Tyler Huntley Airs It Out! (By His Standards…)

Ravens Pass-Catchers Through 15 Games

A playoff berth was the perfect Christmas gift! I wasn’t expecting it – I hadn’t been tracking the various clinching scenarios, was too early for me – but very glad to see it.

I saw some sentiment on Twitter that a playoff berth isn’t worth celebrating: that Ravens fans should have higher standards – a playoff berth should be expected, not praised.

Frankly, that’s ridiculous.

To me the way to think about it is like any long-term project. You’ve got milestones, right? If you’re building a new shed in your back yard, you might get the foundation down, then the framing, then the roof, then wall it off. Do you not high-five or fist pump – or at least nod with satisfaction – when the foundation is set? And again when the framing is squared away?

A playoff berth is like that. Even for a team with championship aspirations like this year’s Bills & Eagles squads, it’s an important milestone.

The Ravens have been playing without their starting QB and without their top two Wide Receivers. And still they’ve won three of four and clinched the playoffs! That’s definitely worth a first pump of satisfaction. Especially when it’s a milestone the team missed last year. Heck yeah I’m going to be pleased to get it.

Merry Christmas to us.

Last week I dinged Tyler Huntley’s arm strength. So this week, Huntley completes passes for 40 yards (to Sammy Watkins) and 36 yards (to Mark Andrews). The pass to Watkins traveled 25 or 26 air yards; the one to Andrews traveled about 21 or 22 yards. Huntley also had an incomplete intended for Josh Oliver about 35 yards up the right hash. The rest of Huntley’s day was plenty of dinking-&-dunking: completions of six yards and four yards etc.

But on the day, Huntley’s Average Depth of Target was almost 12 yards (11.9). That’s his highest figure ever in a start.  (Huntley did have two games where Lamar started and he came in later, with higher Depth of Target.)

This did lead to one of the lowest completion percentages of Huntley’s career (53%); but paradoxically one of the highest yards-per-attempt figures of his career: up over 7.7 on his first 15 attempts (though he missed his last two to finish at 6.8).

This is the value of throwing it deep, at least occasionally. It challenges the defense and opens up holes. The chunk plays change field position and put you in scoring range, in a way that steady dunk-&-dunk passing does not (sometimes). You only need to complete a couple of them to have a big impact.

Here are your receiving stats for the game:

Wouldn’t it be great if Sammy Watkins kept going at a 40-yards-per-target rate for the rest of the year (regular and postseason)?!?

This was “just” Andrews’ third game this season at 9+ yards per target. That feels like a stupid thing to point out – you have to be a good player to get to nine in any game – but last year Andrews had eight games over 10 YPT. This season Andrews battled a knee issue in October/November. He hasn’t been on the injury report since Thanksgiving, but he hasn’t necessarily looked like himself either. If this game is a sign of him returning to 100%, then that’s fantastic news, and it couldn’t come at a better time.

Demarcus Robinson’s touchdown before the two-minute warning in the first half was the first receiving touchdown by a Ravens Wide Receiver since week 3, an eye-catching statistic. It’s striking because in the first three games the Ravens had six TD receptions by Wide Receivers, along with another four to Tight Ends (Andrews & Oliver), for 10 total touchdown passes. The production shut off like a faucet, and it’s hard not to tie it to Rashod Bateman’s presence/absence.

Despite how it sounds, the Ravens have scored touchdowns in that span. They got multiple touchdown catches from Andrews & Isaiah Likely, and also touchdowns from Oliver, JK Dobbins and Kenyan Drake, so Tight Ends and Running Backs. They also got a touchdown from a Wide Receiver, but it was on a running play: Devin Duvernay’s 15-yard jet sweep against Tampa. And of course they’ve got several rushing touchdowns, from Drake & Dobbins & Gus Edwards and of course Lamar & Huntley.

Andy Reid once had one of his teams in Kansas City go an entire season without a touchdown catch by a Wide Receiver.  That was 2014. It wasn’t quite as impotent as it sounds. Alex Smith was the QB. They finished middle-of-the-pack in total scoring and points-per-drive, and had a winning record (though just missed the playoffs). Their #1 Wide Receiver was Dwayne Bowe, a pretty good player (Pro Bowler, led the league in TD catches one year, had four seasons with 1000 yards, generously counting one that was really 995). But they also had Travis Kelce in the passing game, and Running Back Jamaal Charles, a dangerous multi-threat player. The Andy Reid example shows that Wide Receiver touchdown droughts can happen to good teams with good coaches. That Kansas City coaching staff included Offensive Coordinator Doug Pederson, who won the Super Bowl with Philly and currently has the Jags in the playoffs, and also included their current coordinator Eric Bieniemy, who’s been driving the Patrick Mahomes bus for Mahomes’ whole career as a starter, including their two Super Bowl appearances.

