Ravens Pass-Catchers Ready for a Huge Postseason?

Ravens Pass-Catchers Through the Regular Season

Not gonna lie, I am still riding high off the Ravens’ conference-clinching win over the Dolphins.  It’s been two weeks and I’ve been gloating and celebrating the whole time.  Have you ever seen a game where the starting QB had more TD passes than incompletions??  Four TDs to three incompletions!  Unbelievable.

That performance put the capstone on the Ravens’ 16-game performance. (We’ll call that the season. Week 18 finale vs Pittsburgh in the rain?  Never heard of it.)  According to some advanced stats, these Ravens are the 3rd-best team of the regular season in the past 40+ years:

The Ravens drop a couple spots when you add in the 17th game (as do the Niners).  But they’re still on a list with a bunch of Super Bowl champions and all-time teams.  The Dolphins game was the Ravens’ fourth game with over 100% DVOA this season:

 

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Before this year no team had ever had more than two such games in a season.  Incredible.

If you still have some appetite for breakdowns of Lamar’s day versus the Dolphins, let me recommend two YouTube videos to your attention.  First up, Hall Of Famer Kurt Warner has a 12-min video here.  The interesting thing about this vid is that before the Dolphins game, Warner had gone on record a few times to say that yeah Lamar is playing great, but the rest of the offense around him has not been sharp at all.  Lamar had to keep plays alive for 5, 6, even 9 seconds to throw because receivers weren’t getting open in-rhythm.  Warner’s concern was that probably couldn’t be sustainable against playoff opponents. (Though the Ravens were beating playoff teams.)  So in this vid, Warner goes out of his way to point out over and over how the ball is coming out on-time in rhythm.  It’s Warner’s major talking point: things were different against the Dolphins.

The second video is J.T. O’Sullivan of The QB School.  He has a 40-min video here.  That 40-min length might seem like a lot, but JTO keeps it interesting, and it was a hell of a day.  The difference in perspective between these two players is interesting. First of all they learned different terminology from the systems they were in during their careers.  JTO is obsessed with where the blitz is coming from and, does the offense have a good plan for handling the blitz?  Warner is a little crisper in his delivery; he’s often on TV, and you get the impression he has done some coaching, maybe one-on-one or at QB camps for high schoolers.  Another interesting difference is, Warner isn’t fazed by great throws.  He’ll acknowledge “that’s a nice throw,” but he made plenty of awesome throws himself during his career, so he doesn’t stop the presses.  JTO is much more impressed when Lamar makes a ridiculous throw.  If you don’t want to spend the full 40 mins watching JTO’s whole vid, I encourage you to take a moment to enjoy the 15 or 20 seconds from about 18:20 to about 18:35 or 40, where JTO gushes over Lamar’s bomb down the left sideline to Zay Flowers for the touchdown.

MVP or Not to Be

Most talking heads seem to feel that Lamar sewed-up the MVP award with his performances vs San Francisco & Miami. Fans of Josh Allen (and Dak Prescott to a lesser extent) aren’t thrilled about, that so let’s discuss it a bit.

The first thing to acknowledge is that usually there are 2 or 3 players having “MVP-caliber” seasons.  As fans we act & talk as if it’s “obvious” that our guy is the MVP “and it’s not close.”  But it’s always pretty close.  When Lamar won MVP in 2019 – well, the vote was unanimous that year, so I guess there’s a good argument that it wasn’t “close” – but Russel Wilson also had a fantastic season.  Wilson was the clear front-runner around the midpoint of the season.  Ryan Tannehill also had a great year (70% completion, 9.6 yards-per).  Derrick Henry rushed for 1500 with 16 TDs and over 5 yds-per-carry; Nick Chubb was right there with him.  It is not insane or insulting or ridiculous to note that another player has decent MVP credentials, or has played at “an MVP level” during the season.

