The Good, Bad, & Ugly: JK About the First One

It’s not a reach by any means to say that Saturday’s performance by the Baltimore Ravens in Cleveland was among the most embarrassing games in franchise history. Not just because they lost to the Browns. Not just because they lost to a quarterback who should be wearing an orange jumpsuit instead of an orange helmet, no.

This was so utterly embarrassing because in a game without their starting quarterback, on the road in a divisional matchup, it was the same old mistakes and sources of those mistakes that cost the Ravens what would’ve been their most important win of the year.

Now, they get to pray to heaven above that the Cincinnati Bengals stub their toe while playing their best football of the season, to a team playing arguably their worst in the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.

This segment is called “The good, bad, and ugly”, but this week there is no good. Could we sit here and talk about how awesome Roquan Smith was again? Sure, he had 11 tackles on the day and looked great. Could we talk about the defense as a whole cleaning up the offense’s messes on more than one occasion by holding the Browns to field goals or knocking them out of range entirely? You betcha.

However, doing so would only diminish the emphasis on what needs to be addressed coming out of this game. So, without further ado, let’s get into the bad, and ugly, from a downright forgettable afternoon in a stadium that sees less sunlight than the northern wall in Game of Thrones.

THE BAD

HE’S HUMAN AFTER ALL

The only reason this is being addressed first is because the tale of the game can’t be told without it, and it’s best to just get it out of the way before ranting on this team’s real issue. In the grand scheme, it was the least of the Ravens’ problems on the day. Nonetheless, for the first time in years, the greatest kicker of all-time Justin Tucker looked human.

After drilling a 53 yard field goal in the first quarter to tie the game at three, Tucker would have two other attempts at inching the Ravens closer in this one. The first, from 48 yards away on the last play of the first half, pushed wide and allowed Cleveland to enter halftime with the 6-3 lead.

Marlon Humphrey says Justin Tucker told team "This game is on me" (missed FG & FG blocked). Humphrey says they told Tucker: "Don't ever say that again…that's the last person anyone is worried about at all." @WJZ @WJZ13sports pic.twitter.com/NF1ENbKEid

— Mark Viviano (@MarkWJZ) December 18, 2022

The second attempt came at the beginning of the 4th quarter, an attempt that would’ve made it a 13-6 game (not that it would’ve ultimately mattered) had it not been blocked by a Browns defender.

Tucker is amazing, and there’s zero doubt that he’ll be back to his successful ways next week as long as the offense can get the ball past the 50 yard line and not turn it over, which is admittedly probably asking a lot. This just goes to show that even the best players at their positions can be human sometimes, and when those around them don’t step up, bad things happen.

DROOP HUNTLEY

Last year, Tyler Huntley had all the analysts talking about how if given a chance to start in the NFL he would be successful. Those sentiments were warranted, as Huntley put the Ravens and their defense full of plumbers on his back and was all but the sole reason they stayed in games last year. All of that just makes what we’ve seen in Lamar Jackson‘s most recent absence that much more perplexing.

To be fair to Huntley, last year he was still operating with Marquise Brown and Rashod Bateman on the outside, which really is just another indictment of the front office’s inability (or sheer lack of desire) to give their quarterback a deep stable of quality weapons to work with. Tyler Linderbaum has been great, there’s no denying it, but the expectation that this team was going to be fine after trading their number 1 receiver from the last three seasons and relying on a receiver group featuring exactly one player with any sort of real potential was insane from the start. If you don’t have 3-4 above average pass catchers in today’s NFL you’re putting yourself firmly behind the 8-ball, and we’re seeing the dreadful effects of that right now.

Denzel Ward gets an interception in the red zone. Browns ball pic.twitter.com/eqvkuYslV9

— WynnBET (@WynnBET) December 17, 2022

Still though, despite all of that, Huntley was downright bad on Saturday. Whether it was refusing to throw the ball out of bounds and taking three-yard losses on more than one occasion, throws over the heads of the likes of Mark Andrews and Devin Duvernay, or the momentum killing (and probably game killing) interception at the start of the 4th quarter after the Ravens had their first real momentum of the day.

It’s a trend that’s continued for the third week in a row. Don’t let the completion percentage fool you, he was bad against Denver save for one single drive (albeit an important one), he was even worse last week before leaving with the concussion, and this week was the cherry on top. It’s rare to see a guy get worse as he spends more time on the field, but that’s what we’ve seen from him since Lamar Jackson went down.

If it wasn’t painfully obvious that this team is screwed without LJ before this game, it sure is now.

THE UGLY

I’M WITH STUPID

John Harbaugh and Greg Roman should purchase matching t-shirts with this phrase printed on them, and wear them every single day this week. Is that too harsh? Maybe, but that’s exactly what every single person outside of their building (and probably a lot of people inside of it) is thinking right now. For Harbaugh, the stupidity comes by still even allowing Roman to enter the team facility after what we’ve seen over the last month.

Then again, what would he do without his buddies around? It’s the type of thing that makes you want to bash your head against the wall.

