The Ravens leaned into Lamar Jackson’s strengths. The Jets need to do the same with Sam Darnold

Adam Gase stubbornly looks like he wants Sam Darnold to be the next Peyton Manning. Spoiler alert: He’s not.

We saw two sides of Sam Darnold in the Jets’ 42-21 loss to the Ravens on Thursday night: the mobile Darnold and the Darnold who sits in the pocket.

One of those versions of the young quarterback rifled off impressively-precise passes and made the offense look dynamic. The other worked at times but mostly remained stagnant, bland and overall ineffective. That’s been the case for most of the season.

Can you tell which is which?

Whether Adam Gase likes it or not, Darnold is better when he plays outside of the pocket. He proved it Thursday night on the Jets’ first touchdown drive with two sensational throws to Jamison Crowder. On the first, Darnold scrambled to the right and ran all the way to the line of scrimmage before hitting Jamison Crowder in stride for a 41-yard catch-and-run. Next, Darnold rolled out to the right all the way to the sideline before throwing a dart to Crowder to the right corner of the end zone. 

Both throws were equally impressive and quintessential Darnold.

Gase, however, clearly wants Darnold to be a pocket-passer when all the evidence suggests he isn’t and shouldn’t be one. Those two early passes to Crowder were only a few examples of Darnold’s ability to play better when he runs around behind the line of scrimmage – he’s done it time and time again this season, especially in games when the offense excels. But instead of designing his offense around Darnold’s mobility, Gase has tried to turn Darnold into the next Peyton Manning and stick him behind an offensive line that can’t block.

The team the Jets faced Thursday night, meanwhile, has done what good teams with good coaches do: tailor their offense to their quarterback’s strengths.

The Ravens turned a team originally built for Joe Flacco’s more traditional style of play from just a year ago into one of the most impressive scoring machines in the NFL with Lamar Jackson. They hired Greg Roman, who helped make the pistol formation vogue with the 49ers and Colin Kaepernick and then turned a Tyrod Taylor-led Bills team into the 10th-best scoring offense in the league. Both offenses took what they had at quarterback and created an offense around him. 

With Jackson, Roman and head coach John Harbaugh created a dynamic offense that expertly utilized the run-pass option (RPO) with a trio of running backs and package of plays that turned the Ravens into one of the best offenses in the league. They lead the league in rushing and could be the first team in NFL history to average at least 200 rushing yards and 200 passing yards per game. It’s a new-school look on an old-school philosophy, and the Ravens are riding it to the top of the AFC behind a quarterback many doubted.

Gase hasn’t done that with Darnold. 

Darnold is not the speedster that Jackson is, but he is a mobile-oriented quarterback. For as much as Gase might not like to admit it, Darnold thrives when he uses his legs, either to move outside the pocket or around it. He has one of the worst passer ratings with a clean pocket, yet can make ridiculously-crisp throws on the run to receivers, as evidenced Thursday night and throughout the season.

Gase, though, likes quarterbacks who stay in the pocket. He had that with Manning in Denver and Jay Cutler in Chicago and Miami. Ryan Tannehill wasn’t and isn’t that type of quarterback, and it’s a huge reason why he didn’t work with Gase in Miami and why he’s excelling with the Titans. Tannehill is 6-1 as a starter, is second in completion percentage (73.4) in the NFL and is having his best rushing season since 2014, two years before Gase came to Miami.

Yes, a lot of Gase’s and Darnold’s struggles can be blamed on his supporting cast. It’s a tried and true mechanism to cover up Gase’s own mistakes: The offensive line is incredibly inept, injured and inexperienced and Darnold doesn’t have a true dominant offensive player that’s used effectively (this is the Le’Veon Bell dilemma the Jets currently face). But good coaches can make a good offense with a good quarterback. If the Jets feel like they have at least two of those three components, then they should have an offense able to score and win at will, no? Well, they’re 5-9, rank 31st in yards and 29th in points and don’t look close to being able to compete with the rest of the AFC East.