There’s always a statistical element to the MVP conversation.  Some observers, including Richard Sherman, say that Lamar simply doesn’t have enough volume to be the MVP. Sherman had no problem with Lamar being the MVP in 2019 (when he led the league in TD passes).  But this season Lamar has only 24 TD passes, which ranks only 12th in the league.  The volume take is that a player can’t be the MVP with numbers that low.  Dak leads the league with 36 TDs.  Josh Allen has “only” 29 passing TDs, but he has another 15 TDs rushing.  His 45 combined leads the league.

I’m a stats guy.  But Sherman’s take is simplistic.  The whole point of being intelligent about stats is, not to blindly accept them as dictum (“The league leader in TDs always the MVP!”), but to evaluate them as evidence, in context with other evidence.  Knowing how to “contextualize” information is more important now, in “the age of data science”, than it’s ever been before.

Peyton Manning was named MVP in 2008.  From the distance of over a dozen years, it is hard to tell what he was named for.  Manning finished 6th in the league in passing yards with 4,000, a full thousand yards behind Drew Brees.  Manning finished with 27 passing TDs, well behind co-leaders Brees & Philip Rivers, who had 34 each.  Warner had 30 and Aaron Rodgers was also ahead of Manning.  Manning finished 5th in passer rating, behind Rivers and Kurt Warner.  Leading a great offense?  That Indy squad was 13th in points, 4th in points-per-drive.  They one thing they were exceptional at was conversions: #1 in both 3rd-down and red zone.  Leading his team to a title?  Indy finished second in their own division, and lost their first-round playoff game.

But the MVP voters saw something.  I’ve never heard anyone try to make a case that Peyton Manning didn’t “deserve” his third MVP award.  Maybe the voters were swayed by seeing Manning lead a good offense without much help.  Reggie Wayne had 1100 yards and Dallas Clark had a good season; but otherwise there wasn’t much there.  Marvin Harrison was well past his prime (age 36); they pieced together a rushing attack by committee (Joseph Addai & Dominic Rhodes had 500 yds each).  Whatever the case, the voters saw something in Manning’s play, that the stats did not fully capture, and they award him the MVP.  Manning captured 64% of the award vote; Chad Pennington and RB Michael Turner tied for second with 8% each.

Sometimes a statistical leader is the clear & obvious MVP.  Manning set the NFL record with 55 TD passes in 2013, leading the Broncos to the #1 seed in the AFC.  Who the hell else you gonna give the award to?  Tom Brady set the previous NFL record with 50 TDs passes in 2007, leading the Patriots to an undefeated (regular-)season: again, who the hell else you gonna give the award to?  LaDainian Tomlinson led the league with 1800 yards rushing in 2006 while setting an NFL record with 28 rushing TDs and leading his Chargers to the top seed in the AFC. Adrian Peterson rushed for about 2100 yards in 2012 while dragging a deeply shitty Vikings offense with Christian Ponder at QB to 10 wins and a playoff berth.  Lamar Jackson led the league in TD passes in 2019 while also setting the QB rushing record with 1200 yards and leading his tea to the top seed in the AFC.  Again, who the hell else you gonna give the award to?  But sometimes a statistical leader is not the clear & obvious MVP.  Sometimes you have to dig a little for context.

Here’s a stats guy who is using stats very intelligently, and he’s got Josh Allen as his MVP.

Why do I have no problem with Aaron Schatz’s take, when I do take exception to Sherman’s?  Well, for one thing Schatz is not just accepting the stats at face value; he’s querying his evidence very deeply.  I know that Schatz believes at least as strongly as I do in the importance of examining evidence in context.  He’s trying to do that here.  For another, Schatz is not using simple volume stats; he’s using advanced stats that are defense-adjusted.  And of course, as the inventor of one of the advanced stats (DVOA), he gets an automatic pass for relying on it, so long as he is transparent about it and also appropriately respectful of other methods.  His essay is as much an examination of his methods as it is a case for the MVP.

