How Good are the Ravens? (And Why Doesn’t it FEEL Like It…)

Ravens Pass-Catchers Through 9 Games

Here’s how much of a worry-weenie I am:

You know how NFL teams from the West Coast typically struggle in 1PM games on the East Coast?  From 2003 through 2019, home teams went 138-95 (.592) in those games.  I had been taking some comfort in that thought, leading up to Sunday’s game.  I woke up Sunday morning, stretched, and enjoyed the feeling of having slept in a little but it was still (relatively) early.  But then I froze: maybe “falling behind” for the Daylight Savings Time shift would undo some of the West Coast to East Coast disadvantage for the Seahawks!  Pete Carroll’s teams are always tough & physical on defense: maybe that restored hour would make the difference between a comfortable win for the Ravens and a disheartening loss!  I got out of bed distinctly anxious.

Yeah, that turned out not to be something worth worrying about.  Did you expect a laugher?  An easy, no-question-about-it, rest your starting QB in the 4th quarter laugher?  I did not.

We should take note of blowout wins.  One of the first pieces of research that Football Outsiders ever did, back in 2005, was on blowouts vs close wins.

The takeaway was, as fans we tend to think that a close win over a good team is a mark of championship quality.  But it turns out that blowout wins, even over bad teams (“stomps”), are a hallmark of championship contenders.  “Winning blowouts is a far better indicator of championship quality than winning close games.”  We think about teams “learning how to close out tough wins”; but the teams that compete for Super Bowls generally have a habit of not even being in close games, because most opponents can’t hang with them.

So far on the season the Ravens have four wins by two touchdowns or better.  That sounds like they’re racking up the “stomps.” However, there’s a problem with applying the “Guts & Stomps” logic to those wins: those four teams are actually good!  The Texans, Browns, Lions & Seahawks have a combined record of 20-12 (.625).

Interesting. So how good are the Ravens?

Net Points, DVOA & the Eye Test

The stat “net points” is how much a team has scored minus how much they’ve given up.  It’s how much a team has outscored its opponents by.  (Also called “Points Differential”, or PD.)  It’s a quick-&-dirty way to get a handle on “how good” a team is.  But despite being a rough tool, it’s surprisingly resilient.  The great teams score and prevent the opponents from scoring.  That shows up in the Points Differential.

This year in the NFC, the Niners have your traditional Kyle Shanahan offense with playmakers, and they have that nasty front line.  They lead the NFC with a Points Differential of +78.  The Cowboys are right behind them at +72.  The Eagles, who are supposed to be great, have not blown teams out quite as expected.  Their Points Differential is merely +57.  And they haven’t exactly played Murderer’s Row: Washington twice, Tampa, Vikes, Patriots, Rams.  Yeah, divisional opponents are tough, and they’ve also played the Cowboys & Dolphins.  Still, that PD is not what you’d expect.

Over in the AFC, the Bills are at +80, the mighty Chiefs at +65, and the pinball-machine Dolphins at +60.  Very solid numbers.

If you had to guess, what team do you think is ahead of all of them? That’s right: your Baltimore Ravens are +115 in Points Differential on the season.  How good is that?  It’s a hyoooooj lead over the league, 35 points more than the 2nd-place team.  The Points Differential that the Ravens have posted through nine games would have been the 6th-best number for any team last year over the entire season.  It’s a striking number.

I think we start to get some insight as to how these Ravens can be rated as one of the best teams through nine games that DVOA has ever tracked:

Look at the teams these Ravens are in company with.  The Imperfect Patriots of 2007.  The ’91 Redskins, one of the most imposing single-season juggernauts of all time.  The ’85 Bears.  The 90s Cowboys.  These teams are monsters.

But – why doesn’t it feel like these Ravens are THAT GOOD?

One reason has to do with the early losses to Indy & Pittsburgh.  Those losses took the spotlight off – “the Ravens aren’t there yet” – and left observers with a reasonable amount of fuel for doubt.  But it’s also true that the Ravens had a lot of mitigating injuries for those games.  There is room for thinking the team is better than it showed in those games.