In the modern game, Wide Receiver touchdowns are a measure of quick-strike ability. Touchdowns from other players – Tight Ends and Running Backs – like the Ravens have been getting, tend to be the result of long grinding drives. The Ravens are actually in pretty good hands on the “long & grinding” side of the house; say what you will about him, Greg Roman is a master of the long grinding drive. But probably the lack of quick-strike ability will leave them unable to keep pace with the AFC’s best offenses when the playoffs come around.

It’s a shame. It would’ve been nice to see Lamar get to play with his top outside weapons in Bateman & Duvernay.

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It’s always fourth down somewhere

John Harbaugh played it very straight on 4th-down in this game.  No controversial or aggressive decisions.  Here’s a table of the 4th-downs the Ravens faced on the day:

Just to explain the labels on this table: “To go” is the yards-to-go on that particular 4th-down. The column “Dist from EZ” is where they were on the field. On the first 4th-down, the ball was at the Baltimore 47, which is 53 yards from the End Zone.  On the next 4th-down they were at the Atlanta 3. The “Bot recc” is what The Athletic’s 4th-down decision bot recommends: the pure analytics call, usually very aggressive. The “SuccessGo%” is what percentage the bot used for how likely a go-for-it call would be to get the first down.

Not a single go-for-it decision! Uncharacteristically conservative.

I’d like to dig into this, because there’s some stuff here I think is really interesting.  Let’s begin with the last punt. The Ravens had 4th-&-9 on their own 17.  For a taste of how aggressive the pure Game Theory is, the bot has the decision whether to punt or go for it as a toss-up!  Here’s the bot:

—> ATL (6) @ BAL (17) <—
BAL has 4th & 9 at the BAL 17

Recommendation : 🤷 Toss-up (+0.9 WP)
Actual play: 🏈🦵 J.Stout punts 36 yards to ATL 47, Center-N.Moore, fair catch by A.Williams. pic.twitter.com/2dlgM9OvPy

— 4th down decision bot (@ben_bot_baldwin) December 24, 2022

This actually makes more sense that you’d think at first. Start with the score and time. With five minutes to play, the Ravens had an 11-point lead. If you go for it and fail, you still have an 11-point lead with five to play: a win probability around 93%. It bumps up to 98% if you convert the first down. So the win probability is somewhere between 93% and 98% if you go for it; and it’s 95% if you punt. Just intuitively you can see how these numbers would be very close. The decision is a “toss-up” because the overall situation is so favorable, taking the score and time into account.

The second thing I want to point out is how small these margins are. Let’s look at the second decision, which the bot calls a “Medium Go-for-it” situation:

—> ATL (0) @ BAL (0) <—
BAL has 4th & 3 at the ATL 3

Recommendation (MEDIUM): 👉 Go for it (+2.4 WP)
Actual play: 👟🏈 J.Tucker 21 yard field goal is GOOD, Center-N.Moore, Holder-J.Stout. pic.twitter.com/j7jxaSlOtT

— 4th down decision bot (@ben_bot_baldwin) December 24, 2022

Look at the Win Probabilities: 72% on kicking the Field Goal, and 74% if you go for it. That’s just a 2% change! (Actually +2.4% with rounding.) That’s a very, very small change in probability. It would be one thing if we were playing Blackjack, or planning to roll a thousand times at Craps, or something like that. If you get a large number of tries, then a small change in probability can really add up for you. But in one single trial, this change in probability is really not much at all. It’s within the rounding error! The win probability is 0.7 if you attempt the Field Goal, and 0.7 if you go for it. That’s nigh undetectable. I think we should keep that in mind, when the algorithms say one decision was “right” over another. These are small margins. Most coaches will not get to face 500 trials of this situation, to gain any statistical advantage from a +2% change in win probability.

The last thing I’d like to look at is the first decision. According to the bot, this had the highest Success%: only two yards to go, a 56% likelihood of converting, ball near midfield.  The bot has this:

—> ATL (0) @ BAL (0) <—
BAL has 4th & 2 at the BAL 47

Recommendation (MEDIUM): 👉 Go for it (+1.3 WP)
Actual play: 🏈🦵 J.Stout punts 41 yards to ATL 12, Center-N.Moore, out of bounds. pic.twitter.com/kgSpG9CddK

— 4th down decision bot (@ben_bot_baldwin) December 24, 2022

I think what Harbaugh’s decision to punt reveals is that the Falcons had a bad team. Harbs was confident in his defense’s ability to shut down Atlanta. When you’re the better team, you play low-variability strategies (safe strategies), and let your team’s superiority assert itself. It will be interesting to see how Harbaugh handles similar decisions when they arise in games against Cincinnati and then playoff opponents.

