Monken Keeps Pursuing the “Big Inning” with Great Results

Ravens Pass-Catchers Through 10 Games

You might have the impression that Ja’Marr Chase absolutely OWNS the Ravens.  That’s only mostly true.

In 2021 when Chase was a rookie, the Ravens were struggling with injuries across the board, including to the defensive backs.  He absolutely feasted in the two games they played.  And this year, when the Ravens DBs are, to put it politely, “a little disorganized,” he has feasted.

But during the two years from 2022-23, when the Ravens defense was mostly at the top of their game, they were able to keep him under control.  You know I want to show that on a table; this time it’s gonna take two tables:

In last week’s Thursday night game, Chase equaled his total (yardage & TDs) from the 5 games he played against the Mike Macdonald-coached Ravens defenses.  That’s insane.  Interesting that Chase’s monster game Thursday is not Chase’s best career game vs the Ravens by YTS. Both Yards-per-target and SuccessRate were higher in the first game of 2021. The volume was higher Thursday because the game was tight.

As to the defense, I got nuthin’. It’s bewildering how the D could get so porous, so fast, after being SO GOOD just last year. Defensive Coordinator Zach Orr is just like Mike Macdonald in being a John Harbaugh protégé. Mike Mac spent his entire coaching career (after his grad assisstant phase) with the Ravens, except for a semester abroad with the other Harbs at Michigan. Our Harbs had identified Mac as a young star, and made it a point to keep him and elevate him.  Orr is exactly the same case.  It worked brilliantly with Mike Mac after a rocky start.  We’re still in the “rocky start” phase with Orr.  Will it turn brilliant at some point?  You know as much as I do. I’m hoping this stops being a talking point – I guess we’re all hoping that.

By the way, Thursday’s game was NOT Chase’s career-highs in yardage & TDs.  He had very slightly more against Kansas City in a 2021 game.  I’ve talked before in this column about the Bill Walsh dictum that a good team needs “enough offense to win [some] games easily.”  It’s something Walsh wrote in his first book. The idea was that if you want to win a championship, you can’t be in a dogfight every week.  That takes too much out of your players.  They’re going to need their reserves of stamina & will for the tough postseason matchups against the best opponents.  So you want to blow some opponents away easily.

The Bengals were built that way.  Chase by himself is enough offense to win [some] games easily; Joe Burrow has all the skill & chemistry he needs to get it to Chase.  And they also have Tee Higgins (usually) & Mike Gesicki.  That’s different from how the Ravens have historically been built.  And you can see how frustrating/scary it is to play against that.  Like handling a bomb that could go off at any moment.

Of course, the 2024 Ravens also have enough offense to blow out some opponents easily.

There have been 2 instances in NFL history where a QB had:

30+ completions
300+ passing yards
4+ TD passes
multiple 40+ yard TD passes
no more than 1 INT

…and yet still lost. Those 2 instances were Joe Burrow vs. the Ravens in Week 5 & Joe Burrow vs. the Ravens again tonight. pic.twitter.com/vfRaLghMC9

— OptaSTATS (@OptaSTATS) November 8, 2024

Ja’Marr Chase and Joe Burrow vs Ravens (2024):

Chase: 457 receiving yards, 5 TDs 🔥

Burrow: 820 passing yards, 9 TDs 💪

0-2 vs Ravens 🧹

Lamar is inevitable.#RavensFlock

— 🌙 (@suttondef) November 8, 2024

Shooter’s Roll

Lamar’s goose neck follow-thru is new this year, I think.  I don’t think he’s just using it as an exclamation point on signature passes or touchdowns.  I think he’s also mentally reinforcing a training cue.

Someday I’ll cut loose with my big rant about what IS and is NOT new & different about Lamar’s play this year.  Commentators are constantly getting this wrong.  Briefly, the two big things new this year in Lamar’s play are his work in the pre-snap phase and in the quick game.

But!  A small thing is that Lamar has cut down (further cut down) the incidence of lapses in mechanics.  He’s been sharpening that year-over-year since 2018; but even as recently as last year, on occasion he would randomly sail one.  I haven’t noticed that this year.  His occasional “bad throw” in the short and intermediate range this year is one that his receiver has to reach back for.  In other words, it’s generally accurate, just not pin-point accurate.  Those are his bad throws!  If Lamar has taken a(nother) jump in mechanical consistency, then holding the follow-thru on shots might be an indicator of some of what he’s been working on.

Lamar with the goose neck follow through

— Jammin🏁 (@BenLightyear) November 8, 2024

 

GAME WINNER !!😈@Lj_era8 @R_bateman2 pic.twitter.com/e9nqBOqKeA

— Hass😈 (@HassanBackAgain) November 8, 2024

Same energy:

Location, Location, Location

With about four minutes remaining in the first half, on a 3rd-down play, the Ravens had two receivers in the same place (Zay Flowers and Mark Andrews).  The pass fell incomplete.  How do two receivers wind up in the same part of the field on a play?  This became a big complaint during the Greg Roman years.

