Ravens Week 13 Recap - Are The Ravens Suddenly Super Bowl Contenders?
Are we getting a little bit ahead of ourselves? Yeah probbaly. But it’s hard not to be excited about the way the Ravens played yesterday. We’ve seen the offense show flashes at times throughout the year, but they’ve never been able to sustain it for more than a half at a time. Yesterday was pure dominance from beginning to end. They had their way with the Dolphins, nearly picking up 500 yards in the process. Better yet, the defense was their usual selves, keeping the Dolphins to a measly 6 points. The defense will always be the strength of the 2016 Ravens, but they’ll only go as far as the offense takes them. They don’t need to be great. Just good enough. So seeing the O dominate like that is a great sign for us and a scary proposition for the rest of the league. Again, it’s just one game, but what a game it was. More thoughts:
OFFENSE
– Joe was the star of the show yesterday. Guy was throwing darts all over the damn place. Joe is at his best when he’s stepping into his throws and attacking the middle of the field. So many of those big TD’s in that Super Bowl run were thrown in the middle of the field to Boldin and Pitta. He was back at it yesterday, and it shows on his chart
4 TD’s in the middle of the field, and a perfect passer rating in that intermediate range. He didn’t even need to take a deep shot to get his yesterday. He was so efficient and so confident and the timing couldn’t be better. These are big games coming up in the near future, and that’s when Joe plays his best. This could just be the beginning of another great run by Joe. Can’t wait.
– The biggest difference maker for Joe in my opinion has been the offensive line. They’ve been playing out of their minds the past 3 weeks since Marshal Yanda came back and slid into the left guard position. He may still have a shaky shoulder, but he’s still incredibly effective playing backwards. The rest of the group (outside of maybe Ducasse, but he’s basically a plug-in) has been playing great. Ricky Wagner and Ronnie Stanley have given Joe a lot of clean pockets that he wasn’t getting in September and October. He’s got more confidence stepping into his throws with that surgically repaired knee, and the results speak for themselves. They’re getting some good push off the line in the run game too. A major reason they had that 4 game skid in October was the injuries and poor play on the OL. That’s fixed now, fingers crossed. This offense is capable of big things as long as they do their job.
– Dennis Pitta was the other star. Fiiiiinally got his first (and then 2nd) TD since coming off of multiple hip surgeries. Guy had more targets than anyone in the league without getting in the end zone, so he was extremely due. Dennis is most dangerous in the red zone and he’s only getting better this year. Plus with Nick Boyle back, he doesn’t have to focus as much on blocking like the first 10 weeks of the season. It’s great to see Joe and Dennis meshing so well again.
– Another good balance of the workload between T-West and Ken Dixon. They combined for 16 carries for 106 yards. 6.6 yards per carry is pretty damn good. We didn’t run as much as I would’ve expected, but when Joe is playing out of his mind, you gotta let him eat. When we wanted to run the football, we generally did effectively. There will be games when we need to rely on the run more, yesterday just wasn’t one of them.
– Something that will be overlooked is John Harbaugh going for it on 4th down twice around midfield in the first half. Both were converted and both led to touchdowns. John took a lot of flak early in the season for going for it on 4th down too often, and I was one of his biggest advocates. He insisted that he didn’t regret the decisions to go for it, just the fact that they didn’t execute. Now they’re executing and it paid off to the tune of 14 points yesterday. He deserves a lot of credit for sticking to his guns and committing to being aggressive.
– Breshad Perriman skkkkkrrrrrrrrttttttt!!!! We always knew he had the speed, but that was really the first time we’ve seen him with a lot of open space. Guy found a gap and was GONE. Pretty impressive. I just want to see him run better routes and earn more targets. Maybe he’ll get there next year, but for now… that was fun to watch.
DEFENSE
– Another ferocious effort by the defense yesterday. Held the Dolphins under 300 yards and bottled up Ajayi for the most part. I’ll be honest, I was impressed with the way he played, but it was mostly too little too late for their offense to really get him going. They were playing catch-up the whole way. Once the defense was up 24 at the half, they did a good job of bending and not breaking. Jarvis Landry caught 11 balls, but he wasn’t able to break a big one. If it wasn’t for a fumble by Pitta inside our own 25, the Ravens very well could’ve put up a goose egg yesterday. Baltimore football baby.
– It was so great to see Jimmy Smith back. I know Davante Parker wasn’t 100%, but he still didn’t get much going against Jimmy. He and Tavon Young complement each other so well, especially when you face a pair of guys like Parker and Landry. We know we’re going to stop the run, so when those two corners are both healthy and doing their job on the field, it’s tough to score on the Ravens.
– The pass rush was strong again. Matt Judon especially impressed, notching a sack and 2 QB hits. He was supposed to be a bit of a project pass-rusher, but the rookie is already showing his mettle. Sizzle and Doom were able to pressure Tannehill into some bad throws, and it paid off. Guy threw 3 picks, 2 of which came in Ravens territory. The lack of turnovers was a major issue in 2015, but it looks like it’s actually a strength of this year’s team. Again, Baltimore football baby.
– Helluva pick by Lardarius Webb. I had no idea who was coming up with that football, but I didn’t really expect it to be Webb. And I definitely didn’t think that he could’ve gotten a knee inbounds, but he did. It’s wild that he can’t catch the easy picks, but he can get one of those. I’ll take it.
SPECIAL TEAMS
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– Justin Tucker is perfect. That is all.
So in summary, the Ravens look really really good for the first time this season. It’s possible that our expectations for the offense were too low going into this year, but we now know that they don’t have to be lights out. 38 points is awesome, but they can win a lot of games by just scoring 20 a game. Hopefully they keep it going in New England next Monday night. There’s a good chance the Ravens get humbled on national television, but if they can steal a win or even just give the Pats a good game, their status as an AFC contender will be validated. Can’t wait to find out.