Ravens Receiving Report: Week 16
The Ravens nearly beat the Packers! Just a successful 2-pt conversion away! That would have been a hell of a statement win.
It’s emblematic of this Ravens season. “Almost!” It would’ve been amazing to see what the healthy version of this Ravens squad could have done this season.
Tyler Huntley completed 70% of his passes in this game, but his play was nowhere near as good as that stat would suggest. He attempted 40 passes, and the Ravens gained only 215 yards on those plays. That’s not enough. As usual, part of the problem was pressure. But also part of it is Huntley’s style of play. He’s the opposite of Lamar in this respect. Lamar holds the ball too long rather than taking the easy gain, always looking to push it downfield, where Huntley takes too many short gains, and doesn’t push it downfield enough. Somewhere between their two approaches is the happy medium, but maybe the Ravens can’t do the happy medium this year, without better play from the Offensive Tackles.
Game stats:
Mark Andrews is a beast. He crossed the thousand-yard mark on the season. More on his season with the full-year stats.
Nice to get a James Proche sighting. His first target in seven games (since Cincy); his first catch since the Indy game in Week 5. To me, Proche has demonstrated that he deserves more burn.
No one else did anything. It’s sad to look at, statistically. To receivers other than Andrews & Proche, Huntley attempted 25 passes and gained only 71 yards. That’s 2.8 yards-per-attempt despite completing 68%. Something is wrong there, either through design or QB execution. A whole lot of ineffective completions.
Marquise Brown was used completely differently from Huntley’s previous two games. Huntley & Brown had failed to sync up on deep bombs the last two times out – bombs that would have been game-changing – so the Ravens used Marquise in the short game, I guess to jump-start him. The results don’t look that great to me.
Can we talk about Marquise’s trend? He’s had one good game (Minnesota) over the last seven, plus one okay game (Pittsburgh). Here’s his last seven:
That’s half the season, and it’s bad. I don’t know whose “fault” that is – these numbers look different if Huntley throws a better ball on one or two of those bombs versus Cleveland – but the Ravens haven’t been getting enough from their “number 1 Wide Receiver” for half the season.
Pro Bowl selections came out, and Andrews was named the starter for the AFC! Travis Kelce is the backup. It’s a terrific acknowledgment of the season Andrews is having: well deserved. Kelce & Andrews are 7th & 8th in the NFL in receiving yards, just four yards apart. That race will come down to the wire. Andrews is on pace for 1214 through 16 games, which would edge out Michael Jackson’s 1996 for the Ravens record for receiving yards in a season. No asterisk either, if Andrews gets it in 16 games.
Lamar also made the Pro Bowl, as QB #3. I’m a little surprised, because the Pro Bowl often is just about stats. But I’m very pleased. When you consider the team context at O-line & running back, Lamar’s performance this season has been better than his stats. It deserves recognition.
Next up: Merry Christmas, and on to Cincinnati! First place in the division on the line.