One thing to remember is that “routes” is they are not always the unbroken, clean arrow on the whiteboard that we imagine.  Receivers don’t just “run the line.”  They have to make decisions.  Here is a snip from the pages of Roman’s 2014 playbook in San Francisco:

(Great name for the play!)

Anyway: the thing to notice is all the different dotted lines and options. The X receiver on the left has a main route that goes straight downfield, stems in for three steps then breaks out – unless he encounters a different coverage from the defender.  Then there’s a dotted line that slants in, cuts upfield then curls out.  The Y receiver at the Tight End position is supposed to Slant straight, unless they (dotted line) curl into an Over.  The Z receiver on the far right runs straight downfield then breaks in, unless instead they (dotted line) break outside and just run a Go.  Also there are notes like “Must cross face of the defender,” and “Turn up field if you don’t get the ball.”

Decisions, decisions.  The receivers have to play fast and beat their defender, and read the defense and figure out the leverage and whether there’s a blitz, and also run the route the Quarterback is expecting.  Last week Andrews scored a touchdown on a play where he deviated from what was drawn up.  The play called for him to “Mesh” with the receiver on the other side of the formation.  But on the run, Andrews saw that there was no safety over the top of the mesh, so he decided to “playground” it and just cut his route to the end zone.  Lamar saw it the same way – this is the Andrews/Lamar superpower, that telepathic link – and boom, touchdown.  A lot of offense, successful offense, is this kind of freelancing.

But with so many decisions to make, it’s probably inevitable that at some point, two receivers will read it differently and they will head toward the same spot.  Or they’ll both decide to freelance to the same open area, rendering it no longer open.  Todd Monken seems to have a gift for teaching this stuff in such a way as to minimize that, but you probably can never fully eliminate it.

Two penalties on the O-line for ineligible man downfield on an RPO.

In both cases it seemed like Lamar hesitated pulling the trigger due to defensive positioning.  As opposed to the R-O, the Read Option, the RPO has not been a big component of the Ravens offense in the Monken era.  Y’know what?  I’m fine with scrapping the RPO this year.  I don’t see any point in creating trouble by adding a cherry on top of the best offense in the league.  Juice not worth the squeeze.

Return of Big Inning Theory

Last year I made a big deal out of the notion that Monken had a feel for “striking while the iron is hot.”  I compared it to Big Inning Theory in baseball.  It was a departure from the Roman offense.  Roman seemed to view drives through the lens of the big picture of the game: each drive was one more body-blow toward keeping the other team’s offense off the field, wearing down the defense, etc.  Monken seems to view the drives as distinct at-bats.  When he hits on something, he seems to think “Yeah, got ‘em!” and tries to pile on, make the most of it and drive in as many runs as possible

This was the sixth game this season with in-game streaks of 3+ consecutive scoring drives:

Man, they get rolling and it can turn into an avalanche in a hurry.

Roughing It

This game was a blow to our “The refs have it in for the Ravens” perception.  On the Bengals final drive there were a couple plays where “hands to the face” went uncalled, that could have given the Bengals first-downs on Roughing the Passer.  The Ravens have paid their dues in terms of having that not be called on opposing defenses, so I won’t apologize for getting away with it one game.  But it’s an interesting turn.

Along these same lines: Lamar has been getting some protection, this year and last, from refs in terms of Roughing the Passer calls.  Previously he would get hit but not get the calls.  Now he’s getting some.  A welcome development.

Miscellaneous Stat Notes

Lamar when trailing:

Lamar Jackson when trailing in games this season:

🧊 78.3% adjusted completion percentage
🧊 1,038 passing yards
🧊 273 rushing yards
🧊 11 TDs
🧊 0 INTs pic.twitter.com/yH4bwUAg21

— PFF (@PFF) November 8, 2024

Last 6 weeks:

Over the last six weeks, Lamar Jackson has accumulated +103.0 expected points added on dropbacks, the 2nd-most EPA generated by a quarterback in a six-game span over the last nine seasons.

Only Drew Brees (+110.6 in Weeks 5-11, 2018) had more.#CINvsBAL | #RavensFlock

— Next Gen Stats (@NextGenStats) November 8, 2024

Career games w 5 TDs / 0 INTs:

Where No Raven Offense has Gone Re-Redux

The Ravens have now run their streak of consecutive games with a hundred-yard receiver to SIX games:

Before this year the team’s longest such streak had been just 3 games (six times: 1996, ’99, 2005, ’06, 2012, 2021).

MV3?

