39):
All that doesn't help, yeah, exactly, Like it's perspective, but
like this was a game the Ravens certainly feel like
they should have won, and so they're taking a look
at this, like how they approach things game management wise,
calls offensively and defensively, how you can what you can
do differently to manage a.
Speaker 3 (19:57):
Lead clock, all that stuff, all the stuff that we're
going to talk doing a little bit here, Like that's
something that they are taking a hard look at right now.
Speaker 2 (20:03):
Yeah, before we move to the offensive side the ball,
I do want to shout out Kyle Homiltson's awesome game.
Speaker 1 (20:09):
He was great, great, great.
Speaker 2 (20:10):
I mean, guy gets the massive extension. Look the best
player on the field defensively, certainly for the Ravens at
Oliver had a pretty darn good game for the Bills,
but I mean the best player under the Ravens defense
in terms of sniffing out plays like the diagnosing just
very quickly to blow up the play where he forced
(20:32):
the fumble really impressive diagnosis and just keying in on that.
I mean, got the interception on the two point conversion.
Try shutting of later on the ball, but got the interception. Yeah,
I mean he was just everywhere making tackles.
Speaker 1 (20:45):
PBUs.
Speaker 2 (20:46):
I thought Kyle Homiltson goodness gracious, that was the kind
of game where, especially in front of the nation, starts
the defensive MVP chatter. If he had blocked that field
goal to end the game, He's at the top of
the talk, the early talk.
Speaker 3 (21:01):
Yeah, he might be, honestly, if if he's going to
be in that conversation, not that like this is his
main priority defensives two hundred passing yards in the fourth quarter,
and that is correct. Yeah, So like if anybody's going
to get into that conversation on this team, I think
that the Ravens obviously just had to play better defensively
as a whole.
Speaker 1 (21:18):
Correct.
Speaker 3 (21:19):
But he was great. He was the highest great player
on Pro Football Focus. Also with him, not that this
is a surprise, Ravens continue to move him around. About
seventy five percent of the time was at safety that's
your traditional safety role, and then about twenty percent he's
kind of in the box. Up there at closer to
the line of scrimmage, so I would expect that that,
and then the other five was really as a slot corner.
Speaker 2 (21:39):
Yeah, I mean he's playing less slot corner. I mean
that's the biggest that's the change. Marlon Humphrey is playing
there an extensive amount, as we expected and talked about previously.
Speaker 1 (21:49):
And I like that lineup for the Ravens generally speaking.
Speaker 3 (21:52):
Two other notes that I have defensively, Teddy Buchanan, the
rookie fourth round pick, ends up really splitting the snaps
next to Roquan Smith along with Trends Simpsons.
Speaker 1 (22:00):
No, it's got slightly a few more.
Speaker 3 (22:03):
Basically, those guys kind of split that role. And you know,
I thought both of them neither of them jumped out
as like great or horrible. You know, they were kind
of in the middle.
Speaker 1 (22:13):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (22:13):
I thought Trenton had a tackle for loss and I
thought Teddy made some plays.
Speaker 1 (22:16):
He flashed for me a few times.
Speaker 3 (22:18):
Yeah, so that will be something to monitor. They just Teddy,
I mean, this is his first game.
Speaker 2 (22:22):
John Harball said that he expects that to continue. For
right now is kind of a fairly even split. One
guy could get a few more than the other just
depending on game situation.
Speaker 3 (22:31):
Yep. And then I do think that like we'll we'll
see just on defense on Green he had twenty six snaps,
So does that increase you know, he's playing about a
quarter of the snaps or a little bit more than that.
But like, he's a guy that we all have been
excited about. On one play in particularly, put Dion Dawkins
on his back, so you see the power that he has.
(22:53):
Also think the rush Land integrity that we talked about
a little bit earlier is true for him to and
maintaining that I think is going to be important. I
think he'll learn as a rookie, Like you know, he
could just beat anybody at the college level, but that's
not gonna be the case at the pro. So you
need to maintain that rush lane integrity. But I do
wonder if he's a guy that could see an upticking
(23:14):
snaps fairly soon or not.
Speaker 2 (23:17):
Yeah, I think Malachi Starts is going to be kicking himself.
Dropped an interception on the bills first drive that he
could have had. Sure not like loving that one. And
then I thought that the Bills tried to kind of
screen game him. They tried to come at him, especially
early in that game, and send some big.
