Ravens Finding Offensive Blueprint?

The Ravens’ Week 2 loss to the Las Vegas Raiders was one of the worst regular season losses of John Harbaugh’s tenure in Baltimore, not only because of the way the 0-2 start demoralized the fanbase, but because of the failures of the coaching staff to make life easy for Lamar Jackson. With Offensive Coordinator Todd Monken struggling to find easy yards on early downs, there were real concerns over how much of a burden Jackson would have to carry with poor offensive line play.

However, against Dallas in Week 3, the Ravens not only found answers, but they were also able to almost completely take Jackson out of those situations. Specifically, they were able to avoid straight dropbacks, and the way they did that was by being successful on early downs. Now, this comes with the caveat that the Cowboys have the worst run defense in the league through three weeks according to EPA/Play (though they looked much better last night against the Giants). But while the Ravens likely won’t be able to consistently dominate out of the I formation in the way that they were able to in Dallas, that wasn’t the only area of the run game in which they found success.

Most notably, the Ravens were able to marry the designed run and pass games on early downs. The idea of running the ball to set up play action has been pretty thoroughly debunked with modern analytical data that shows us that there is little correlation between having a good run game and being able to run play-action. But what is absolutely true is that teams need to be able to present multiple looks out of similar formations. When offenses are unable to run and pass out of the same looks, or run play action and quick game out of the same looks as their deeper dropbacks, they provide a tell to the defense of what may be coming.

For the first time in 2024, the Ravens were able to marry different concepts of their offense, and that was the key to their success. One of their biggest plays, a 30-yard pass to Charlie Kolar, came out of the I formation in 21 personnel (two backs and one tight end), a grouping that they used along with 22 personnel to great success in the run game, but instead of running Derrick Henry behind Patrick Ricard they faked a toss and got Kolar wide open in the flat. The touchdown drive before halftime was keyed through back-to-back running back screens that came out of 11 personnel looks that gave zero pre-snap indication that the Ravens were running anything other than a standard two-minute dropback offense.

This may all sound simple, but finding these easy buttons allowed the Ravens to stay out of third and long situations, and perhaps just as importantly, it kept Jackson upright. However, that is not an indication of improved offensive line play – on the six plays where they did run standard dropbacks, Lamar was pressured three times. But what it does mean is that Monken was able to find answers on early downs to scheme around the struggling offensive line.

All of this talk about early downs does not mean that the Ravens are bad in the true passing situation – even with the lack of time afforded by the offensive line, the Ravens have still been a league average offense on third downs, and they were an Isaiah Likely shoe size away from potentially coming back from double digits to beat the Chiefs because Lamar is just that good. But they just need to find answers to make life easier against subpar competition, both because of health concerns with trying to limit the hits that Jackson is exposed to, and because it is just generally unsustainable for an offense to put so much on one player’s shoulders.

The Cowboys are not necessarily a bad team, but their defensive weaknesses accentuated the Ravens’ offensive strengths, and Baltimore took advantage. Of course, this brings up the question of what things will look like in the playoffs, as all that really matters to anyone in Baltimore is winning a Super Bowl.

They will obviously only be playing good teams in the postseason, and the truth is the answers are not great. It is quite possible that this offensive line could be the thing that prohibits this team from winning a Super Bowl. But at the same time, the defense should improve as Zach Orr gains more experience as a coordinator, and there are worse places to be than asking a superhuman quarterback to carry you to a Super Bowl. But that is far away, and right now the Ravens need to focus on getting there without putting everything on Lamar’s shoulders.

This Buffalo game should be another litmus for this offense in multiple ways. While they have a potent pass rush they have struggled against the run, and in Week 1 when the Bills faced the Cardinals offense, led by another running quarterback in Kyler Murray, they allowed five yards per carry. But at the same time, their defense employs a fast physical cornerback room led by Christian Benford that may make it harder for the Ravens to run their typical bubble screens to Zay Flowers. At the same time, they are 29th in FTN’s DVOA metric against passes to the running backs, meaning this Ravens offense could have an opportunity to show whether Sunday’s sudden production after years of futility in the running back screen game was an aberration or a new layer to their offense. What’s more, this could be a true test of just what the Ravens can and cannot do in the drop-back passing game. Buffalo excels defending passes outside but they are just 18th in DVOA on passes over the middle of the field, which is of course where Jackson excels. If Lamar once again needs to turn into Superman on later downs without simply distributing the ball to the area where he is most accurate, the Ravens’ offense may just look the way it did against the Chiefs any time they play a good team.

While much of the training camp talk was about how last year was a process of offensive evolution in the first year of the Lamar Jackson-Todd Monken pairing and this would be the year to take off, that is just not how the NFL works. Each year provides new challenges, and this season will be all about how much the Ravens can work around this offensive line. And while we won’t get the final answer for a long time, it is starting to become clearer, at least for now, what they can and cannot do.

This Sunday night will only provide more clarity.