That’s on Gase. Darnold is a solid player. He’s made a lot of impressive throws during his short career even without much to work with. But when he’s forced to play quarterback the way Gase wants him to play, Darnold makes mistakes. Instead of trying to fit Darnold’s mobile tendencies into Gase’s idea of how an offense should be run, Gase should do what the Ravens did and build his offense around Darnold’s strengths.

Ravens’ John Harbaugh calls Bills ‘one of the best’ teams in NFL

Baltimore Ravens head coach John Harbaugh, QB Lamar Jackson on Buffalo Bills, Bills Mafia.

The Ravens topped the Bills 24-17 in Week 14, but they certainly had to earn it and Baltimore head coach John Harbaugh acknowledged that on Sunday.

Following the win, the Ravens’ bench boss was very complimentary of Buffalo’s football team, giving them a very high status in comparison to other teams in the NFL.

“That was a great football game, and two really, really good football teams going at it, tooth and nail. Proud of the victory. Very impressed with the Bills. That’s a football team that’s going to be around, through the playoffs, into the playoffs, that’s a good football team. Very well coached by Sean McDermott and very tough, hard-nosed, hard playing football team. So, to win that game, obviously, is a very special victory,”

“Very tough win because of the opponent and I think the crowd here is great. It’s one of the best places to play in the National Football League. Very loud crowd, very enthusiastic crowd, very knowledgeable crowd. But even beyond that, the football team is really good. This is one of the best football teams in the league,” Harbaugh said.

Quarterback Lamar Jackson guided the Ravens to the win, but it certainly was not his best day at the office. The current MVP candidate was 16-for-25 passing for 145 yards with three touchdown passes. However, he only had 40 yards rushing with his first interception since Week 5, too.

Jackson, like his coach, had praise for the Bills.

“This was a regular playoff game. Both teams were coming in to try and prove themselves, and they did that, they were playing hard football the whole entire game on offense and defense and special teams as well. But we ended up coming out on top with the victory and we just have to keep it going,” Jackson said.

“[The win was] Very tough. We came into New Era Field, great environment, the Bills fans came, they were basically on the field it was so loud here. Defense came out to play like I said before, it was just a playoff game,” the QB added.

While there were “no moral victories” after this one, as Buffalo head coach Sean McDermott said, it’s a big compliment that the Ravens were impressed with the Bills, seeing as they’re among the best, if not the best team, in the NFL. With that in mind, the Bills want to run things back and a few players in Buffalo’s locker room after the game acknowledged they’re hoping for a rematch in the playoffs. Linebacker Lorenzo Alexander was among them.

“We know we’re going to see that team again in the future. Obviously we’ve got Pittsburgh next week and have got to finish off the season strong and put ourselves in a position to [face the Ravens again],” Alexander said. “Definitely with the way we’re playing, the confidence, I definitely feel we’ll probably end up seeing them again.”

Time will tell if the Bills get that chance to prove they’re among the best in a game against the Ravens.

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John Harbaugh: Mark Andrews injury isn’t serious

Baltimore Ravens coach John Harbaugh doesn’t believe tight end Mark Andrews’ injury is serious. Andrews said he’ll play Thursday.

The Baltimore Ravens escaped Buffalo with a win over the Bills and might have escaped with much more. Ravens tight end Mark Andrews left in the first half with what was later called a knee injury and didn’t return to the lineup.

After the game, coach John Harbaugh noted Andrews’ injury wasn’t very serious, according to ESPN’s Jamison Hensley. With a quick turnaround in Week 15 to play the New York Jets in just four days, there could still be some concern about Andrews being able to suit up for next week. However, Harbaugh said Andrews told him he’d play on Thursday night.

Though Andrews missed much of the game due to the injury, he was still targeted three times (tied for second most on the team) and caught one pass for 14 yards. His two other targets were just off his fingertips, including one in the end zone that would have been a touchdown. The weather clearly affected Baltimore’s passing attack in Week 14 with high wind gusts blowing the ball around but Andrews’ absence was also felt, especially on third downs (27% conversion rate) and down the stretch when they usually pull out to an insurmountable lead.