Lamar is everyone’s midseason MVP.  And with good reason.  But here’s a reminder:

— In 2019, Russ Wilson was the clear midseason favorite for MVP. Over his first nine games, Russ was completing 68% of his passes for 2500 yds with 22 TDs and 1 INT.  Those stats are very similar to what Lamar has now (Lamar’s played one more game).  Lamar didn’t really start building a case until after game 8 (Week 9 due to bye).

— Last season, Tyreek Hill & Christian McCaffrey were fashionable choices for midseason MVP. Also, Brock Purdy & Josh Allen were receiving buzz. Lamar wasn’t in the conversation.  He really made his MVP case over his last six starts.

Just saying, Lamar is playing at a historic level (literally).  But MV3 is not a done deal by any means.

Random Shade

Here’s to you, Arthur Blank:

Better late than never. https://t.co/230KNvu1ee pic.twitter.com/E9SG4iqdNP

— Jonas Shaffer (@jonas_shaffer) November 11, 2024

 

Stats

Here are your stats for the game:

(Data from PFR)

Career day for Tylan Wallace, of course.  His 84-yd catch-&-run blew away his career best game all by itself – in fact, his other two catches Thursday, not including the big run, matched his previous career-high, which was just 31 yards.  Wallace loves to see Bengal uniforms on the opposing sideline.  Here are his four best yardage games:

Okay, some of the numbers on that table are not impressive.  Still it’s funny that they’re all against Cinci.  This was also Wallace’s first career game with three catches.

Watching Wallace break that big run up that sideline, I was struck by how it makes a difference to have experience returning punts.  The punt-return game is not get open, catch the ball in stride, keep running.  It’s not the game that, say, Rashod Bateman plays; or even Justin Jefferson.  The punt-return game is making tough yards in traffic.  Yes, you want an explosive player; but he also needs to have core strength and play with physicality.  Those two traits were on display when Bengals defenders tried to force him out-of-bounds along the sideline.  Wallace basically made them bounce off of him, and he kept his track.

His career has been marred & interrupted by injuries.  Wallace has been leapfrogged in the Ravens plans, by first Bateman, then Flowers, then Diontae Johnson, and maybe by Tez Walker.  But Wallace carved out a spot for himself on special teams; and Thursday he showed that he still has the potential as a WR that got him drafted.  It would be cool if he became a consistent contributor on offense.  An easy guy to root for.

The “kind-of” mark (tilde) that I put in the QS column for Bateman is not because his 6.75 number is close to 7.  It’s because that first shot to him, the one down the left sideline on first play of the game, Bateman was open for the long touchdown but Lamar underthrew it.  Bateman had to throttle down and wait, and that let the defender come into the play and break it up.  If you remove that target from his stats, Bateman’s yds-per-target goes up to 7.7.  His six receptions on the game were all “Successes”; that led the team.  (Andrews was second with four “Successes”.)  Bateman NOT getting a QS on the game is harsh.  He was excellent.

Flowers posted small numbers against the Bengals.  Sideline reporter Kaylee Hartung stuck a microphone in Lamar’s face after the game, and she said something about Flowers not having a big game. Lamar interrupted her to say that Flowers made a huge contribution, drawing a ton of attention from the Bengals defense, opening up things for other receivers.  That statement is interesting.  To my mind it cuts three ways.  One, it’s probably true.  Flowers is the highest-volume receiver in the Ravens offense; coming into the game he had almost double the receptions of the second-place receiver (Bateman).  Makes sense that the divisional opponent would focus on him.  Two, it says something about how the offense operates, taking what the defense gives and finding the open man.  Three, it shows some of Lamar’s leadership ability and sense of stewardship over the team.  He hears phrasing that could imply a negative narrative about his teammate, and he shuts it down immediately.  Part of keeping his offensive humming is keeping his guys engaged and feeling appreciated.  He is ON it.  On a side(line) note, it was a little amusing seeing the 5’-2 Hartung standing next to the 6’-3 (plus cleats!) Lamar.  Her workplace is the land of giants.

Diontae Johnson’s first catch in a Ravens uni.

Oh, and Lamar had a pretty good game too.

Lamar Jackson on 3rd down last night:

10/11 for 162 yds and 3 TDs
+23.1% CPOE
158.3 passer rating pic.twitter.com/MEoBrFgjve

— Mina Kimes (@minakimes) November 8, 2024

Lamar in the second half: 15 of 19 (79%) for 229 yds (12.1 yds-per) with 3 TDs and no INTs, for a rating of 156.5. His first pass of the second half was incomplete to Johnson.  That was the pass where Johnson slipped and fell.  If you omit that first pass, for the rest of the half Lamar had a(nother) perfect passer rating (83%, 12.7 yds-per).  Crazy.

