The Good, Bad, & Ugly: Huntley Rescues Ravens

“It wasn’t pretty, but it was us.”

John Harbaugh’s classic phrase couldn’t ring any more true following the Ravens’ 10-9 home victory against the Denver Broncos on Sunday. It was ugly for 58 of 60 minutes in numerous ways: inefficiency by the offense, injuries abound, and head-scratcher after head-scratcher in the play call department.

Nonetheless, despite all of the odds against them, and a plethora of questions that will need to be answered this week, the Ravens are 8-4 and still atop the AFC North.

Today at times felt like the beginning of a 2021 retread in the injury department, a similar feeling to the game at Cleveland last year (the first time Lamar Jackson was lost to injury).

The only difference is this time the Ravens get to figure it out after walking away with a win.

Let’s get right into this week’s good, bad, and ugly from a frustratingly gritty victory.

THE GOOD

MONEY WELL SPENT

There were a lot of justified concerns this offseason when the Ravens focused so heavily on rebuilding the defense. You couldn’t make the argument that it wasn’t necessary after seeing the way things entirely fell apart last year, even before injuries took their toll, but the Ravens clearly had issues on the offensive side of the ball as well that went otherwise ignored in favor of bringing in defenders (especially in the draft).

Well, we find ourselves in a bit of a “chicken or the egg” scenario here.

The Ravens defense over the last five outings has given up a mere 15 points per game, and have essentially been the sole reason they’ve come away with victories in all but one of those games. On the flip side of that, had the Ravens addressed more of their issues on the offense heading into this year, one could argue that maybe they wouldn’t need the defense to bail them out so often.

However you want to slice it, the defense has been a brick wall since Halloween. Most indicative of that success has been their ability to get off the field on third downs, a trend that continued yet again today. Denver only managed to convert two of their twelve chances on the afternoon, which gave the offense a much-needed security net during a few key mistakes like Tyler Huntley‘s interception, and the other that we’ll discuss in a bit.

While Justin Madubuike may not be stuffing the stat sheet every week, the presence he’s brought to the interior of the defensive line has been crucial to becoming that brick wall as of late. The flashes were there over the past two years, but there’s no question that he’s been the most improved Raven at this point in the season.

No crossing🚫 @JustinMadubuike🇳🇬!#RavensFlock #NFLAfrica #Nigeria #Africa pic.twitter.com/y0vKlNx79a

— NFL Africa (@NFLAfrica) December 4, 2022

It wasn’t all good of course. After losing Patrick Queen to a leg injury that didn’t look very promising as he was being carted off the field, the question now becomes, who will step in and fill his spot?

It can’t be overstated how much more important the Roquan Smith trade looks now, especially on a day where he led the team with 11 total tackles (two of which were for a loss).

In spite of that, the defense did their job and then some on Sunday, and Mike Macdonald should be proud of his bunch.

THE BAD

THE WOE LINE RETURNS

At this point it can’t be denied that the Ravens offense line goes as Ronnie Stanley goes. They’re 5-1 in games with him, and 3-3 in some rather ugly games without him. Just when we thought it couldn’t get any worse after Carolina two weeks ago, the protection was even more dreadful today, leading to Lamar Jackson leaving the game after being injured on a sack.

COOOOOP!

Defense bringing the pressure early. 💪#DENvsBAL | 📺: CBS pic.twitter.com/F2i15uJ9HD

— Denver Broncos (@Broncos) December 4, 2022

It didn’t get any better with Huntley under center, as on almost every snap he was running for his life less than two seconds after receiving the snap. It was almost getting to the point of being uncomfortable to watch at times, as each sack felt like the defender was shot out of a cannon thanks to the Ravens offensive line beating beat off the ball.

The biggest offender on the day was Daniel Faalele who, in his defense, is the third string swing tackle and had to take on a pretty vaunted Denver front even despite losing Bradley Chubb to Miami. Nonetheless, the types of kill-shots they were allowing on the quarterbacks all day was reason number one why the offense struggled so much.

Which brings us to reason number two…

ON HIS LAST GREGS

The Ravens opened this game on offense with a run right up the A-gap, an uninspiring one-read throw out to Devin Duvernay in the slot, and a forced third and long target to Mark Andrews in double coverage. It was the Ravens 2022 offense in a nutshell, and as you’d expect they went three-and-out.

From there, the play calling didn’t get much better, although with the way the offensive line played today it’s unlikely that even a perfect gameplan would’ve produced too much better of a result. Regardless, today there were obvious situations where Roman was once again at fault, in the form of third downs.

Numerous times on third and manageable he decided to hand the ball off and force fourth downs, which led to punts or do-or-die conversions (they did convert all three of their fourth down chances today, luckily, which as we know is far from the norm).

Now, you may be thinking, “well you just sat here and talked about how the offensive line was getting Huntley destroyed, so running the ball had a better chance of success.”