Speaker 1 (23:34):
Blockers that way.
Speaker 2 (23:35):
He got blocked out of bounds on one on that
first drive, and so I think as he continues to
evolve and get you know, see those blockers come and
establish himself, get a little more physical with that stuff,
the better off he'll be.
Speaker 1 (23:48):
Also.
Speaker 3 (23:49):
And the last one I have on defense, she know
it was a I thought he had a pretty good game,
had a drop pick which really would have ended the game.
And I think that that's one of the things that
I'm sure he's going to be kicking kicking self over.
I wouldn't say it was a block or dropped pick.
He had the he had the pick kind of in
his hands and went to the ground and it hit
the ground. So oh yeah, that would have been That
(24:11):
would have been close. It was really close. I mean
he had the celebration and they reviewed it instead of
hit the ground, which it it did. But that one
was really close.
Speaker 2 (24:19):
Gosh, I forgot. I totally forgot about that play.
Speaker 3 (24:22):
I mean, that would have that would have been in
the game. Really they were even would have had it
all back in Bill's territory up fifteen at that point,
So I I just think that, like, that's one of
the many examples of like the game of inchest thing
that one mouth.
Speaker 1 (24:35):
Dropped the picks. Thanks a lot, you're back in, Yeah,
thanks a lot.
Speaker 3 (24:41):
But overall, I do think that Cheeto, like he was
a guy excited when he signed, then he missed some
time in the off season and in training camp. Didn't
spend a ton of time talking about him. But I
think that, like, he looks like he's playing at a
pretty high level. And this is a guy that you know,
has been a really good player in his career, got
a really huge contract last year. Don't forget about this. Yeah,
And and so he's an important piece of this defense,
(25:02):
and I think he's going to have a huge role
right now.
Speaker 2 (25:03):
He's the number three corner, yeah, behind Nate Wiggans and
Marlon Humphrey seventy nine percent of the defensive snaps. And
now as Jaiyir kind of continues to work his way
back into game shape after're missing so much time, I mean,
JayR needs to play better too to get on the
field more. But so Cheetos certainly I think has earned
(25:24):
those reps as now.
Speaker 1 (25:25):
But we'll see how that continues to shake out. As
the season goes on.
Speaker 3 (25:29):
All right, So we're gonna take a quick break. We
come back, we'll dive into the offensive side of the football.
You're listening to the Lage Podcast. We're coming to you
from the Sea Geek Studio. We also want to mention
our partners with Traffickings sports Book. They are an official
sports betting partner of the Baltimore Ravens DraftKings Sportsbook. The
Crown is yours. So this was a historic day on offense.
One of the notes that stood out to me. I mean,
there's a lot of impressive stats about this offense. It
(25:50):
was the highest explosive play rate thirty two percent for
any team in the NFL over the last decade, according
to Next Gen Stats. So the Ravens were putting up
explosive and to be honest, that that's why, as we
mentioned earlier, the Ravens part of the reason they only
had fifty one snaps on offense because they were scoring
so fast and like in a crazy way like that's
(26:12):
part of the reason the defense was on the field
so much.
Speaker 2 (26:14):
Like they were to slow down guys, stop getting the
end zone so fast.
Speaker 3 (26:19):
Yea, some long drives here. Enough, these four play touchdowns drives.
Speaker 1 (26:22):
Yeah, Derek, come on, man, stop down.
Speaker 3 (26:23):
On the one like, but but they were. They were
just scoring at will, especially in those first three quarters,
and so highest again, highest explosive play rate of any
team in the last deck.
Speaker 2 (26:35):
I mean that's pretty crazy. Let that sink in. Yeah,
the last decade.
Speaker 3 (26:38):
Yep.
Speaker 2 (26:38):
The most explosive team in one game. I mean, we
spent a lot of time talking about myself included how
can this offense be better than last year? They were
so good number one in the league in yards per
game last year?
Speaker 1 (26:53):
Right, might they might be better?
Speaker 2 (26:55):
And they didn't have Patrick or card and Isaiah likely
in two of your key key players in this offense.
Speaker 3 (27:02):
Yep.
Speaker 2 (27:03):
Yeah, And you're going against a pretty darn good defense
with a very physical, very physical defense of the very
good front. Now they were missing corners. I think that, like,
take that for what it is, and so I think
the Ravens took advantage of that to some degree certainly,
but still pretty darn good defense in a hostile environment
that was rocking.
