Measuring a team’s progress or improvement over an offseason, based on the results of an opening-night road game against the defending Super Bowl champion, is a dubious exercise. So let’s keep what we’re about to say about the Baltimore Ravens’ Week 1 offense—featuring three new starters on the offensive line—in proper context.
For the most part, the Kansas City Chiefs were able to distill the entirety of Baltimore’s roster into one damning fact Thursday night, which we all knew going in: The Ravens will struggle to protect the quarterback while their new offensive line gels. This was underlined by the absolutely stunning statistic that just two of Lamar Jackson’s first 18 pass attempts traveled more than four yards in the air. The first time he attempted what we might all consider a proper “deep” shot in the third quarter, Jackson looked almost out of practice, failing to lead tight end Isaiah Likely enough to get him some separation from single coverage.
The team’s biggest passing play prior to the final minutes of the game was really just a play extension by Jackson which allowed him to loft the ball up to Likely. From there, the third-year tight end made a series of incredible plays in limited space.
The whole bit makes it easy to turn Thursday into a kind of indictment of Baltimore’s decision to turn over its offensive line, and Jackson himself for missing a handful of critical throws, the game’s second-to-last play chief among them. I can understand how someone might believe that a two-time MVP should be able to negate these sorts of issues more seamlessly and find a way to score a game-tying (or game-winning with a two-point conversion) touchdown. I disagree with the thought, for the record.
But what if the Chiefs were simply the worst possible matchup for Baltimore at this point in the season, and the finer points of the Ravens’ overall philosophy are going to work over the long term? The Ravens went into Thursday night announcing to the NFL that they are going to negate some of the inexperience on their offensive line with a dizzying array of misdirectional blocking up front that involves almost any offensive player capable of laying a hand on someone else. Additionally, they are going to get the ball out of Jackson’s hands quickly. They are going to make up for an initial lack of explosiveness by depending on the extension of short plays through advantages in speed (Jackson and Zay Flowers) and power (Derrick Henry, Mark Andrews and so on). If they had to throw the ball deep in critical situations, they would utilize seven-man protection. It’s not as big of a disadvantage to have fewer receivers trying to catch the ball when a quarterback can extend plays like Jackson.
On paper, this is a solid idea, except during the very rare moments when you happen to be playing against a team with a generational talent as an interior defensive lineman (Chris Jones), who can break up the misdirectional blocking and clog up the power running game, as well as a defense that is so good at tackling in space collectively that it was able to blunt even the greatest collection of skill-position players in the NFL when it faced the San Francisco 49ers in Super Bowl LVIII.
It was visible on the Ravens’ busted fourth-down conversion attempt early in the game. The play was dead on arrival thanks to the fact that Nelson Agholor didn’t block the defensive back in front of him. Still, it’s not easy to tackle Flowers in short yardage, especially when you don’t see him coming out of the backfield. (A cool, Tyreek Hill–inspired wrinkle: Flowers knelt behind Andrews and tackle Roger Rosengarten before the snap, and came out into the flat unguarded.) Corner Trent McDuffie made the stop look routine, and he was flanked by a handful of other defenders who also could have prevented the conversion.
My question: How many more defenses on Baltimore’s schedule can we honestly say are capable of doing everything Kansas City’s defense did Thursday night with so much consistency that it can fend off Baltimore for four quarters? And, had Likely worn a shoe half a size smaller, we wouldn’t have a single lingering question about Baltimore’s offense at all.
On the play that set up Baltimore’s final sequence, a 38-yard pass to (and unbelievable catch by) Rashod Bateman, in which Jackson comfortably climbed the pocket and was able to get rid of the ball, Jones was on the Chiefs’ sideline getting a rest and, thus, unable to wreak havoc on Baltimore’s protection. This was a more accurate glimpse of what Baltimore’s offense will look like once the offensive line has more time to play together, or once Jackson can simply become more familiar with this particular brand of chaos. I’m not saying Jackson won’t face good pass rushers who can similarly affect a play. I am saying that Jones is among the best, he’s out of the way (until the playoffs, at least) and it can’t get much worse.
Baltimore’s efforts were nearly good enough to take out the defending champions on opening night. With the kind of offseason surgery the Ravens had to do on their most critical unit, in concert with the difficulty of blocking for Jackson without a library of game reps to learn his unique tendencies and habits, the variance of possible outcomes against the Chiefs on Thursday was high. For one half, we saw what it could be at its worst. But then we saw what it could become—and that’s certainly good enough to contend in the AFC.