Andrews has been the driving force of Baltimore’s passing attack. Andrews leads the team in receptions (54), receiving yards (707) and receiving touchdowns (7). While missing a game or two wouldn’t be the end of the world with the 5-8 Jets and 6-7 Cleveland Browns up next, and a playoff spot already clinched; missing much more than that could put a damper on the Ravens’ offensive juggernaut.

We’ll see where Andrews places on this week’s injury report as a better indication of his status for Week 15.

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4 storylines for when the Ravens take on the Bills

The Baltimore Ravens venture north this week, a daunting task for any team in December, to take on the Buffalo Bills. The Ravens are 28-22 in the twelfth month of the year since 2008, and it’s safe to say that this December holds the most importance for the Ravens and their fans alike in recent history.

The Baltimore Ravens venture north this week as they take on the Buffalo Bills for Week 14. While the Ravens have been on a roll — winning eight straight coming into this week — the Bills are no slouch either at 9-3. While most experts believe Baltimore will extend their winning streak this week, it’s a potential playoff matchup that will test both teams in the final weeks of a long season.

Before sitting down and watching the game, here are the four storylines you might want to know about the Ravens vs. Bills in Week 14.

Ravens could be playoff bound:

Photo by Rob Carr/Getty Images

It’s a pretty rare spot Baltimore is in entering Week 14. They’ve usually had to fight into the final week of the season to get into the playoffs and at times have had to get a little outside help to find a wild card berth. But this week, the Ravens simply need to win and they’ll be guaranteed a place at the table in the AFC.

It gets even better than that though. A win and a little help from the NFC and Baltimore can not only clinch a playoff spot but seal up the AFC North for the second consecutive season. Claiming the division would ensure the Ravens have at least a top-4 seed regardless of how they finish out the final three games. Plus, it also sticks it to the Pittsburgh Steelers, who would be mathematically eliminated from winning the AFC North this season and put the pressure on them to squeak into the playoffs as a wild card.

A win in the NFL is nice but guaranteeing a playoff berth and getting to claim some superiority over a division rival is so much better.

PODCAST: Lamar Jackson breakdown with Ravens beat reporter

The Ravens are one of the most perplexing offenses in the NFL currently. Their style of a run heavy offense with a dual-threat QB in Lamar Jackson is not uncommon, but the way that it’s executed has never quite been seen before. The way that the …

The Ravens are one of the most perplexing offenses in the NFL currently. Their style of a run heavy offense with a dual-threat QB in Lamar Jackson is not uncommon, but the way that it’s executed has never quite been seen before. The way that the team sells it’s trickery, misdirection, and plays in general has challenged and confused every team in it’s way so far.

Buffalo is an enigma, though. A resilient team that has been in an uphill battle all season, on and off of the field. Facing criticism from many for a schedule that’s out of their control, doubts about Josh Allen, coaching, and more. They’ve risen to the occasion, and are one of the best teams in the AFC and NFL currently. They are certainly chomping at the bit for this opportunity to cement their place along with the greats in 2019.

Joining host Matt John for this episode, are the Managing Editor of Billswire, Nick Wojton. Secondly, a friend and colleague of Nick’s from college, Sean Grogan, who covers the Baltimore Ravens for Cecil Whig via cecildaily.com, to discuss the various aspects, story lines, and more for this huge AFC match up:

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4 takeaways from Ravens 20-17 win over the 49ers

Here’s what we learned from the Baltimore Ravens’ close win over the San Francisco 49ers in Week 13

In what might have been a possible preview of Super Bowl LIV, the Baltimore Ravens defeated the San Francisco 49ers by a score of 20-17. With the win, the Ravens to rise to 10-2 and keep up with the New England Patriots in the race for the conference crown.

This was quite possibly the hardest opponent the Ravens have faced all season. So of course, there’s going to be a few things we can learn from this win and carry into future games.

1. The Ravens can beat anyone

Photo by Patrick Smith/Getty Images

In the last six weeks, the Ravens have faced the Seattle Seahawks, New England Patriots, Cincinnati Bengals, Houston Texans, Los Angeles Rams,  and San Francisco 49ers. Four of the teams on that list — the Seahawks, Patriots, Texans and 49ers — appear to be postseason bound and two of them –the Patriots and 49ers –are popular picks to win the Super Bowl.

