Stock Up
Patrick Queen
Was this the best game of Patrick Queen’s career? While that may be debatable, what is not is that the first drive of the game was Queen’s best ever. He left his mark all over that drive, one where the Bengals drove into the red zone but were forced to settle for a field goal. It took Cincinnati only four plays to get inside the Ravens’ 15-yard line. From there, Queen took over.
He took down Joe Mixon after a catch for a short gain on first down, shot through into the backfield to take down Mixon for a loss on second down and blanketed Mixon into the back corner of the end zone to force an incompletion on third down. Maybe the greatest three play sequence from any Raven defender this season.
Queen’s turnaround from early season to now has been incredible to see. He’s missing fewer tackles, identifying plays better and even maturing in coverage a bit as we saw on Sunday.
James Proche & Tylan Wallace
The two young receivers had been almost completely uninvolved in the offense to begin the season but have both come on as of late. Tylan Wallace, after hauling in his first career catch last week, added another this week that went for 18 yards and a tough first down, and James Proche led all wide receivers in catches and yards with seven and 76, respectively.
Built for This 💪🏽 pic.twitter.com/U3jbuUxDWW
— Tylan Wallace (@OfficialTylan2) December 27, 2021
With Devin Duvernay and Sammy Watkins banged up, it’s been great to see the youngsters step up. Moving forward, Proche and Wallace could play a big role in the offense and on special teams as the season winds down.
For the first time maybe in franchise history, the Ravens can go into an offseason with WR not being one of their biggest needs. They’ve drafted two WRs in each draft every year for the last four drafts and they’ve sprinkled in some veteran free agent signings throughout. That won’t be needed this offseason. Marquise Brown, Rashod Bateman, Duvernay, Proche and Wallace are a super solid top-five wideout group.
Stock Down
Sammy Watkins
A veteran receiver signed this offseason, Sammy Watkins has seen his role offensively shrink by the week since he missed four weeks and returned from injury in Week 10.
Watkins weeks 1 through 5: 32 targets, 19 catches, 292 yards, 70.6% of offensive snaps played average per game
Watkins since Week 10: 16 targets, 9 catches, 102 yards, 38.5% of offensive snaps played average per game
Most of this has been due to the rise of young receivers Bateman, Duvernay, Proche and Wallace. Watkins is a free agent after the season and with the other receivers playing so well of late, it’s becoming increasingly likely this will be the last and only season Watkins spends in Baltimore.
Who cares?
Maybe this is lazy on my part, but no one that matters in terms of the team’s long term plans played poorly. Who cares if Kevon Seymour and Robert Jackson couldn’t guard a parked car?
The offense, on its third QB, scored 21 points with all the young receivers involved. A few defensive players had awesome games. The obvious liabilities were in the secondary, a group littered with practice squad promotions. Bengals QB Joe Burrow threw for 525 yards, the fourth most yards in a single game in NFL history, and the 575 total yards surrendered is the most in franchise history. Cincinnati pass-catchers Tee Higgins, Tyler Boyd, Ja’Marr Chase and C.J. Uzomah were open for huge gains consistently, and it’s ultimately what beat Baltimore. No matter how many points the offense could have scored, it was blatantly obvious the defense was never going to get the stop it needed.
