Report Card: Ravens Lose a Yuck-Fest to Browns

For all of the moments of brilliance the Ravens have shown throughout this season, they have also displayed infuriating bouts of incompetence and sloppiness that have prevented them from sporting the 10-0 record they legitimately could have right now.

Ladies and gentlemen of the football-watching world, I present today’s revolting defeat to the Cleveland Browns as evidence of this agonizing personality trait.

Let’s get to the grades.

Offense

Overall: D-

They put up 31 points against arguably the best defense in the league and they get a D-? Yes. Yes, they do. The Ravens scored their first touchdown on a pick-six and their second on a brilliant run by a running back that only got two more carries. They only produced 306 yards, allowed three sacks, converted two out of eight third downs, threw two picks and struggled in the run game all day, outside that one carry. It was bad.

The Browns have a fantastic defense. The Ravens still stunk on offense.

Quarterback: D+

Lamar Jackson threw those two picks, and had another that was wiped out by a flag (he may have only thrown it once he saw the flag, to be fair). He missed Zay Flowers on a deep one when the rookie had a clear step. The pick at the end of the first half was ugly, and the second one was a bit of bad luck after a batted pass.

Now, there was some good. The ball to Odell Beckham Jr. for his touchdown was on time, and on target. Keaton Mitchell had a potential touchdown pass go off his hands. It wasn’t all bad, and he was under a lot duress all day, but this was not his best game of the year. There were also some nice passes to Flowers in the second level throughout the day.

Running Backs: D

Mitchell had that terrific early touchdown run, and then amazed again with a catch-and-run for 32 yards. He also drew a holding flag that negated that other interception. Gus Edwards had little room to operate all day, but did power in for a touchdown run. Justice Hill had a touchdown wiped out by a flag on Tyler Linderbaum. The backs combined for 26 yards on 15 carries outside that big Mitchell run.

Receivers: C+

Zay Flowers looked pretty good, with 73 yards on five catches and a few ankle-breakers along the way. Mark Andrews was fairly quiet, with only two catches, but his 36-yarder late in the third quarter was a big one. Rashod Bateman did a nice job getting open for an 18-yard catch-and-run in the first quarter, but only had four targets. Odell Beckham Jr. looked like his old self on that slant, snatching it cleanly and pulling away for the score.

Offensive Line: D-

They struggled — predictably so. They had a hard time opening running holes all day, and Jackson never really looked comfortable in the pocket. Ronnie Stanley got flagged for a pair of false starts, and got beat by Myles Garrett on one play, but I think it was more of a coverage pressure than anything else. He was blocked for a long time. Patrick Mekari got a note from me for his job picking up a corner blitz in the third quarter, but he got abused by Garrett for a sack later that quarter. Ben Cleveland and John Simpson combined to make a nice crease for Edwards’ touchdown run. The Browns’ defensive line won this matchup handily.

Defense

Overall: D+

They gave up 373 yards and 16 points in the fourth quarter. They got their pride taken a bit with a 17-play touchdown drive that lasted more than 10 minutes, and the Browns ran it down their throat much of the game. The pass defense was very good in the first half, but gave up too much in big moments. They let Deshaun Watson get out of too many sacks, and let him off the hook way too often.

Defensive Line: C-

They got gashed. The Browns ran for 178 yards, and seemed to have a push nearly every run. Jadeveon Clowney looked good against his old mates, with two sacks and two tackles for loss, but he let Watson escape him a few times, too. Justin Madubuike had another sack, and three quarterback hits. Michael Pierce had some moments, but the line got pushed around too much. Odafe Oweh continued his good season, with another sack and two more hits on Watson.

Linebackers: C+

Roquan Smith was kind of everywhere, with 21 tackles, including 14 of the solo variety. The problem was that too many were downfield after the Browns had another five- or six-yard run. Patrick Queen contributed nine tackles, but didn’t have his best game of the year. He missed a tackle on David Njoku on a third-and-10 in the third quarter that allowed the Browns to get the first down, and he got run over by Kareem Hunt on his touchdown run. Kyle Van Noy had a miss on Watson in the open field that allowed him to get the Browns to field goal range, and earlier got a flag for retaliating after he was blocked violently to the turf.

Defensive Backs: D

This is hard to grade. Kyle Hamilton’s pick-six was huge in getting the Ravens off to a hot start — it’s not his fault they fell flat after that. He was pretty good, with eight tackles, two pass breakups a quarterback hit and a big open field tackle on Elijah Moore that killed a drive in the third quarter. Brandon Stephens and Marlon Humphrey stood out for good coverage on incompletions early, but there just was a lot out there I didn’t like a lot. Geno Stone caught a big stiff-arm in the second quarter and got carried by Njoku for about three-and-a-half miles in the fourth quarter. Marcus Williams is a tough, tough dude, but he certainly looks to be protecting that pectoral. Rock Ya-Sin had good coverage on a third-down pass in the first quarter to force a field goal, but he had a costly PI in the fourth quarter.

Special Teams: C

Even this one’s weird, right? Justin Tucker had a field-goal blocked, and they gave u[ a 33-yard kick return. Jordan Stout averaged 53.7 yards a punt, but booted two through the end zone. But Devin Duvernay recovered a punt muff from his old receiving mate James Proche — marking possibly Proche’s greatest contribution to the Ravens in his career.

Coaching: D

You get the flowers when you win, and the manure when you lose. So goes the job. I didn’t like the Ravens getting cute with the end around to Keaton Mitchell when they were moving downfield in the second quarter, losing seven yards and basically killing a drive — resulting in Tucker’s blocked kick, by the way.

The defense didn’t seem to have an answer when the Browns targeted the spots in the middle of the field vacated by dropping linebackers. A lot of this loss falls on the players. That was obvious. But the coaches could have put them in better spots, too.

Also, Edwards had nowhere to run much of the game. Why not spread it out more and run Mitchell against lighter boxes?