And to that I’d respond, “did you see what happened when they attempted to do that?”

The rushing attack was just as abysmal, somehow scraping their way to 3.7 yards per carry thanks to some late scrambles by Huntley. Had the Ravens failed on even one of those fourth downs where the rushing game put them in a must-convert situation, we’d be sitting here talking about a loss right now.

Justin Simmons has a 2 INT day.pic.twitter.com/DYaJ1jB9VR

— Dov Kleiman (@NFL_DovKleiman) December 4, 2022

And of course, we have to mention that abomination of a halfback pass from James Proche into quadruple coverage to turn a promising drive into an interception. It’s understandable to want to reach deep into the bag of tricks on a day like this, but THAT was the call??

It was disjointed from the start, with way too long of a setup given how quickly Denver was applying pressure. What the offense was doing at the time was working on that drive, but the little amount of momentum they were able to build was stopped dead thanks to a play call you’d see from a high school coach.

We can sit here and beat a dead horse all day, but the situation is what it is. Roman calls the games how he’s going to call them, and he’ll either continue to do so for the rest of the year, or he’ll be packing his things this week and heading to California to get started on recruiting at Stanford.

Either way, this is probably the last time it’s even pertinent to mention.

THE UGLY

STRAIN LIKE A RAVEN

Earlier this year, Derek Wolfe made some comments about the Ravens strength and conditioning program that raise some eyebrows. Despite the fanbase being justifiably upset with how his stint in purple came to an end, nobody could deny that perhaps he had a point.

Former @Ravens Derek Wolfe says “Play Like A Raven” means to work until you can’t walk anymore. He says the team trains to be the best they can be in the first four weeks instead of being great in January.

— Rob Long (@RobLongSports) November 9, 2022

Once again, the injuries are piling up for the Ravens at a time where the stars are needed most. Today was the most crushing blow with the aforementioned (seemingly serious) injuries to Jackson and Queen, along with lesser but still notable bumps and bruises to Kyle Hamilton and Isaiah Likely. This process is starting to become a norm in this locker room, and it tracks exactly with Wolfe’s comments.

Despite the blown leads, the Ravens offense notoriously has always come out humming in the Lamar Jackson era. The first one-to-two months are a weekly track meet, and then slowly they start to lose pieces and their effectiveness along with it. The strength and conditioning program supposedly underwent a full evaluation last Winter and Spring, yet the issues are the same. Far be it from me to try and diagnose what a trained medical staff could be doing differently, but it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to point out that it isn’t working.

One rough injury-plagued season is bad luck, numerous rough injury-plagued seasons is a trend. A trend that unfortunately can’t be fixed this season, but it starts at the top.

THE MARGOT ROBBIE

HUNTING SEASON

Tyler Huntley had no expectation of going under center on Sunday against the Broncos, but his number was called early and he did not flinch. As we’ve seen numerous times in the past, Huntley came into the game and simply did what he had to do given the circumstances in front of him. There’s not a backup quarterback in football more equipped to turn chicken **** into chicken salad, and that was on full display on Sunday.

Denver’s defense had four sacks and five quarterback hits on the day, most of which were absorbed by Huntley in punishing fashion. Despite that, he continued to play with as much control as any quarterback could in that situation.

On the last drive of the day, he was a perfect 8-for-8 through the air, and also had a fourth down conversion on the ground to go along with the go-ahead rushing touchdown with mere seconds left on the clock. A 16-play drive that spanned 91 yards and felt very similar to the end of the Browns and Packers games last year, minus the failed two-point conversions.

Tyler Huntley just engineered a 16 play, 91 yard game-winning drive against a top 5 NFL defense

Baltimore remains in 1st place and Huntley finishes 27/32, 187 yards plus the go-ahead TD#ProUtes | @Ravens
pic.twitter.com/3HQOFYXKhs

— Porter Larsen (@Larsen_ESPN) December 4, 2022

The way that Huntley shows constant poise in the backfield and keeps his eyes downfield until he’s certain it’s time to take off is perhaps his best trait. I’m sure this will totally be taken out of contest and that’s fine, but he may even handle that aspect of the game better than Lamar.

There were a few big plays in the passing game late on Sunday where Huntley avoided heavy pressure and kept buying time for pass catchers to get open, instead of immediately looking for a lane to cut into and allowing the defenders to crash down and converge on him.

That patience proved to be a virtue, and may be essential for the Ravens going forward depending on the health of #8.

WRAP UP

Ok, time to exhale. It was an exhausting Sunday afternoon, one that could have ripple effects throughout the rest of the 2022 season, but a win is a win is a win. I emphasize that because during this time of year when backs are against the wall and the races get tight, every single one just means that much more.

It’s time for the Ravens to lick their wounds, take a long hard look in the mirror, and decide what the rest of this year is going to bring.