Of the talking heads who have Lamar as the MVP, most of them are film people as opposed to stats people.  They talk about the “gravity” Lamar exerts on the defense, the pressure he applies by keeping plays alive in the pocket, and the throws he is making.  These voters are seeing something in Lamar’s play on the field, that the stats to not fully capture.

I’ll add one more statistics-based argument in Lamar’s favor.  Lamar played 8 games against teams with 10+ wins: Rams, Steelers, Texans, Dolphins, Browns 2x, Lions, SF.  The cumulative win% of those teams was .647.  Josh Allen’s toughest 8 opponents were Cincy, Bucs, Jax, Dolphins 2x, Philly, Dallas; cumulative win% .610.  Dak Prescott’s toughest 8 were Seattle, Rams, Dolphins, Bills, Philly 2x, Lions, SF; cumulative win% .647.  Let’s put all that on a table for ease of view:

At a glance it looks like Lamar faced a slightly tougher slate of “best” opponents than Josh Allen did.  But what we really want to know is how the QBs performed in those games.  So here it is, the stats from those 8 games against their best opponents:  (I bolded the leading number in each column)

Against the very best competition, Lamar passed for 9 yds-per-attempt and a passer rating of 110 with a TD/INT ratio better than 3 to 1. As a passer Lamar was flat-out better in these games, the toughest games, than the other two.  Lamar was a more efficient and productive passer while also rushing for 330 and leading in yds-per-carry.

Flame War!

Two weeks ago I got into a little twitter spat with a whiny bitch Dolphins reporter who was upset about the last TD in the game, the one Tyler Huntley threw to Charlie Kolar.  Here was his complaint:

I don’t want to send anyone to “pile on” this guy on Twitter, so we’ll make do with a screenshot of the tweet.  I just want to give you some talking points on the run-it-up narrative.  First thing to point out is that this guy has been holding onto his grudge for a WHILE now!  He quote-tweets himself here:

I had no idea there were Dolphins followers who are still butt-hurt about that 2019 game!  That is positively heart-warming.  So, the thing to be aware of here is that the fake punt occurred in THE FIRST HALF.  There is absolutely no such thing in the NFL as running it up in the first half.  It may not have even been called from the sideline.  For all we know, during game prep that week they had drilled the punt team to try the fake if they got a certain look from the opponent.  Then the punt team got the look and executed.

But bottom line, in the NFL, scoring in the first half can never be “running it up.”  Bill Belichick had to face this question several times in the 2007 season, and the simple fact is anything you can do in the first half by definition does not put the game out of reach for the opponent.  Anything one team can do in one half, the other team could at least theoretically do in the other half.  Things are different if you’re talking about high school or college ball; Alabama vs Directional State Community College.  A game like that could have a huge physical discrepancy between the rosters.  But at this level, both teams have NFL players.  The coach has a responsibility to his players to try to win the game, and part of that involves taking as many points before halftime as you can get.

As to this year’s game, there are 5 points to make:

1. Last year’s Dolphins came back from a 3-touchdown deficit in the 4th quarter against this same Ravens team in this same stadium. When you cultivate a quick-strike offense that can light up the scoreboard, you cannot then complain when the other team acts like no lead is safe. You have forfeited that complaint by building a team against which most leads are unsafe.
2. The Dolphins hung 70 points on the Broncos earlier this season! SEVENTY POINTS. They won that game by 50.  They threw a TD pass in the 4th quarter already up 49-13; then they threw another one in the 4th already up 56-13.  Where’s your complaining about that, you hypocritical Dolphins reporter??
3. It was the backup QB, Tyer Huntley. And the Ravens head coach had a responsibility to get his backup QB ready to play: Huntley was going to start the next game versus the Steelers, since the Ravens had clinched and would rest Lamar. Sometimes it’s not about you, Dolphins.  Sometimes the other team has to get their work in.
4. Anyway, when you can’t stop the backup QB from throwing a TD to the 3rd-string TE, maybe the opposing offense isn’t the problem.
5. Vic Fangio.