Aaron Schatz wonders out loud about the discrepancy between DVOA and perception in his weekly column linked above.  His thought process is interesting:

I noted on Twitter that I don’t think the Ravens are truly this good. I think they are the best team in the NFL right now, but not by such a gigantic margin. I don’t think they’re really one of the best teams ever. I would like to see them beat a top team, such as the Bengals in two weeks with a healthy Joe Burrow. On the other hand, isn’t it moving the goalposts a bit to claim that they haven’t beaten a top team yet? They dominated the Seahawks, who were in the top 10 a week ago. They dominated the Lions, who are still in the top five right now. Do you feel like it doesn’t count unless they beat a top AFC team? Well, Cleveland is a top AFC team, currently eighth in DVOA, and the Ravens dominated them too. Is DTR really that much worse than Deshaun Watson right now to make that Baltimore win “not count” as a win over a top team?

First of all, in case you are wondering why the creator of DVOA would disbelieve what DVOA is telling him – you create a ranking algorithm to tell you something you don’t already know/can’t already observe just looking.  The point of DVOA is to tell him something that the eye test doesn’t. So he expects some counter-intuitive results.  For example, the won-loss record might obscure a team that has performed really well on a play-by-play basis but got unlucky with turnovers.  I think he would read this table as saying, “Baltimore may be even better than we think,” along with “Philly has not yet performed up to expectations.”  It’s not the last word, it’s an indicator.

I think what “we” (the football world) are waiting for, is the Ravens to play a team that is good on both offense and defense.  The Seahawks were top-ten on offense, average on defense.  The Cards are quite bad on defense.  The Texans seem to have struck gold with their rookie QB, but the Ravens got him in is very first start.  The Bengals are super-dangerous, but Joe Burrow was hurt for that game.  The Brownies have a historic defense, but played the Ravens without a QB.  The Steelers have all-world edge rushers (and mystical voodoo powers vs the Ravens), but they also have no QB.  The Titans are decent on defense (ranked #13), but not good on offense.

The only team the Ravens have played, that is quite good on both sides of the ball, is Detroit.  They’re currently 5th (in DVOA) on offense, 8th on defense.  But the Ravens slaughtered Detroit.  So — how good are these Ravens?

No one brings you back to earth quite as firmly as your division rivals.  We’ll pick up a lot of info in the next week-&-a-half.

Big Inning

We talked about Todd Monken and “Big Inning Theory” a couple weeks ago.  In the second quarter of Sunday’s game, the Ravens scored 17 points to take a two-touchdown lead into halftime.  Ballgame.

A multi-touchdown lead enabled Monken to lean into the run game.  The Seahawks defense came into the game with the 5th best success rate allowed vs the run. In the second half the Ravens rushed 21 times for 177 yards.  These three run plays all occurred in the second half:

— Gus Edwards up the middle for 42 yards (Q3, first play)

— Keaton Mitchell behind left guard for 40 yards, TD (Q3 00:36)

— Keaton Mitchell around the right end for 60 yards (Q4 11:28)

I suppose that means that on the other 18 rush attempts of the second half, the Ravens gained less than 2 yards-per-carry. But hitting the occasional “explosive,” while running out the clock with a big lead, was way too much for the Seahawks to overcome.

Is it Time to Compare this Year’s Offense with 2019?

Honestly – no.  That year’s offense led the league in scoring, and was #1 in both pass DVOA and rush DVOA.  This year’s Ravens offense is “only” 6th in scoring & yards, 4th in DVOA.  That offense was better; just steamrolled people.

But let’s compare them anyway.  I think there is an interesting point here.

Compared to 2019, on this year’s team:

• the O-line is mixed; stronger inside and weaker at the Tackles;
• the RBs are not as good (although Mitchell just made things very interesting!);
• and the passing-game personnel, the QB + WRs + TE, are distinctly better.

 

There honestly is no comparison at the WR position group, in breadth/depth/established skill/top-end talent.  And in 2019, Lamar Jackson and Mark Andrews were in their first full season as starters, as opposed to the seasoned & hardened players they are now.

What does that bode for the second half of the season, and (potentially) into the postseason?  You know as much as I do.  I’ll just say, it could be very interesting.  The next couple weeks will give us a lot of info.