Three times Harbaugh faced fourth down inside the Falcons ten. Each time, Harbs took the points: 9 in all, in a game they won by 8. This is the corollary of the running-and-defense game plan: take points when you have them.

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Rushers

We’ve been tracking rushers the last few weeks, so let’s keep it up. Only three Ravens got carries against the Falcons. That’s an unusually shallow rotation for Roman, who likes to rotate his rushers and use everybody. It reminds me of basketball tactics, where coaches shorten their bench come Tournament time. Could be a signal that now we’re near the end of the line, win-or-go-home time, it will be the JK & Gus show at Running Back. That would be fine by me: they’re by far the best Running Backs the team has.

This time it was Gus with the outstanding game:

My stats here for Huntley will not match the box score. I removed the three kneels at the end of the game (for -1 yard each), and I added his successful run for the 2-pt conversion (2 yards). Since the 2-pt conversation was a “score”, I put a little asterisk in the TD column, though of course it’s not a TD.

This is the third straight week a Ravens Running Back has had a day with about a hundred yards and a “combo” score over 6.  (Still need a name for that stat!  Remember “combo” is just the product of Success Rate times yards-per-carry.)

Here are the top 10 Ravens rushing performances this season by “combo” (minimum 3 carries):

The leading rushers from the last three games are rows 7-8-9 above (bolded). These rushing performances are sort of “buried” on this table, in a way that hides how ridiculously good they are. Only a bunch of Lamar magic (and one out-of-body experience from Kenyan Drake) push them down this table. But to get a “combo” of 6 – think about what numbers would multiply to that. Anywhere from 10 yards-per-carry at 60% Success Rate, down to 6 yards-per-carry at 100% Success Rate (can’t be any lower than 6 ypc). A Running Back getting 15 carries would put up somewhere from 90 to 150 yards, and keep the chains moving: boom with no bust. Think of Derrick Henry dragging the Titans to the conference championship game a couple years ago.

Now think about adding Lamar Jackson to that attack.

God help me, I actually like Watkins & DeSean Jackson & Robinson as a WR lineup. Watkins & Jackson are professional as hell: you could not ask for more poised & capable pros. Robinson is more up & down, but he’s dangerous, and can make some plays. I think this group could be pretty effective on the field together, especially with Andrews & Dobbins. The problem is volume & durability. You have to manage Jackson’s snaps or else he’s not going to hold up. And Watkins has missed four or more games in four of the past five seasons. The most important ability is availability, and Watkins & Jackson are high risks in that dept.

But.

It’s like trying to catch lightning in a bottle, right? Or playing with fire, or walking a tightrope. Pick your metaphor. Sure, the likelihood is high that Watkins or Jackson will be unavailable at a pivotal moment of a game; you’ll need them and one or the other can’t go.  But – it’s only three to six games. What if they could stay healthy for that long?  A two-minute drill with Watkins & DeSean & Demarcus & Andrews & Dobbins surrounding Lamar would be interesting as hell, wouldn’t it?

Sheesh, I’m like an addict: every time I try to dismiss this team’s prospects, they do something to make me go “But wait!  What if – ?”

Mark Andrews made the Pro Bowl!  His numbers look low because we can’t help but compare them to last season. But, Andrews is the third-leading Tight End in receiving yards in the league, after Kelce and T.J. Hockenson, despite missing some time. All three are in the Pro Bowl, along with George Kittle.

Andrews: making greatness look routine.

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Would you believe the Ravens have a top-ten offense?

They appear to have gone UP in the Football Outsiders rankings, from where they were last week. Last week FO had the Ravens with the 11th-best offense (#13 pass, #2 rush). This week FO has them with the 9th-best offense (#14 pass, #2 rush).

What happened? Well, nothing really. Cleveland and Green Bay had bad games which pulled their offensive rankings down enough to drop them below the Ravens. That #14 pass component rank is pretty good for a pass offense missing its #1 Wide Receiver for most of the season, and its starting QB for the past few weeks. Just sayin’.

The Ravens are one of only two teams where Football Outsiders ranks all three phases in the top 10: #9 offense, #8 defense, #4 spec teams. Buffalo is the other team: #3 offense, #4 defense, #7 spec teams. Balance.

Next Up: New Year’s Day, and the Steelers come to town for Sunday Night Football. The Ravens can earn the right to play for the Division Title in the season finale against Cincinnati, but they will likely need to beat Pittsburgh on Sunday to get that chance.