Rashod Bateman’s Solid Start Continues

Ravens Pass-Catchers Through 3 Games

One of the worst things that can happen to a newbie in Las Vegas is to win at the slots or the craps table early.  You’re fooled about how easy and often success comes, and you get hooked.  You keep at it, throwing good money after bad, chasing that high you experienced early.  And you wind up gambling away your life’s savings.

An equivalent in the NFL might be trying to get an accurate evaluation of Daniel Faalale and Pat Mekari at RG and RT, and playing the Cowboys.  Wow, they look great!  If you’re John Harbaugh, maybe you’re strutting around with pride, saying you were right all along.

Were you right, John?  Or does the Cowboys defense suck?  The week before, Dallas gave up 44 to the Saints, who the Eagles just held to 12 points Sunday.  They “held” the Brownies to 17; but the Jags held those same Browns to 18, and the Giants held them to 15. Deshaun Watson is washed.  The Cowboys D seems about as good as the Jags D; and no one is building statues for the Jags defenders.

I worry that the OL’s fantastic performance in this game (and it was fantastic) will be taken as justification that no changes need to be made. And that might be the exact wrong conclusion to draw.  I mean, I don’t know the future any better than you do.  Maybe Faalale & Mekari turned the corner and are solid now.  But maybe not.

This game, against a weak defensive front, was a great opportunity to get Roger Rosengarten some developmental reps.  It was a great opportunity to rotate in Ben Cleveland & Rosengarten, and get some tape on the two of them together.  I worry that the Ravens instead used it as an opportunity to prove a point to their critics.

I could be way over-thinking this.  The overriding truth about this game is that it was an absolute must-win.  They had to have this game in order to salvage any hope of making the postseason.  In those circumstances, I can see that it might make sense to stick with what was working.  They’re opening holes and protecting the QB: leave ‘em in, get the win, and get outta here.  There’s a prudence to that. It seems like a missed opportunity, but Harbs’ primary responsibility was to get the W.  Not messing around with an offense that was working could be part of that.

But that comeback – !

Yeah, the comeback happened.

I don’t see it as particularly predictive.  The Cowboys needed a Justin Tucker miss and a mishandled on-side kick to generate that comeback.  How often is that combination of events going to happen?  Plus a truly bogus Roughing The Passer flag.  And even with all that, their comeback still fell short.

The most concerning thing about it all is Tucker missing a(nother) Field Goal.  Supposedly he’s identified a “technique issue”.  If Harbs isn’t blowing smoke – if Tuck actually has isolated & identified an issue – then there’s no one in the sport I trust more to get it fixed.  Maybe no one in the entire history of the sport.

One thing I believe is, every blown lead by the defense is a game where the offense could have done more to hold the ball and extend the lead.  After Tucker’s missed FG in the 4th Quarter, (1) Zay Flowers mis-handled the onside kick, and (2) the Ravens went 3-&-out.  If the Ravens keep the ball and get some first downs on either of those opportunities, milk some clock, then we’re talking about a routine throttling of an opponent, rather than any comeback.

Stats

The basis of Bill Walsh’s West Coast Offense (one of the bases) is to get the ball into the hands of your playmakers fast, and let them gain Yards After Catch.  It’s not generally a “hold the ball while they run deep” offense (though of course it has some shot plays); it’s more of a “YAC” attack. Think of Jerry Rice taking a short slant to the house. Nowadays think of Kyle Shanahan having Brock Purdy get the ball to Christian McCaffrey (or Deebo Samuel, or George Kittle) in space and letting them do damage.

Todd Monken isn’t strictly a “West Coast Offense guy”, but against the Cowboys he crafted short passes for the Ravens to get the ball to a dangerous runner in space.  Nelson Agholor made one guy miss and immediately went zooming up the sideline for 56 yards.  Charlie Kolar is someone we don’t usually think of as a “dangerous runner in space,” but a play fake left him all alone in the flat and he rumbled for 30.  Derrick Henry got the screen game going; he’s a monster everywhere, but he’s super lethal in the screen game.  Justice Hill had a catch-&-run for 13.

