The extra John Harbaugh watched of the Ravens’ 24-20 loss Sunday to the New York Giants, the extra he mentioned he understood his workforce and what it may be this season.
Their shortcomings? “Very, very correctable,” the coach mentioned Monday. But additionally very, very actual.
“Half of it makes you feel better about it, because you know you can get it cleaned up, and half of it makes you feel worse about it, because it’s like, ‘Why didn’t we have it already cleaned up?’” Harbaugh mentioned. “We’re in a place in our development right now as a team where there are a number of moving parts, and there are growing pains that we’re just having.”
The Ravens are solely a handful of performs away from a 6-0 begin. Instead, they’re 3-3 getting into their Week 7 house sport towards the Cleveland Browns, and Sunday’s collapse inside MetLife Stadium supplied one other reminder why. From questionable play-calling to poor execution to inopportune penalties, right here’s a have a look at what went mistaken in key spots towards the Giants.
Passed over
Over the primary half, the Ravens averaged 8.1 yards per carry. On their first drive of the second half, they ran twice for a mixed 32 yards.
But when the Ravens bought to the Giants’ 5-yard line, trying to prolong a 10-7 lead, offensive coordinator Greg Roman went towards tendency. He referred to as three straight passes, all of which fell incomplete. The Ravens needed to accept a 23-yard area purpose from kicker Justin Tucker as an alternative.
The offense had run into crowded bins all afternoon — operating again Kenyan Drake confronted eight or extra defenders within the field on seven of his 10 carries, in response to the NFL’s Next Gen Stats — and Harbaugh mentioned Monday that close to the purpose line, “that box starts to stack up a little bit.”
Still, the Ravens’ three red-zone drop-backs left a lot to be desired. On their first, the crossing routes took too lengthy to develop; quarterback Lamar Jackson short-armed a throw to broad receiver Devin Duvernay below heavy stress. On his second drop-back, Jackson stared down tight finish Mark Andrews and had his move to the again of the top zone almost intercepted — twice. And on Jackson’s third and ultimate attempt, he missed tight finish Isaiah Likely on a probable landing move over the center, as an alternative wanting left, the place broad receiver Demarcus Robinson’s route by no means developed into something substantive.
“You can still run it, and you can still try to run it and smash it up in there, and you might pop it, you might get it, or you might say, ‘You know what? I can throw against this, and I’m going to set them up and throw,’” Harbaugh said. “We’ve gone down to the 1-yard line and run it down there and not gotten it in, as you know — and why didn’t we throw it? So I just think that, yes, you accept that, and you look at it, and you say, ‘Well, maybe we could’ve done something different,’ but also, we could’ve executed the pass game a little better and scored, and we wouldn’t be having this conversation.”
The Ravens completed with 24 carries for 211 yards of their loss. Since 2019, when Jackson grew to become the full-time starter in Baltimore, they’re 15-4 when dashing for 200-plus yards.
Coverage collapse
The Giants’ most spectacular drive of the sport got here at a very powerful juncture of the sport. Andrews’ 12-yard rating had given the Ravens a 20-10 lead with slightly below 13 minutes remaining within the fourth quarter. The Giants answered with a 12-play, 75-yard drive of their very own, this one additionally ending with a decent finish’s end-zone seize.
But whereas Andrews’ catch was contested, Daniel Bellinger’s was comparatively easy. On the Giants’ second-and-7 play from the Ravens’ 8, the rookie had lined up subsequent to proper sort out Evan Neal. He bluffed a run block earlier than operating a shallow right-to-left crossing sample together with wideout David Sills V, who’d lined up as an outdoor receiver. Tight finish Tanner Hudson, who’d lined up subsequent to left sort out Andrew Thomas, launched to the center of the sector earlier than bending his route again towards the left.
The Ravens, dropping into zone protection after quarterback Daniel Jones’ pretend handoff, had the numbers to deal with the flood of routes, however not the group. Safety Geno Stone picked up Hudson as he headed to the again nook of the top zone. Cornerback Marcus Peters handed off Sills’ path to inside linebacker Josh Bynes. But when Bynes handed off Bellinger to chop off Sills, nobody picked him up. Safety Chuck Clark was too deep to crash down, and cornerback Marlon Humphrey, who’d lined up reverse Peters, appeared to lose sight of Bellinger amid the wave of our bodies headed to his half of the sector.
When Jones set his ft to throw on the Ravens’ 17, Bellinger was nonetheless greater than 5 yards away from Humphrey. Jones aimed the move excessive sufficient for the 6-foot-5 Bellinger to render Humphrey’s restoration pace a nonfactor.
“We just didn’t play the coverage right,” Harbaugh mentioned. “The protection was misplayed beneath. … The method we play it, it wasn’t matched accurately. It’s simply one thing that we observe on a regular basis; we ought to be higher at it. It was a mistake. We can get that cleaned up and glued.
“There are going to be things in the game on both sides, there are mistakes that get made that get taken advantage of. Football’s not perfect. Guys match with the wrong guy sometimes, their eyes are in the wrong spot sometimes, sometimes they overplay something and something else comes in behind them. … That’s the nature of the game. Sometimes you pay for it, and sometimes you don’t; sometimes they pay for it, and sometimes they don’t.”
Penalty issues
With simply over three minutes remaining, the Ravens led 20-17 and confronted a third-and-1 at their very own 44. Really, they wanted lower than that; a easy quarterback sneak would suffice. But as Jackson plunged forward from below middle for the primary down, an official threw a flag. The Ravens have been referred to as for an illegal-formation penalty. On the next third-and-6, middle Tyler Linderbaum’s too-early snap to Jackson kicked off a sequence of occasions that led to a Giants interception and the go-ahead landing.
In the locker room afterward, left sort out Ronnie Stanley was requested concerning the Ravens’ unlawful formation; referee Clay Martin had cited his quantity in explaining the decision. “I guess someone has to cover me up on the line of scrimmage,” Stanley mentioned, “and no one was covering me up.”
Under NFL guidelines, the offensive workforce will need to have at the very least seven gamers on the road of scrimmage on the snap. The Ravens had solely six: their 5 offensive linemen and tight finish Josh Oliver. Fullback Patrick Ricard, lined up beside Stanley, was off the road of scrimmage. As the one eligible receiver on the left facet of the road, he wanted to be on the road of scrimmage.
After the flag was thrown, Andrews appeared to gesture angrily to Ricard. The Ravens completed with 10 penalties for 74 yards, each season highs.
“A head coach appears at it and says, ‘How can that happen on a basic offensive play?’” mentioned Harbaugh, who didn’t specify which participant or gamers have been accountable. “That’s nonetheless the one which I’m actually reeling over; that’s the one which’s actually churning me up. We get that performed, there’s a excessive probability we go win that soccer sport. So it’s not acceptable.
“It is explainable when you dig in and you see the chain of events that happened, in terms of how we lined up, and then someone tries to make up for how someone else lines up. A mistake gets made, someone tries to correct it, that’s really another mistake, and then we don’t finally fix it in the simple way that it’s taught to be fixed when something like that happens, and you have a terrible error. There’s no way that should happen; that’s one that I’m not probably going to get over, but ultimately, it’s my responsibility.”
Week 7
BROWNS@RAVENS
Sunday, 1 p.m.
TV: Chs. 13, 9
Radio: 97.9 FM, 101.5 FM, 1090 AM
Line: Ravens by 6 1/2
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Source: www.bostonherald.com