Speaker 3 (27:23):
Yeah, I mean it was. The offense was great. You
score forty points, it's a great day. And individually, there's
a lot of things to like a guy that I'll
start with is Jay Flowers. I just thought Zay looks
like he's taking another step in his game. He just
continues to kind of develop.
Speaker 2 (27:41):
And he had five He averaged five point three yards
of separation from the nearest defender when he was targeted. Yeah,
which led He led all wide receivers in Week one
in receiving yards, top of the league, yards after catch,
and expected points added EPA on his targets. So right now,
Zay Flower's best receiver in the NFL in Week one.
Speaker 1 (28:01):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (28:01):
So just a just a great game from him, and
if if he can continue to play at that level,
that's a difference maker for this offense.
Speaker 1 (28:11):
Put my point three.
Speaker 2 (28:12):
Yards of separation is like how much separation I get
against you run the forty Yeah, yeah, across the finish line.
Speaker 3 (28:17):
Five point three that's an insult to day. He even
suggests that you're that quick, but yeah, like that that
that's the thing about him, Like he can get open.
He just has been able to do that. He's so shifty.
But he's also doing it down the field. They're using
him in different ways. So awesome, awesome game from Zay.
Derrick Henry obviously he had a monster night two touchdowns.
(28:38):
The fumble is the thing that, you know, he's really
kicking himself over again. In his postgame press conference, he
said that he addressed the team after the game and
took responsibility for the loss, which is really tough on
a game where where he had one hundred and sixty
nine rushing yards and two scores.
Speaker 1 (28:52):
Yeah, Lamar Jackson wasn't having any of that.
Speaker 3 (28:55):
It's like, that's that kind of speaks to what I was
talking about earlier when it was like, there's so much
to like, but then it's all tainted, and that's I
think Henry is a kind of at the top of
that list.
Speaker 2 (29:07):
Well. And Derek Henry, just the guy he is, can
guarantee all the great things he did in that game.
Speaker 1 (29:14):
Are just flushed in his mind. Yeah, guarantee it.
Speaker 2 (29:17):
Yeah, he is going to be stewing over that fumble
all the way until we kick off against the Browns.
Like that's just the kind of player he is, like
he is and beyond yes, he is his own harshest critic.
And there's you can't even see the person in number two,
you know, So it's he's going to be very, very
motivated coming off.
Speaker 3 (29:37):
Of that one note on him that stood out to me.
Next gen stats on his top speed twenty one point
seven miles per hour. So has he lost a step? No,
The answer is no. He was the fastest running back
in the.
Speaker 2 (29:48):
NFL, second fastest ball carrier behind DK Metcalf offensive ball carrier.
Speaker 3 (29:54):
Yep.
Speaker 2 (29:54):
So his top speed from last year was twenty one
point seven to two. That was his top time of
all of last season. He wasn't too far off of that.
Speaker 3 (30:03):
That happened on the forty seven yard touchdown that he had.
That was the play where he hit that top speed. So,
I mean late in the game, and he's the fastest
running back in the NFL, so he continues to just
put up.
Speaker 1 (30:15):
He's a machine.
Speaker 3 (30:15):
He's no slowing down. If you had any doubts about that,
I think he answered that pretty convincingly.
Speaker 1 (30:22):
Yep. Absolutely agree. And I thought, Lamar, you know the
Ravens offensive stars like came out to play.
Speaker 2 (30:28):
Thought the Bills continued to blitz him at a high rate.
That seems to be what they they want to do.
That's how they want to attack Lamar Jackson is keep
him in the pocket. But you also have to get
pressure on him because they'll just dice, slice and dice
you if you don't if he's just sitting back there.
Speaker 1 (30:43):
So they blitzed him at a very high rate.
Speaker 2 (30:45):
Lamar still did pretty darn well against that, completed seven
of nine passes for one hundred and forty yards and
a touchdown against.
Speaker 1 (30:52):
The Bills blitz.
Speaker 2 (30:53):
So they blitzed on forty five point five percent of
Lamar's dropbacks, the second highest rate by the Bills defense
over the past three seasons.
Speaker 1 (31:02):
You know what, the other one was.
Speaker 2 (31:03):
The only time the Bills that blitz at a higher
rate was in the twenty twenty four AFC Divisional.
