The 2021 Ravens staged TV’s finest cleaning soap opera final yr, sacrificing conventions and normalcy for madness and drama virtually each week. Only Hollywood scriptwriters might have dreamed up a regular-season opener and regular-season finale each ending with additional time losses.
Or an offense shedding its high three operating backs in a 12-day preseason span.
Or quarterback Lamar Jackson going from NFL Most Valuable Player front-runner to blitzed into submission in a matter of weeks.
Or a group with an historic damage toll and end-of-season free fall practically making the playoffs.
Those Ravens had been nothing if not unpredictable. These Ravens, with their damage uncertainty and Jackson’s unresolved contract scenario, could possibly be simply as onerous to pin down. But we’ll attempt anyway. Here are 10 guesses — some daring, others not a lot — at how 2022 will unfold.
Rashod Bateman will eclipse 1,000 receiving yards
This isn’t the certain factor it would appear like. In 2019, Jackson’s first season as a full-time starter, then-rookie Marquise “Hollywood” Brown led all Ravens vast receivers with 584 receiving yards. In 2020, Brown had a team-high 769 yards. Last season, with an expanded 17-game schedule, Brown grew to become the primary Ravens vast receiver since 2016 to high 1,000 receiving yards — however simply barely (1,008).
With Brown shipped off to the Arizona Cardinals this offseason, Bateman’s manufacturing ought to bounce dramatically. Despite rookie-year struggles, together with preseason surgical procedure that restricted him to 12 video games, the 2021 first-round choose had 46 catches for 515 yards. His greatest limitations to manufacturing this yr may be structural: Jackson’s reliance on tight ends Mark Andrews and Isaiah Likely, and extra run calls from offensive coordinator Greg Roman. Still, Bateman’s too gifted and too versatile to not characteristic prominently within the Ravens’ passing assault.
No operating again will exceed 150 carries
J.Okay. Dobbins and Gus Edwards each tore their ACL earlier than the primary snap of the 2021 common season. From there, the Ravens by no means settled on a featured runner. In some video games, it was Latavius Murray. In others, it was Devonta Freeman. But the pair of veteran fill-ins mixed for simply 252 carries. For just a little perspective, Jamal Lewis toted the ball 387 instances in his signature 2003 season.
The Ravens hoped to have Dobbins and Edwards at or close to full energy for Week 1 of this season. We already know that won’t occur. Edwards is on the reserve/physically-unable-to-perform checklist and can miss no less than 4 video games. Dobbins seems faster by the day in apply, but it surely stays to be seen how rapidly coaches will topic his knee to a full workload. With this prediction, we’re saying the Ravens will spend the primary a part of the season scrambling at operating again, a lot as they did final yr.
Even in more healthy instances, they unfold the wealth. Mark Ingram was their final operating again to surpass the 150-carry mark, with 202 in 2019. It’s troublesome to think about them driving Mike Davis or Kenyan Drake or the recovering Dobbins to that diploma. Instead, Jackson will once more function the fulcrum of Roman’s floor assault, and they’re going to journey the most popular again every week till they’re satisfied Dobbins has regained the explosiveness that made him a breakout candidate coming off his rookie season. The operating recreation will likely be extra productive than it was in 2021, however not in a approach that satisfies fantasy house owners looking for a workhorse again.
Lamar Jackson received’t rush for 100 yards in a recreation
With his eleventh profession 100-yard recreation, Jackson would draw back from his childhood idol, Michael Vick, and set an NFL speeding document for quarterbacks. But defenses aren’t making it simple for Jackson these days. In 2019, he hit the century mark 5 instances. In 2020, he reached it twice. In an injury-shortened 2021, one other two.
Jackson arrived at offseason exercises with about 15 kilos of muscle added to his 6-foot-2 body. Coaches and teammates have stated he hasn’t misplaced his blazing velocity. But it’s truthful to marvel how a lot we’ll see of it. If the Ravens must depend on the just-arrived Drake early within the season, issues over the mesh level change might restrict the viability of Jackson’s zone-read choices. If Davis is closely concerned, defenses can give attention to Jackson as the first outdoors operating menace. If the Ravens play from below heart, as they did at instances within the preseason, Jackson could be restricted to scrambles and bootlegs.