Vic Fangio is the Defensive Coordinator for the Dolphins.  Fangio was the Head Coach of the Broncos 2019-21: they fired him for failing to improve the team: 7 wins, 5 wins, and 7 wins across his three seasons.  Is there any doubt in your mind that the Dolphins dropped 70 on the Broncos just to “get them back” for firing him?  That the offensive staff & players “had Fangio’s back” by running it up on his former team?  As the saying goes, live by the sword, get f*c$ed by the sword.

There’s more with Fangio.  Back in 2021, the Ravens set the record for consecutive games over 100 yards rushing.  Fangio’s Broncos were the opponent for the record-capping game.  The Ravens needed 5 more yards on the last play of the game for the record, and they grabbed them.  Fangio had a shit-fit in the postgame press conference.  It was truly baby-ish: Fangio had pulled out all the stops to prevent the Ravens from gaining that record, even hurting his own defense (they gave up 300 yards passing to Lamar, including a 50-yd TD to Marquise Brown).  So he was lying his face off when he claimed not to care about that record.  Harbaugh fired back at Fangio, and a full-blown coaching feud was born.

Follow the circle here.  Fangio distorts his game plan to prevent the Ravens from setting that consecutive games record, actually hurting his team’s winning chances.  Then the Ravens get the record anyway.  Then he bitches about it.  Then Harbaugh fires back (and presumably puts Fangio on his shit list).  Then the Broncos fire him for not being very good.  Fangio comes back two years later as part of a much better team, with a loaded offense that he had not one damn thing to do with building.  That offense gets “revenge” on Fangio’s behalf by running it up on a winless opponent struggling under their 1st-yr head coach.  Three months later the chickens came home to roost, and Harbaugh’s team drops a big number on Fangio’s defense.  I hope Harbaugh did it on purpose, and plans to do it again every single time he faces a Fangio-coached team.  Coach feuds are fun.

The greatest “run it up” coach feud in NFL history was in 1989, between Bengals coach Sam Wyche and Houston Oilers coach Jerry Glanville.  You can read about it in The Athletic here, and watch a YouTube vid about it here.  Amazing.  Evidently opposing coaches hated Glanville, and Wyche decided to get him fired.  He had his team run it up on the Oilers 61-7.  And then!  The Bengals players went to the post-game press conference and just buried Glanville. Boomer Esiason was at the mic talking about how poorly-coached and stupid the Oilers corners were.  It was glorious.  True venom and hatred.  Hard to imagine anything quite like that happening in this more buttoned-up age.

An Unlikely Emergence

Mark Andrews went down with injury in game 11 vs the Bengals.  Here are Isaish Likely’s stats in the six games since then:

Over a 17-game season that would project out to 60 catches for 900 yards and a ridiculous 14 TDs.  That’s a Pro-Browl Tight End, folks.

I’ve been shocked by Likely.  I knew he was “pretty good”: savvy route-runner, good hands, shifty.  I had no idea he was this fast & explosive, and this much of a problem for defenses.  That yards-per-target figure is George Kittle-level.  Likely has become an amazing weapon.

Mina Kimes had a nice interview with Likely, short excerpt here and full link in the tweet:

The delightful Isaiah Likely (@DaGorilla4) joined me to discuss, amongst other things, why leak is the best play and how much Patrick Ricard means to the Ravens offense.

Full interview: https://t.co/6rGePoD6wT pic.twitter.com/qBfjqOh3HV

— Mina Kimes (@minakimes) January 4, 2024

I saw some concern expressed on Twitter, that Mark Andrews’ return from injury might hurt the Ravens offense.  Uh, that is really not something to worry about.  For one thing, Todd Monken established last year at Georgia that he can run a 2-TE offense.  One of Monken’s influences is Dirk Koetter, who was Monken’s boss at Tampa & Jacksonville.  Koetter’s roots in the Joe Gibbs 1-back/2-TE offense go all the way back to Dan Henning, who was a Gibbs assistant in the 1980s.  Point being, Monken knows what to do with two good Tight Ends.