Speaker 1 (31:08):
Matchup last year in the playoffs.
Speaker 3 (31:10):
They clearly have a strategy for how they want to
attack exact offense. So it didn't really work well for
the majority of this game.
Speaker 1 (31:16):
Yeah, but they kept doing it, kept.
Speaker 3 (31:18):
Doing it, and so I think that, you know, they
think that speaks to Lamar's ability to have to be
able to handle that blitz. Yep, you know, I think
the other thing too. So there's lots alike on offense.
The offensive line play obviously, the line is always a
question and coming into the season, that's the that's the
case once again, and so what's your what do you
make of the line, because some hands said, hey, man,
(31:40):
you dominated the ground game, control the line of scrimmage,
put up all these points. But then late in the
fourth quarter, they when Buffalo was really coming downhill to
stop the run, they weren't able to get the push.
They weren't able to pick up a critical first down
to move the chains and end the game. So what
do you make of the offensive line play in this opener?
Speaker 2 (31:58):
I mean, I thought Ronnie Stanley and tire linn Bomb
had really very very strong games. And I thought that
there were just too many bad plays on film from
particularly follow Ali and Rosengarten. I mean, that's just what
it was. I didn't think they had their strongest games,
you know. I thought Daniel had a tough start to
last season also, and maybe she's just a guy that
(32:21):
needs to get his feet wet a little bit more.
But you kind of you see why the Ravens played
those two guys in the preseason, some you know, tried
to get them up and going. But I didn't think
it was their best game. I thought, ed Oliver, as
I mentioned earlier, the Bills defensive tackle had a ridiculously
a very good game. It's a good player and he
(32:42):
played one of his best games.
Speaker 3 (32:44):
Yeah, I thought Ed Oliver was was great. He was
a problem at times. And actually one of the points
I think in the next one that we're going to
get to is some of the game management stuff in
a big question. I've got fan questions here. I'll come
back to Ed Oliver here in a second, but this
is a question and we got from han Win. You
can email us at the lounge at Ravens dot NFL
dot net. Uh. The email here is what an unbelievable
(33:07):
and disappointing loss for us tonight. I can't help but
feel that we were conservative at the end. We should
have put the ball in Lamar's hands to run our
pass on fourth down. He's talking about the fourth and
three situation on the Ravens final possession of the game.
Defense couldn't be stopped there. The defense couldn't stop the Bills.
So put the ball on Lamar's hands and prove the
(33:28):
world that he is the rightful MVP is what his
point was, and so how.
Speaker 2 (33:32):
About we just win the game. That's where approve right there.
Speaker 3 (33:36):
So that's that's the email. As always you can email
us at the lounge at Ravens dot NFL dot net.
So this was a big talking point coming out of
this game. Should the Ravens have gone for it? Uh
in that situation? One point, just to provide additional.
Speaker 1 (33:49):
There's context needed.
Speaker 3 (33:50):
Yes, So Lamar said after the game he was he
was cramping up at at that point. I mentioned Ed
Oliver because on that play, on the third down play,
which was a completion for seven yards to DeAndre Hopkins,
at Oliver came inside on the stunt, got to a
point where he had a free shot on Lamar Jackson
and he delivered it.
Speaker 1 (34:11):
I mean, that was one of the biggest hits I've
ever seen Lamar Jackson take.
Speaker 3 (34:14):
He got crushed on that play, you know, hit him
right after he threw the ball. Huge hit.
Speaker 2 (34:20):
And Seohn Harbaal said that when he looked at Lamar's
face as he was coming off the field after that play,
that he could sell something was off.
Speaker 3 (34:26):
Yeah, And so Lamar kind of jogged off after that play.
And if the Ravens were gonna go for it in
that situation, then John said that they would have had
a call time out there like they were. They were
not in a position to just okay, we've got the
fourth down, call ready, get right up on the line
of scrimmers. They would have to call time out there
to get things situated and then get on the line
and then run the play.
Speaker 2 (34:45):
Which is fine, you can do that, right and the like.
I think there's a you can make a case that
they should have done that. I think that's fair to debate,
you know. I it's hard to say because the medical
component with the like, could they have taken a time
out and he go back in there and have been fine?
Speaker 1 (35:06):
I don't know.