It’s Officially Time to Worry About…

FUMBLES!  Are you kidding me?!?  The fumbles!  OMG!

The Ravens. Cannot. Keep. Putting. The damn ball. On the f***ing ground!

Just can’t do it.

I’m not diving into any film for this, but off the top of my head most of the fumbles group into these three categories:

• Open-field loaf-of-bread ball-carrying (Lamar, Odell Beckham, Kenyan Drake, Justice Hill).
• Mesh point miscues between Lamar and Hill.
• Strip sacks where the Left Tackle is beat clean & fast, and Lamar is in his throwing motion.

 

I am irritated by, but not worried by, the open-field bread loaf fumbles.  Those guys know they shouldn’t do that; you know they were kicking themselves on the way back to the sideline.  I doubt we see that from either Lamar, Hill, or Odell this season (and Drake is no longer on the team).  Lamar in particular has visibly secured the ball on his runs since that fumble.  Maybe one more player will make that particular blunder the whole rest of the season; probably a young guy. The doghouse awaits.

The mesh point: at this point, that’s just gotta go.  For whatever reason, Lamar and Hill are not executing that well.  I can believe that Todd Monken did not have his players practice that mesh point this offseason anywhere NEAR as much as Greg Roman did.  And remember that Hill was RB3 before J.K. Dobbins got hurt; whereas Gus Edwards has been doing that with Lamar since 2018.  I can believe that Gus & Lamar still have “it” on that particular exchange, while no other pair does.

So ditch it!  The juice is not worth the squeeze.  Hill is a good player, but he’d have to be Eric Dickerson to be worth the fumble rate the Ravens have incurred on that exchange.  Ditch it.  Hill can carry the ball on other plays, but the option mesh with him should go in the trash for the rest of the year.

The strip sacks are a thornier issue.  You sure as hell aren’t going to bench Ronnie Stanley, even if he’s not currently playing like we expect.  One aspect of the situation is the possibility that Stanley trends up little by little as the year goes on, eventually getting to something like his previous form.  (Hopefully just in time for the postseason!)  The best possible version of this Ravens squad – the version that can win a Super Bowl – has Stanley playing at his Pro Bowl level on Lamar’s blindside.  He has to be given time to work himself up to that.

In the meantime, Myles Garrett is coming to town.  I expect to see Patrick Ricard on the field, a lot, to help with the pass blocking.  It’s weird to think of a 300-lb Fullback as an essential piece of the passing attack, but Ricard has made himself indispensable.  Fascinating player.

Play of the Game

Not really.  The actual Play o’ Game is probably Mitchell’s big run up the sideline.  Or if you want something from the first half, when the Ravens were staking their lead and the game was still competitive, then maybe Lamar’s big scramble down the right sideline. (But they didn’t score on that drive, so maybe not.)

No, this is just “the play I want to draw your attention to” from the game.  It’s a dinky little 4-yard gain to Rashod Bateman, on 3rd-&-7 so not even a successful play.  But look at this:

#Arroganthands pic.twitter.com/bg553auaA1

— Spencer Schultz (@ravens4dummies) November 7, 2023

Here’s a still from the moment the ball leaves Lamar’s hand.  Anticipation much?

Lamar is throwing into the second window while Bateman is still in the first. And he somehow magically keeps the ball out of the linebacker’s reach. This throw can’t be intercepted: if Bateman can’t get there, no one can, it’ll just bounce harmlessly. But then look at the catch!  Bateman snags this off his shoelaces with his fingertips:

It’s a mildly ridiculous catch.  It’s almost a “rescue,” but maybe too perfectly placed around defenders to call it that. Still, a difficult snag.

Kind of a shame that this caliber of throw-&-catch was “wasted” on this play, which accomplishes nothing.  It’s the 4th play of the 3rd quarter, at the 13:30 mark. It doesn’t gain the first down, and it wouldn’t matter if it fell incomplete.  Justin Tucker wasn’t going to miss the Field Goal from the 30, and it’s not like getting to the 26 suddenly put them into Tucker’s “range.”

But an offense is made from building blocks.  Take note of how much Lamar trusts Bateman’s “catch radius”, and just file that away.  It may mean something down the line.