More broadly, it’s never a “problem” to have good playmakers.  Monken is going to rotate in Andrews & Likely, and Zay Flowers & Odell Beckham & Rashod Bateman, and Justice Hill & Gus Edwards & Dalvin Cook.  Not to mention Project Pat Ricard.  And defenses are going to have to adjust their personnel packages to match up.  And it’s going to be great.

Bateman Truthers Unite!

I don’t care what the refs said, THIS was a catch:

This won’t count, but love the ALL-OUT effort from Rashod Bateman here. Just a tad out of his reach. #Ravens pic.twitter.com/LlwHDp7Rib

— Bobby Trosset (@bobbybaltimoree) December 31, 2023

The ball never comes out, Bate has a forearm and both hands under it.  Under current catch rules the ball is allowed to touch the ground; the standard is that the ground cannot “assist” in making the catch.  It doesn’t assist here.  That’s just a catch.  It’s the first play of the game, and it would have gone for 42 yards.

That was one of Lamar’s “incomplete” passes.  Here is the second, also to Bateman:

O’Sullivan breaks down this play starting at about the 18:40 mark of his vid linked above (the super long one).  He considers this great process from Lamar – anticipation throw on 3rd-down, the ball is halfway to the receiver before he comes out of his break – but one of the things JTO mentions is that the Miami DB (Eli Apple) is all over Bateman here.  He’s got the left arm wrapped around Bateman’s waist, his chest is coming thru Bateman’s shoulder, his right arm is chopping down on Bateman’s arms, and the ball is still in the air a yard or so away.  This is clear Defensive Pass Interference, and JTO says he doesn’t know how this goes uncalled.

Looks to me like Bateman is at the 23-yard line.  The line of scrimmage was the 35, so this would be a 12-yard penalty for Pass Interference.  Bateman’s official stats on the day are 4 catches on 6 targets for 54 yards.  Add the completion on the first play, and the DPI, and Bateman’s stats go to 5 catches on 5 targets for 96 yards and a 12-yd DPI.  That’s catching everything for a cool 19.2 yards-per-target; or 18 YPT if you include the DPI.  Sweet little day.

How often this season have you heard that a Bateman emergence was imminent?  Well, I’m saying it again.  Keep your eyes open in the playoffs.

And how about Lamar?  Rather than 18 for 21, Lamar’s stats go to 19 for 20.  How many QBs complete 95% of their passes?  He was laser-guided.  That would raise his passer rating to – well, it wouldn’t raise it at all, Lamar was already perfect on the day.  But still.  Wow.

2019 vs. 2023, again

Back in Week 9 I jumped the optimism gun and compared this year’s offense with the 2019 offense.  Here’s that comparison again:

Compared to 2019, on this year’s team:

• the O-line is mixed, better inside and weaker at the Tackles;
• the RBs are not as good;
• and all of the passing-game personnel is distinctly better.

I don’t think any part of that is debatable.  The 2019 team could run it better, and this team can pass it better.  And it’s a passing league.  This Ravens team offense should be better able to respond to various game situations than that 2019 squad was.  And what if Cook turns out to be a difference-maker too??  Then they could have an every-down back on top of the offense they already have!  Could be great.

The Scary Thing About…

As you may know, I’m a perennial worry weenie.  Every game, at the start of the week I’m confident the Ravens will win, but by gameday I’ve worked myself into a state of fear about the opponent: how they’re the greatest thing since the Lombardi Packers and all the ways things could go wrong in the game.  With that in mind, let’s take a look at what there is to worry about with the teams in the playoff field.  (I wrote these up before postseason started, so you’ll see some eliminated teams on this list. Which just reiterates what a worrier I am.)