Those splash plays in the passing game perfectly complemented Henry’s production.  It’s a beautiful combination.  That combo was more than enough to swamp the Cowboys defense.

Did you notice that Mark Andrews only played a third of the offensive snaps?  The Ravens started in 11 personnel (1 RB, 1 TE), so they had three Wide Receivers on the field: Flowers, Rashod Bateman & Agholor.  And they made it look easy on that first drive.  I’ve speculated before that Andrews was not 100%.  He was not on the injury report; but he hasn’t looked right.  Good adjustment by Monken to put more speed on the field around Henry.  But a concerning development about Andrews himself.

Bateman with consecutive games with a QS!  If you’re playing the Pass Catchers Report drinking game, take a shot: the weekly Bateman mention.  The last time Bateman had consecutive QS’s was never.  His first 6 career games he averaged 4+ catches, but the yards-per-target were uneven: one game in double digits, the next game around 5.  He opened 2022 with three games in double-digits for yards-per-target, but the number of catches was uneven: 2, 4, 2.  This is the first time he’s posted consecutive 3+ catch games with decent YPT.

Bateman emerging as a steady & reliable cog does a lot to diversify the pass attack.  Flowers has been getting the volume, but Bateman has been quietly efficient.  If defenses have to spread out to account for both of them, plus Likely, while also playing contain on Henry & Lamar – well, seems like the only thing that can really stop that is breakdown on the Offensive Line.

(Uh oh.  Forget I said that.)

Season stats & Leaderboard

Here are your full-season stats to date:

Monken talked about explosive plays in his very first press conference on being hired two Januarys ago.  It’s nice to see them dotting this table.  The fact that they’re coming from all over the place is indicative of the way these Ravens challenge defenses.  Note that though Justice Hill has a zero in that column, he has caught a pass for 18 yards this season: close to 20.  Andrews has a 16-yarder; as we know, if he’s healthy he’s very capable of racking up explosives.

There could be even more of them than the table shows.  Lamar complained after the Kansas City game that all their explosives were getting called back for penalty.

Flowers is 18th in the league in catches (tied with Ja’Marr Chase).  He & Likely are 38th and 41st in receiving yards.  This low-volume game knocked them both off the pace for thousand-yard seasons; but obviously it’s very early.  Bateman & Likely are at #36 and #46 in yards-per-target.  Likely is 23rd in Success Rate; Andrews is 40th.

Lamar is 6th in QBR, 7th in yards-per-attempt, 10th in passing yards, 11th in passer rating.  He’s 5th in YTS, which is my made-up stat that no one pays any attention to.  The QB version of YTS is Net-yards-per-attempt x Success Rate.

You’ll never guess which team has the #1-ranked offense by DVOA.  I can’t see the offensive DVOA components (paywalled), but I’m going to guess that Henry’s incredible performance, along with Lamar’s routine excellence, gives the Ravens offense a huge boost in the rushing part of the ranking.  The Ravens are 5th in passing YTS; Lamar’s in the top 5-to-10 range in the passing efficiency stats. Put that together with an incredibly efficient rushing offense and you get the top ranking.

But you can’t play Dallas every week.

Next Up: Josh Allen brings his Buffalo Bills into Charm City, seeking revenge for getting snubbed in last year’s MVP vote.

The Bills are good.  They lead the league in Point Differential.  DVOA has them as the #5 team overall (just after the Ravens): #2 in offense and #7 in defense.  Allen is completing 75% of his passes with 7 TDs and 0 INTs.  He leads the league in Passer Rating, QBR, Success Rate, and my YTS.  And remember he brings some of the same rushing dimension that Lamar does; not quite the same speed & evasiveness, but more size & power.  He had a legit MVP-caliber season last year, and he’s on his way to crafting another one this year.

Ed Oliver and DaQuan Jones, Buffalo’s starting Defensive Tackles, are a very different kettle of fish from the Dallas D-line.  We’ll see how the Ravens OL performance carries over.

Tough, tough matchup. Big playoff ramifications.