Then there’s the entire last-year-of-his-contract variable. What quantity of carries would the Ravens be comfy with? And what about Jackson? His enter must be thought of.
Isaiah Likely will end third on the group in receptions and receiving yards
Sometimes, we’ve to imagine our eyes. Andrews is Jackson’s high goal. Bateman is a transparent No. 1 among the many vast receivers. No different go catcher got here near matching the productiveness or “wow” issue we noticed from Likely, a fourth-round pick of Coastal Carolina, in coaching camp and the preseason. The rookie has each instrument you’d need from a catch-first tight finish: dependable fingers in visitors, an inherent really feel for sliding into open areas, energy and stability to run by tackles. Ravens coaches had seen sufficient after he torched the Arizona Cardinals for 100 yards in a single half; he didn’t play once more over their subsequent six quarters of preseason motion.
Not many groups depend on tight ends to be two of their high three receivers, however nobody has accused the Ravens of orthodoxy on offense. Roman loves designing units for a number of tight ends. Jackson loves throwing to massive targets over the center. If Likely is half the participant he was over the past six weeks, he’ll obtain loads of probabilities. On a roster with out a clear No. 2 vast receiver, he will likely be a featured playmaker.
At least three Ravens will begin at left sort out
Three Ravens — Alejandro Villanueva, Patrick Mekari and Tyre Phillips — began at proper sort out final season. Lineup juggling might inflict comparable turnover on the blind aspect this yr. Ja’Wuan James is anticipated to begin the season opener. Ronnie Stanley, nonetheless discovering his consolation stage as he finishes his ankle rehabilitation, may be prepared for motion quickly after.
But how lengthy can they maintain up for? James, who tore his Achilles tendon within the 2021 offseason, hasn’t began since 2019. Stanley has appeared in simply seven video games over the previous two seasons. Even earlier than his ankle nightmares, he’d miss a recreation or two most years with a minor damage. The Ravens gave Patrick Mekari a three-year, $15.5 million extension final season as a result of he’s the last word security web for a group that wants its franchise quarterback protected in any respect prices.
Odafe Oweh will change into the primary Raven with double-digit sacks since 2017
Oweh arrived in Baltimore sick to dying of listening to in regards to the zero sacks he recorded in his last season at Penn State. Critics used this useful information level as a cudgel to recommend he was all exercise sizzle, no game-day steak. He put this behind him with a productive rookie season, however he got here out of it believing he nonetheless had a lot room to develop. We noticed the wrath of Oweh 2.0 all through coaching camp and in short glimpses of preseason motion. He was extra violent together with his fingers, more durable to hit cleanly as he got here across the edge. In different phrases, he was unblockable.
Even as a rookie, counting on frenetic effort and athleticism greater than affected person evaluation and approach, Oweh recorded 5 sacks and 15 quarterback hits in 15 video games. He will play way more snaps this yr below a brand new defensive coordinator, Macdonald, who squeezed unimaginable manufacturing from a pair of gifted edge rushers at Michigan final yr. Everything factors to him turning into the group’s most efficient sack artist since Terrell Suggs, who hit double digits for the final time (with 11) 5 years in the past.
The Ravens will end within the high 5 in defensive DVOA
Defensive effectivity is inherently much less steady than offensive effectivity from yr to yr, which is what made Don “Wink” Martindale’s tenure in Baltimore so exceptional. In his first three seasons as defensive coordinator, the Ravens ranked fourth, fifth and ninth within the NFL in Defense-adjusted Value Over Average, Football Outsiders’ metric for relative effectivity. 2021 was speculated to be extra of the identical. Then the Ravens’ secondary struggled, and the go rush by no means arrived, and accidents doomed the entire enterprise — and maybe Martindale’s job safety, too.
A yr after setting a bunch of undesirable information on its solution to a Twenty eighth-place end in DVOA, the unit ought to bounce again properly. The Ravens have already got one of many NFL’s stingiest defensive strains. Their group of edge rushers might have 4 actual threats by season’s finish. And the secondary, with its assortment of chess items and ballhawks, ought to have a extra unpredictable array of coverages below new coordinator Mike Macdonald. There could possibly be early struggles, particularly in opposition to high-octane offenses just like the Buffalo Bills and Cincinnati Bengals’. But the potential is immense.