Speaker 2 (35:06):
I don't know, like how long it would have taken
for Lamar to be feeling fine, right, fine enough to
run a play successfully and now you can go down
the All right, If let's just say Lamar can't run
a play, like, can you go wildcat with Derrick Henry
and try to pick that up?
Speaker 1 (35:25):
You can?
Speaker 2 (35:26):
You know, generally speaking, the medical component aside, like if
Lamar had not gotten his bell wrung on that play
or not been cramping or whatever it was, I would
say go for it.
Speaker 1 (35:38):
That would be my hunch.
Speaker 2 (35:39):
Yeah, I think that you've seen this with Josh Allen,
You've seen it with Mahomes.
Speaker 1 (35:44):
You've seen it with these guys.
Speaker 2 (35:45):
Certainly, the way that the game was playing out at
that point, with how many defensive snaps your defense was
playing to that point, I think it was worth the
risk not to mention like they have had a very
hard time stopping your offense all day long.
Speaker 1 (36:00):
I think that was worth the gamble.
Speaker 2 (36:03):
Additionally, even if you do give them the ball back
on your side of the field and they're almost in
field goal range already, okay, if they score faster, I'm
okay with that. The last thing I want is what
ended up playing out where you have no time on
the back end to go back down the field and
try to either kick a game winning field goal or
a touchdown. Yeah, and so like I'm kind of obviously
(36:28):
you pick it up, you win the game, but like,
if you don't, there's somewhat of a benefit to them
being closer to scoring.
Speaker 1 (36:34):
And so.
Speaker 2 (36:36):
You know, if John Harball had not seen Lamar's face
and been like, yeah, he is not ready to run
a play, then I think there would have been a
higher chance of him going for it. And generally speaking,
you know, you look at the analytics and the Ravens
are the most aggressive team on fourth down. I think
it was twenty nineteen. They haven't been as aggressive in
recent years. John Harball's like gut, like just for listeners
(36:59):
out there to know, generally speaking, I think that his
football gut says be aggressive. Like if I were to
just describe to the layman likes John Harball a conservative,
aggressive coach. Aggressive is how I would describe him. Yeah,
I don't know how much the look that he saw
in Lamar Jackson's face change that.
Speaker 3 (37:19):
Yeah, and a new idea what Lamar said to the
coaches as he came off the field or whatever.
Speaker 1 (37:23):
Again, when you see.
Speaker 2 (37:24):
Your star quarterback coming off, and this is a guy
Lamar Jackson who's many times been like, let's go for it, coach,
I want the ball, Let's go for it. When you
see him jogging off doesn't instill confidence exactly well.
Speaker 3 (37:35):
And he also said, like Lamar said, had he not
been cramping, is what he said after the game, then
he would have been advocating to go for it in
that situation. So I think that the hit, the cramping
like whatever it was, like, all of that is something
that is important contact when discussing whether or not they
should have gone for it on fourth down. The other
point I think is just the play calling that led
(37:56):
up to that. Harwall did talk about that on Monday,
and you know, there's just like this, it doesn't work,
so everything gets second guess. But like, on one hand,
you like the Ravens base that they ran it twice.
The Bills burn their timeouts and so you want to
run clock. That's what you wanted to do, and so
should they should they have thrown it. Something that Hardball
(38:16):
said is maybe would have liked to see like a
play action naked boot in that situation. Everyone's comes out
on Derrick Henry and Lamar rolls out and can either
throw it or run it in that situation, and you
know you like your chances there.
Speaker 2 (38:29):
Yeah, I mean if if I've also seen people be
like that Lamar was throwing it, he was dicing them up,
like throw it, take him by surprise, throw the ball.
If if that's an incompletion, the Ravens coaches are getting
killed for not running clock in that situation, like just killed,
and so it's a pretty that's a pretty darn big risk.
(38:50):
And that's why I kind of I agree with John.
I like then naked bootleg because it gives you the
option to throw, but also like, hey, Lamar running the ball,
I'm always okay.
Speaker 3 (38:59):
With that option too, And like the other side of
it too, is just like you know what, you got
the best late game closer running back in football historically.
Just give him the ball and let him go to
work well and right.
Speaker 2 (39:11):
And that's kind of the killer of like why you know,
when you're you're talking about how the Ravens have blown
so many late fourth quarter leads, Like, theoretically the Ravens
should have an awesome offense for closing out games. I've
had the best rushing attack in the league for the.