John Harbaugh: “Gotta put up more points, bottom line.” pic.twitter.com/hR31p9HOKP

— Jonas Shaffer (@jonas_shaffer) December 18, 2022

There’s always more than one ultimate determining factor in losses, but every single time the Ravens underperform offensively, the buck starts and stops with one person. Every single time we’re dissecting why the Ravens lost a game, the majority of the issues stem from Roman and his play calling. The old John Harbaugh was fierce; he would’ve never stood for this kind of outright pathetic performance on a consistent basis. When Marty Mornhinweg had the offense stagnant for two years he pulled the plug, and before him Marc Trestman suffered a similar fate in the same amount of time. Hell, the guy fired Cam Cameron before Week 15 in 2012 and went on to win a Super Bowl!

Yet again this week though, his postgame press conference was filled with the same old dead-eyed look, telling reporters “we have to put up more points” and other obvious sentiments that even someone with zero access to any of their five senses could point out. He appears to just be tired at this point, going through the motions without any real fire underneath him. Save me the locker room videos after wins. Anyone can get up after that, it’s when you’re faced with adversity that we see what you’re really made of.

This version of John Harbaugh is one that’s seemed almost content; if he wasn’t, a change would’ve been made already.

When it gets to be nut cutting time in February, maybe the man we’re about to discuss shouldn’t be the only one looking for work.

THE REVERSE MARGOT ROBBIE

DON’T LET THE DOOR HIT YOU 

Had we gone with the traditional approach this week, the winner of this award would’ve been J.K. Dobbins. Enough can’t be said about how hard he’s worked not only to be on the field this season, but to be a legitimate threat for the Ravens in the process. This is now his second game with 120 or more yards in as many tries since returning to the field. He’s been the only real spark for this offense since Jackson went down, and would probably be a top-5 statistical back if he was on a team who knew how use him like it. This performance could’ve been even better too, had he been given ONE SINGLE CARRY in the fourth quarter. This leads us to this week’s reverse Margot, for the ugliest performance by any Baltimore Raven this week, on the field or off of it.

Drumroll please!

Another turnover on downs forced by the @Browns defense.

📺: #BALvsCLE on @NFLNetwork 
📱: Stream on NFL+ https://t.co/lm2Xcetxj7 pic.twitter.com/pI7clHytJW

— NFL (@NFL) December 18, 2022

Greg Roman, come on down! It’s rare when one singular stat can define the story of a football game, but in this case it’s applicable. The Ravens threw the ball 30 times on Saturday, and ran it only 28. That’s it, there’s your headline for Monday morning. Despite the fact that Dobbins was in the midst of yet another career day, despite the fact that Gus Edwards was ripping off over seven yards per carry in his own right, Roman decided the best way to win this game would be to allow Huntley to throw the ball THIRTY times.

Not only that, but the situational aspect of these passing plays only magnified how horrible it all was.

The Ravens would pick up a first down on the ground after a few successful runs, get the rhythm going just a bit, and then Roman would stifle it by calling a pass on 1st and 10 on the following set of downs. Or, in another instance that occurred more than once over the course of the afternoon, the Ravens would be set up in a 2nd and manageable, prime position to keep pounding the rock and setting up at worst a 3rd and short, right?

Wrong. Pass-pass, 4th down, punt/FG/failed conversion.

This type of play calling cost them points and killed drives on both the Tucker blocked field goal and the turnover on downs in the following possession. These aren’t 1st quarter drives where you’re trying to see if you can catch the defense off guard; he’s actively blowing it for the Ravens when the game is literally on the line and you need to do what’s working for your offense. Some people in the fanbase have spread conspiracy theories as of late that Roman is legitimately out to sabotage this offense, and while that’s obviously still not the case, those people’s arguments have never looked stronger than they do today.

It must be nice, to be so downright awful at your job on an almost weekly basis and know that no matter what you’re still going to get to see the year through. Some of us common folk would kill to have that kind of job security, am I right? I don’t know about all of you, but if I was this bad at my day job I would’ve been fired long ago.

At this point he’s almost surely gone this off-season, but the lasting damage could already be done. The public opinion is that friends of John Harbaugh could do anything short of committing a felony and keep their jobs, and that sentiment has been strengthened ten-fold thanks to this entire Roman situation. The NFL is a business-first league, and if your fans have it in their heads that their head coach cares more about personal relationships than the success of the team they spend their hard earned money on, eventually they’re just going to stop coming to the stadium on Sundays. We’re already starting to see the evidence of this, as the stadium against Denver a couple weeks back had a lot of empty purple seats.

When is the last time you saw that for a December Ravens game when the team was right in the thick of the AFC North race? Sad.

Eric DeCosta finds himself in an unenviable spot this off-season, one where he’s going to have to do something his head coach won’t: putt the success and future of the team above all else. It may take having a difficult discussion across the fence in his backyard, but that’s life in the NFL.

It’s the National Football League, not the National Friends League.

WRAP UP

That honestly felt better than I expected it to. Writing this all out was cathartic in a way, and I hope it was just as much so for all of you out there still reading. The anger and desperation you feel about this football team right now is warranted, and don’t let anybody tell you otherwise. Here’s hoping that Lamar can come back next week on Christmas Eve and begin to right the ship, but since Thanksgiving even the wins have felt like nothing more than delaying the inevitable.

It’s going to be an interesting six weeks coming up for the Ravens, one way or the other, and the way it’s handled by the front office may very well determine the next few years of this team entirely. Buckle up.