Baltimore is 5-1 against teams that would be in the playoffs if the season ended today, with their one loss coming against the Kansas City Chiefs in Week 3 when this was a much different team. After struggling to defeat playoff-caliber teams in previous seasons, the Ravens have figured out how to do it now in 2019 and that makes them the most dangerous team in the league with the postseason approaching.

4 takeaways from the Ravens 45-6 win over the Rams

Here’s what we learned from the Baltimore Ravens’ latest big win over the Los Angeles Rams and just how good this team actually is.

The Baltimore Ravens have extended their winning streak to seven straight with a 45-6 victory over the Los Angeles Rams in Week 12. The win secures the stranglehold the Ravens currently have over their division, as well as keeping them right behind the New England Patriots in the AFC playoff race.

But with the season ticking towards its end, it also taught us some things about the Ravens and just how good they are. Here are the four biggest takeaways from this win.

1. The Ravens are one of the most terrifying teams to play in 2019

Photo by Jayne Kamin-Oncea/Getty Images

The Ravens have won seven straight games and of those seven, you would have to go back to their Week 6 win over the Cincinnati Bengals to find the last game that they won by only one score. Every game since then has been a multi-score victory.

Lest you think that Baltimore has been beating up on cellar-dwellers, four of those wins came against the Seattle Seahawks, New England Patriots, Houston Texans and Rams — all playoff-caliber teams with proven quarterbacks in Russell Wilson, Tom Brady, and Deshaun Watson.

The Ravens overcame some early bumps and have become one of the best teams in the league and forcing opponents to pick their poison, either burning them through the air or on the ground, or with a defense that has shown that it can score as well. Sometimes the Ravens burn teams with all three of those and that should terrify the teams remaining on their schedule, as well as whatever team they have to face in the postseason.

Garrett on analytical decisions: ‘We don’t use those stats within the game’

In an era when teams are using advanced math to help call plays, Jason Garrett shows no interest in overriding his gut in key situations.

The Cowboys’ decision to kick a field goal from the New England 11-yard line with 6:04 left in regulation seemed wrong to an awful lot of fans watching the game. It was only the second time Dallas had been that close to the end zone all day. They were down by seven; punching it in would have given the team the chance to tie with a point-after kick.

They had just tried, with a Dak Prescott pass to tight end Blake Jarwin in the back of the end zone. Prescott seemingly had room to run before firing the ball on that third down; even if he had not scored or picked up the first down, he likely would have, at the very least, lessened the fourth-down distance. Despite needing seven yards to move the chains, it was arguably a go-for-it moment.

Jason Garrett disagreed, math and analytics and the way some successful NFL teams are now employing hard and fast statistics to make real-time game decisions be damned.

The coach explained his thought process to 105.3 The Fan on Monday morning:

“Just over six minutes to go in the ball game. We obviously hadn’t done real well on third downs throughout the game, so 4th-and-7 was going to be a challenging situation, particularly down there where you don’t have as much space. So we just felt like, in that situation, with that much time left in the ball game, just go ahead and make it a 4-point game. Let’s see if we can play defense, give our offense an opportunity to come back and win it. The other factor in a situation like that if they do move the ball and they kick a field goal, and you’ve gone for the touchdown and you haven’t made it, now it’s a 10-point game and a two-score game. So this keeps you in a more manageable situation if they do kick a field goal, it still would only be a 7-point game. Biggest thing you try to do there is make sure you give yourself an opportunity to come back the other way. Just under three minutes to go, three timeouts and a two-minute warning, we felt like that gave us a pretty decent chance coming back to win the ball game.”

In Garrett’s answer, some variation of the word feel shows up a lot. Lots of if. Ambiguous, open-ended phrases like let’s see. His usual emphasis on opportunity.

But there’s a big difference between opportunity and probability. And that’s where hosts Shan and RJ went with their follow-up question:

“Coach, there’s a stat called win probability. Basically, it tells you before each play, your chances of winning the game- whether they increase or decrease- based on the play you’re going to run. Do you have that information available to you during the game based on each play? Like, ‘Hey, if we kick the field goal here, our chance of winning the game goes up or down?'”