Speaker 1 (39:27):
Last number of years.
Speaker 2 (39:29):
Here, you know, like that's what it takes to close
out games, being able to run the ball. But it's
also like being able to run the ball when you
have to run the ball. And you know, when you
have this this the most mobile, awesome running quarterback of
all time who can keep it and run the ball.
So like that's kind of part of the puzzling thing
about why the Ravens have struggled in these situations more
(39:52):
than they should is that, like, you have the recipe
to be very good in this situation.
Speaker 3 (39:58):
Right, right, I totally agree. Here's a thought here again
and email. This one's from Dusty. You emailed us the
lounge at ravenst NFL dot net. Made a number of points,
but he said all of the Ravens need to put
last night's loss firmly in the rearview mirror. I also
believe that they need to keep the pedal, the foot
on the pedal, especially on offense, until they're up at
(40:19):
least three to four scores in the fourth quarter, or
whenever the player you four scores, you know four, whenever
the players or coaches start to get a little lax,
somebody needs to step up and say the words, remember Buffalo.
I believe those words could galvanize this Ravens team and
remind them not to ever go into cruise control at
any point in any game this year. That's kind of
(40:40):
the point that it's not the exact same, but it's
it's the cold water point that you made that this
game can kind of serve as a reminder.
Speaker 2 (40:46):
And I think it's to the point that John Harwall
talked about how they're going to take a deep dive
on what their approach is in these game situations, like
how aggressive do we want to be? That's the question,
because you know you can, you can be aggressive and
get it and you get you know, burned by it, certainly.
But if you're not aggressive enough, sometimes these you get
(41:07):
these like and the other team starts to get a
little bit of hot, a little hot, a little confidence
in the snowball. It's just the snowball gets rolling downhill.
And so I think to a degree it is a
philosophical kind of question as much as it is like
what are our plays called?
Speaker 1 (41:24):
All the specifics and all that stuff.
Speaker 2 (41:25):
I like the four score rule. Let's call it the
Abraham Lincoln rule. Four score and seven years ago you got.
Speaker 3 (41:32):
Four scores in order to relax in the fourth quarter.
Anything else on offense or game management wise? Do you
want to hit? No? Okay? One more email here. This
is from Ashley Fleegel said, I'm having days off view
to start the season. We lost lost a tough one
in Kansas City last year, and then we came back
and ended up losing our home opener to the Raiders.
I'm hoping we do not have a similar situation like
(41:54):
last year after the letdown of the first game. I'd,
you know, be lying if I said that, like those
memories didn't come back in my mind as well, knowing
that you played one of the you played the team
that you lost in the playoffs the year before. In
Week one you lost a heartbreaker, and then you came
home and it's the home opener against the team who
you're heavy favorites, and everyone's picking you to win. And
so I do think, like my feeling is that the
(42:18):
memory of last year's game and what happened will help
the Ravens this week. I think that they will. They
will be reminding themselves.
Speaker 1 (42:24):
Oh, there will be a lot of talk about last
year and the Raiders.
Speaker 3 (42:27):
We were in this position last year and we dropped
the ball against the Raiders. Can't let it happen again.
I think that will be a talking point for this
team this week.
Speaker 2 (42:34):
I agree, let's be frank, you know, and we're going
to talk about the Browns later in this week. But
the Browns are always a tough out for this team
like that, and by the way, they should have beaten
the Bengals. Yeah, Like this is a pretty darn good
team with a good defense led by you know, arguably
the defense player of the year, Miles Garrett, and so
I think they're a better team than the Rai Raiders
(42:56):
were a year ago. Just say that much.
Speaker 3 (42:58):
Yeah, So again, we'll talk about that all throughout the
course of the week, but I do think that that
storyline is going to be a reminder for the team
throughout this week. So as always, you can email us
at the lounge at Ravens dot NFL dot net. Thank
you so much to everybody who emailed. It is kind
of funny, like game ends. I always love it after
a win, so it wasn't quite I wasn't as eager
to read the emails this time, but as soon as
(43:19):
the clock hit zero, the emails started hitting the inbox
and I held off for about twenty four hours for
diving into them for obvious reasons. But again, we love
hearing from you, so thank you for this emails. Make
sure you leave a rating in a review. Thank you
for listening, and we will be back with you again
later this week.
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