…The Dolphins [since eliminated] is that they are fast and have a ton of weapons, they would be motivated as hell, and they’ve just seen the Ravens up close.  We would be morons to think a potential playoff rematch would be a 56-19 laugher again.  It would be an absolute dogfight.  I would favor the Ravens – Miami has lost Bradley Chubb off what was already a fairly mediocre defense, and the Ravens would have Kyle Hamilton back – but this would be a ballgame.  Especially when you consider that they would be playoff hardened: Miami would have to beat Kansas City in minus-10 wind chill to get the chance to come to Baltimore.  Respect the opponent.

…The Steelers [since eliminated] is – not a god-damn thing.  If the Steelers strut into Baltimore for a playoff game this postseason, they will get pounded like a nail.  They’re the worst team in the AFC field, and they lost their best player, and they’re overconfident, and the Ravens are already mad at them.  They just celebrated like Mardi Gras for beating a team that was resting their starters!

Steelers Locker room going CRAZY!!!

WALK IN YO TRAP TAKE OVER YO TRAP #HereWeGo pic.twitter.com/E4Q11f01wB

— Jeff Kirby (@Jeff_Kirby412) January 7, 2024

How can you respect a team like that??  This would be a butt whupping.  I would actually root for this matchup, as the easiest path for the Ravens to the Conference Championship Game, except that would mean Pittsburgh won a playoff game and broke their seven-year winless streak in the playoffs, and I don’t want that to happen. [It didn’t.] F the Steelers.

…The Browns [since eliminated] is that they know they can win in Baltimore, because they did on their last trip just nine or ten weeks ago; they have a great defense; they can run the ball and are patient enough to commit to it; and they have a QB who is unflappable and has a big arm that gives him a puncher’s chance of throwing a bomb for a touchdown on any play. This opponent has my attention.

…The Texans is that they’ve seen the Ravens this year, DeMeco Ryan gets them to play over their heads, their coaching staff is tactically smart, Nico Collins is the real deal, and C.J. Stroud is astonishing. They’re tougher than they ought to be. That defense plays fast & smart. Take them lightly at your peril.

…The Chiefs is that, if their Wide Receivers suddenly start catching the balls they’ve been dropping all year, Patrick Mahomes and Andy Reid can score on anyone and the Chiefs could catch fire and run the table. I’m fairly confident in this Ravens squad – I believe this defense was designed specifically to match up with Kansas City – but I’ll believe the Chiefs out of it when they’re actually dead & buried.

…The Bills is that – have you heard this already in the Browns comment? – they can run the ball (they rushed for 190 against the Broncos, 170 at Philly, and 260 against the Cowboys), they play pretty good defense, and they have a big-armed QB with a puncher’s chance of throwing a bomb for a touchdown on any play.  Josh Allen is also big and can run; think of trying to sack Ben Roethlisberger.  And he may have a chip on his shoulder from not being named MVP.  The DVOA rating has this as the #3 team in the league.  They’re playoff tested over the last four years, and they’ve been tempered by the gauntlet of playoff teams they had to run over the last six weeks (Eagles, Chiefs, Cowboys, Dolphins) to come from behind and take their division.  They’re the presumptive favorite to get to the Conference Championship on the other side of the bracket, for good reason.

…The Forty-niners is that Kyle Shanahan has already had an up-close look at the Ravens defense, and is a wizard genius at game-planning. Either he or Sean McVay is the greatest single-matchup offensive game-planner in the sport. Brock Purdy is a young-enough QB to make a substantial improvement from one bad game to a rematch a month later.

…The Cowboys is – BWAH HA HA HA!  Mike Tanier wrote a HILARIOUS column about how the Cowboys losing in the playoffs is an American tradition.  Enjoy.

Stats

Flowers came into the Dolphins game needing 90 yards to set the Ravens single-season record for rookie receiving yards.  The previous record-holder was Torrey Smith, who set it in a 16-game season.  If Flowers took 17 games to break the record, would that merit an asterisk??  Flowers made the question moot, by posting his first career hundred-yard game.  His previous career-high was 78 in the season opener; he’s been in the low 70s four other times.