Stats

Nine different receivers targeted; four players with 4+ targets. Those four players (Likely, Odell, Andrews, Bateman) were the “drive train” of the offense Sunday. On passes to those players, Lamar went 21 of 26 (81%) for 206 yards (7.9 yds-per) with a TD and no INTs, for a passer rating of 112.5.

Isaiah Likely’s best game this season.  He doubled his season total of catches.

Bateman’s highest-target game of the season, building on his strong showing last week.  By contrast, Zay Flowers’ lowest-target game of the season, following up on a bad game last week. I seriously doubt there was any intent to “punish” Flowers.  This probably represents a combination of trying to involve Bate more plus defenses keying on Flowers as Lamar’s favorite target.

But keying on a Wide Receiver while letting Mark Andrews run wild has never been a recipe for defensive success against Lamar’s Ravens.  This may be a hint that the diversity of the Ravens passing game is slowly forcing opposing defensive coordinators into a corner, where all their choices are bad.

Ravens pass-catchers were last in the NFL this week with an average of 3.3 yards-after-catch on complete passes.  This tracks, for me: Pete Carroll has always taught tackling at a very high level. He may have been the best coach of tackling in the league over his tenure in Seattle.  It’s not a shock that his defenders would put players on the ground after the catch.  But with Lamar completing 81% of his passes, the gains were already made.

Season Stats & Leaderboard Watch

Here are the full-season stats to date:

Andrews and Flowers rank #31 and #32 in the league in receiving yards; Andrews #3 among TEs.  Andrews is 21st in Success Rate; 8th among TEs.

Flowers ranks 17th in the league in catches; 31st in yards.  Andrews is 6th among Tight Ends in receiving yards.  Nelson Agholor ranks 13th in yards-per-target.  Andrews ranks 3rd in yards-per-target among Tight Ends – behind George Kittle and Jonnu Smith (surprise!), not Travis Kelce.

Andrews’ team-leading Receiver Success Rate ranks 19th in the league; 6th among Tight Ends.  He fares better in advanced stats: 3rd in DYAR among TEs (behind Kelce & Kittle) and in DVOA (min 12 targets).

Lamar ranks #1 in the league in completion percentage, with 71.5%.  Remember that the Ravens had seven dropped passes against the Steelers: Lamar’s completion% could be up over 74%! He’s fourth in yards-per-attempt, second in (low) INT%, sixth in passer rating.  He’s ninth in Passer Success Rate.

The Ravens offense is 5th in points-per-drive, 8th in scoring percentage, and 6th in points-per-game.  That sounds good, right?  Top ~5.  But just “good:” it doesn’t sound dominant, does it?  But consider the opponents.  Of the Ravens’ nine opponents so far, three of them are in the top eight for defense (by DVOA); another three are in the top 13; another two of them are 18th & 19th (Houston & Seattle), which is close to average.  Only Arizona is actually bad on defense (#31).

Here’s that list in table form:

Making the top 5 in points-per-drive might actually be impressive, given a tough slate of opposing defenses.  Something to keep in mind, as the Ravens prepare to host the #1 defense.

The DVOA playoff odds currently have the Ravens as the team most likely to win the Super Bowl.  Those playoff odds are calculated using simulation with DVOA as input.  The Ravens make the Conference Championship Game in about 55% of the simulated scenarios; make the Super Bowl in a little over a third of them (35%); and win the SB in almost a quarter of scenarios (23%).  That is crazy high.  I would ordinarily knock on wood about odds that high.  But: it’s rare to be that high, especially at the midpoint of the season.  So I feel it should be noticed and appreciated.  Who knows how long it will last?

Next Up: Back into the division!  The Browns bring their historic defense into Baltimore.  They also bring their starting quarterback!  So this game shapes up to be different from the first match.  However, Deshaun Watson has a problem.  Both of Cleveland’s starting tackles are out for the game.  Not ideal, against a Ravens team leading the league in sacks.  This will be interesting.

On the horizon: Thursday Night Football, in Baltimore.

Subplot: will I be able to work on a short week, and get this column out before Cincy game??  Tune in to find out!