Season Stats & Leaderboard

Here are your full-season stats to date:

(Data from PFR)

Wallace came into the game with a season-long YTS of 15.5.  It’s not supposed to go UP from there.  Wallace evidently has never heard of that rule.  His full-season Success Rate dropped 20 pctg points; but he doubled his Yards-per-target, so on balance his YTS went way up.  Yeah, it’s Small Sample-size Theater; but it’s fun.

Flowers’ is 5th in the NFL in receiving yards.  (Before Monday Night Football.)  Bateman is 25th.

Let’s update a Andrews before-&-after table.  Here is his season broken out:

Remember the league-average YTS for receivers is around 4 for WRs and TEs (much lower for RBs).  The average components look about like Andrews’ did in his first four games: Yards-per-target a little over 7, SuccessRate a little over 50%.  Andrews is smashing those efficiency numbers.  He’s been an engine driving this pass offense – well, Lamar is the engine.  Andrews is, what, the drive train or something?  I guess my car metaphors need a little work; but you get the point.  You can’t really call a former All-Pro an “unsung hero,” but I think it’s not well understood just how important a cog Andrews has been in the Ravens offensive efficiency over the last six games.

Next Up

Shit gets real, part two: Steelers week.

Are you as sick & damn tired of that team as I am?  They haven’t won a playoff game since the 2016 season.  That’s the year Lamar won the Heisman at Louisville.  Seriously, the last time the Steelers won a playoff game was Lamar’s 20th birthday (a week after, technically), two full seasons before Lamar entered the NFL.

They have no playoff success at all, zip-zero-zilch.  But they celebrate like Mardi Gras when they win in a game when the Ravens were resting their starters because they clinched:

Walk in your trap, take over your trap. 👍 #Steelers #NFL pic.twitter.com/HBWpZJBlTS

— Steelers Depot 7⃣ (@Steelersdepot) January 7, 2024

What could be more of a loser move than that??  “Hey, you may have clinched the top seed and be going to the playoffs, but we beat your backup QB to win a game that you conceded!  Nyah nyah!”  Where is the championship pedigree?  Where is the ambition?  They know they’re not built to win in the postseason, so they make the most of any opportunity to celebrate, before losing a Wild Card game the following week, 31-17.

Then we have Troy Aikman “recounting Saturday’s television production meeting with Mike Tomlin. ‘Mike Tomlin told us this is not a quarterback-centric team,’ Aikman said.”

Kudos to Tomlin for making a virtue of necessity I guess.  But do you know why the Steelers are not a quarterback-centric team?  Because Tomlin cannot develop a Quarterback.  Seriously.

It is common among Ravens fans to compare Harbaugh unfavorably to Tomlin.  For those fans, here is a list of Quarterbacks that John Harbaugh has developed from entering the league to established pro:

• Starters: Joe Flacco (SB MVP, still STARTING in year 17), Lamar Jackson (2x league MVP)
• Contributors: Tyrod Taylor (14-yr career, .500 record, Pro Bowl appearance), Tyler Huntley (5-yr career, Pro Bowl appearance)

And here is the list of Quarterbacks Mike Tomlin has developed:

That’s it, that’s the list.

Now, I’m not trying to pretend that Harbaugh “made” Lamar Jackson.  Jackon’s talent & intelligence & drive would’ve made him successful in many, many landing spots.  Maybe not everywhere – it’s easy to imagine the Bears staff mismanaging Lamar as much as thoroughly as they did Mitch Trubisky and Justin Fields (and Caleb Williams?) – but most places.  Nor am I trying to pretend that Taylor & Tyler are great Quarterbacks.  They are at best functional, get-you-through-a-month backups.

But – Tomlin hasn’t presided over the successful development of anyone at QB.  He inherited Ben Roethlisberger from Bill Cowher, and rode him until his arm fell off.  Almost literally.  Then Tomlin presided over a Keystone Kops succession comedy.  You remember Mason Rudolph; Devlin Hodges; Josh Dobbs.  Some of those QBs have played decently for other teams; but not for Tomlin, never for Tomlin.  And then there was Kenny Pickett.

This year Tomlin’s Steelers quit fooling around, trying to pretend that Tomlin could “develop” a QB.  Instead they tried to buy championship pedigree in the free agent market, bringing in old Russell Wilson.

Pittsburgh comes into the game as the #13 overall team by DVOA.  Their rating on offense is somewhat lowered by all the Justin Fields starts.  But they hang their hat on defense; and their oh-so-great, vaunted defense is 10th in DVOA.  That’s certainly respectable – better than the Ravens D! – but it’s below the KC, Buffalo and Denver defenses.  The Ravens put up 20, 35 and 41 points against those teams.  That defense can be handled.

I say this with all sincerity: F&C! the Steelers.