Bateman got robbed, as noted above.  More about him in the next section.

Fabulous game from Justice Hill. In addition to his 5-for-5 listed above, he also had a 40+ yard run, for a total of 112 scrimmage yards; AND he had 101 kick-return yards! That’s 213 total yards, his best day a s a pro.

Counting the season finale against Pittsburgh, when the Ravens rested starters, Kolar has receptions in 4 straight games.  It probably sucks to be stuck behind Likely and Mark Andrews on the depth chart, but Kolar seems to be a good player.

Season Stats & Leaderboard

Here are the full-season stats:

 

The Ravens need to decide this offseason whether to pick up the 5th-year option on Bateman’s contract.  That salary would be about $13.8M (you can see a breakdown of the 5th-yr option for all the 2021 first-rounders on OverTheCap).  So far Bateman has absolutely NOT done enough to merit a 2025 cap figure of $14M.  He still has an opportunity to influence that decision.  If the Ravens go on a 3-game run and he performs about like he did against the Dolphins – let’s say he puts up about 225-270 yards across three games – to me that makes the decision much more difficult.  In this hypothetical Bateman would have no single great game, but Monken’s spread-it-around strategies influence that.  He’d have put up 75+ yds-per-game against absolutely top-notch competition, when the stakes are at their highest.  First-round talent at a premium position – it becomes harder to let him walk.

There’s a whole lot of “ifs” embedded in that hypothetical, not the least of which is the Ravens playing in three postseason games.  We’ll see how this goes.

The one Ravens WR I pick to elevate his game in the postseason is not Bateman, believe it or not: it’s Odell.  See his 2021 postseason with the Rams for an explanation. Odell played at another level in those playoffs, compared to his regular season play.  Don’t sleep on him this postseason.

Flowers finishes the season 28th in the league in receptions, and 39th in receiving yards.  Andrews’ 62.3% Success Rate held up to finish the 8th-best among pass-catchers.  Likely’s 10.3 yards-per-target would tie with Houston’s Noah Brown for 9th in the league, but he finished two receptions short of qualifying for the leaderboard.

Edwards & Flowers are 59th and 66th in Scrimmage Yards.  The Ravens have 10 players in the top 178 in Scrimmage Yards (380+ yds), including Lamar (rushing) – but also including Keaton Mitchell, who of course is not available.  They’re well-positioned to play offense-by-committee in the playoffs.  That seems to be how Monken likes it: diverse threats, the defense can’t key on one workhorse.

Lamar finishes the season 9th in completion percentage, 6th in TD% and 5th in best (lowest) INT%, and 4th in yards-per-target.  Those 4 stats (comp%, TD%, INT% and yards-per) are the components of passer rating, and Lamar finishes 4th in that.  Also 4th in QBR.  Lamar finishes 8th in DVOA (min 30 attempts), between Jordan Love and Dak.  Remember DVOA is their efficiency stat; they also have a counting stat, DYAR, and Lamar finishes 9th in that, between Matthew Stafford and Patrick Mahomes.

The Ravens offense finishes 5th in pts-per-drive and 4th in Scoring% per drive.  They’re 9th in 3rd-down% and 7th in Red Zone TD%.  They are 4th in pts-per-game and 4th in DVOA.

The DVOA playoff projections have the Ravens 81% to beat the Texans and make the Conference Championship Game, 61% to win the Conference and make the Super Bowl, and 39% to win the big game.  That 39% leads all teams.  A Niners-Ravens Super Bowl is still their most likely projection by far, occurring in 35% of their simulations.

Next Up

20 years ago today, Jim Mora gave us a legendary line in his postgame press conference 😂

(via @NFL) pic.twitter.com/K7jno6Dd8w

— FanDuel (@FanDuel) November 25, 2021