The Ravens’ protection will produce no less than 50% extra turnovers than it did in 2021
The Ravens completed final season with simply 15 takeaways, tied for third fewest within the NFL an unacceptable whole for a group that spends a lot of its wage cap on defensive backs. To their credit score, they handled this as a high precedence within the offseason, despite the fact that they knew they’d get again their high ballhawk, cornerback Marcus Peters. Peters’ absence as a result of a torn ACL was not their solely drawback in 2021. Marlon Humphrey completed with one compelled fumble after he knocked eight balls unfastened the earlier yr. The group’s safeties, after a comparatively sizzling begin, completed with 4 interceptions and no compelled fumbles.
So they went purchasing for a high heart fielder in Marcus Williams; used their first draft choose on an extended, instinctive security in Kyle Hamilton; and rounded out their secondary with veteran cornerback Kyle Fuller, who has 19 profession interceptions. Add these items to former All-Pros Peters and Humphrey, they usually’re a superb wager to succeed in 25 takeaways, a determine that will put them within the high third of the league as an alternative of the underside third, the place they resided final yr with the likes of the New York Jets, Jacksonville Jaguars and Carolina Panthers.
The Ravens will sweep the Pittsburgh Steelers
One of soccer’s fiercest rivalries has produced weirdly memorable video games and one-sided sequence in recent times. In 2019, the Ravens swept the Steelers — first beating a Pittsburgh group with out Ben Roethlisberger, then profitable the rematch with out Jackson. The Steelers’ series-clinching win in 2020 got here in opposition to a coronavirus-ravaged Ravens group in a thrice-delayed recreation. In 2021, Pittsburgh received two video games by a mixed 4 factors, the margins determined by a failed 2-point conversion and an additional time area objective.
Injuries, sickness and the Ravens’ 2019 dominance have conspired to restrict Jackson to simply 5 begins in opposition to the Steelers over his three-plus years as a starter, yet one more than he’s made in opposition to the Kansas City Chiefs. If Jackson can keep wholesome, he ought to begin each video games in opposition to Pittsburgh for the primary time in his profession.
That would give the Ravens a transparent benefit on the recreation’s most essential place. With the Steelers’ oodles of vast receiver expertise, quarterbacks Mitch Trubisky and Kenny Pickett have unusually massive security nets. But Jackson is due for a breakout recreation in opposition to Pittsburgh, which has rattled him over time. An improved offensive line and gifted secondary also needs to be sufficient to negate the Steelers’ strongest positions. If the Ravens’ go rush is as much as full energy by December, they may win in Week 14 and Week 17 handily.
The Ravens will win the AFC North
Average damage luck would put the Ravens nicely forward of the dismal well being image they confronted final season as they crashed from the highest of the convention to out of the playoffs in six weeks. They’re extra more likely to end first in go protection than final as they face an unremarkable slate of quarterbacks. Jackson has at all times received, even final yr, when he grew skittish behind an unreliable offensive line that could possibly be considerably higher if Stanley provides the Ravens something. It could be an upset if this group doesn’t flip round to some extent.
So what in regards to the competitors? The Steelers will depend on a rookie or an also-ran at quarterback, taking part in behind a suspect offensive line. The Cleveland Browns received’t have their franchise quarterback, Deshaun Watson, till the final six video games. That leaves the defending champion Bengals, a formidable foe with Joe Burrow at cornerback, a superb younger receiver in Ja’Marr Chase and an improved offensive line to assist maintain Burrow on the sector. The Bengals thumped the Ravens twice and made a surprising run to the Super Bowl, so when you favor them, it’s onerous to argue. But they had been inconsistent final yr — seventeenth in total DVOA and simply two video games forward of the Ravens regardless of vastly higher damage luck. They could possibly be a greater group this yr and nonetheless lose the division due to a harder schedule and some key accidents.
Week 1
RAVENS@JETS
Sunday, 1 p.m.
TV: Chs. 13, 9
Radio: 97.9 FM, 101.5 FM, 1090 AM
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Source: www.bostonherald.com