Garrett paused for a moment before replying, simply, “Yeah, we don’t use those stats within the game.”

One of the best teams in the league, however, does. As mentioned for the radio audience after Garrett’s phone interview, the Baltimore Ravens are taking some of the guesswork out of their playcalling. Sitting up in the coaching booth during every game, right next to offensive coordinator Greg Roman, is a 25-year-old behavioral economics major from Yale who runs the numbers when there’s a decision to be made on the sideline.

Sheil Kapadia of The Athletic has a fascinating profile on Daniel Stern, whose official title with the team is that of football analyst. Now in his fourth season with the Ravens, Stern assists the coaching staff during the week as they create an overall strategy for each opponent. And on gameday, Stern is on the headset, directly talking coach John Harbaugh through things like whether the math says to go for it or not in a key 4th-down situation.

It’s still ultimately up to Harbaugh and his gut, but the analytics give the coach the most data possible to help make the decision. Perhaps not coincidentally, Baltimore (through Week 11) had converted 10 of 14 fourth-down plays attempted in 2019, tied for most in the league. “And on the 10 drives where they’ve converted,” Kapadia writes, “eight have resulted in touchdowns. They’re averaging 10.5 yards per play on fourth down, which is tops in the NFL.”

The Ravens lead the NFL in 4th-down aggressiveness, with a “go rate” over 60 percent (in situations where the win probability is 1-in-5 or better). The Cowboys are between 20 and 25 percent, ranking among the bottom ten teams leaguewide in the above graph, which charts through Week 11.

Sure, it helps the Ravens that they have a weapon like quarterback Lamar Jackson. That obviously lets them be more aggressive in trying to keep opposing defenses on their heels on a do-or-die fourth down play. But Harbaugh has openly embraced concepts like win probability and expected points added and wants to be fed that information during the game.

“We talk about all the different scenarios, and [Stern] basically gives me a percentage,” Harbaugh is quoted in the Athletic piece. “So what’s the added win percentage of going for it? He’ll give it to me like one, two, three, four, five, six, up to whatever. Then you just decide if you want to do it. It’s not strictly based [on the numbers]. I listen to it. If he starts telling me 3 and 4 percent, I get really interested. If it’s 1 or 2 percent, I’m still interested — especially if it’s short, if I think we can get it.”

According to ESPN Stats & Info via Todd Archer, the win probability of the Cowboys going for it on that fourth down with 6:04 to play eleven yards from the goal line? 18.8 percent. “By kicking the field goal,” Archer notes, “the win probability fell to 16.7 percent.”

All of Garrett’s rhetoric about how it felt like cutting the lead kept things more manageable? How the field goal gave the offense a “pretty decent chance” to come back and score again? That decision actually decreased the team’s chances of sneaking a win out of Gillette Stadium. The numbers say so.

Garrett’s dismissal on The Fan?

“Yeah, we don’t use those stats within the game.”

Harbaugh says, “We’re chasing everything that’s gonna give us an edge.”

That sort of philosophy sounds like it would be a breath of fresh air to Cowboys fans, many of whom have tired of Garrett’s old-school insistence on doing things the way he’s always done them just because that’s the way it’s always been done. The 53-year-old Princeton grad may have a lot of football knowledge, but adding a little bit of math to the curriculum sure feels like it might present quite an opportunity.

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How the Ravens fixed their defense and became the NFL’s best team

John Harbaugh wants you to think nothing changed, but the Ravens actually made signficant alterations — and they worked.

Expectations were high for the Baltimore Ravens heading into the 2019 season. We expected the offense to look … different in Year 2 of the Lamar Jackson era, but “different” doesn’t always mean better and you would have been totally justified in wondering if this new-fangled offense, which John Harbaugh said would “revolutionize” the NFL, was good enough to help the team get back to the Super Bowl.

Eleven weeks into the season, we can safely say Harbaugh’s hype was warranted. The Jackson-led offense, which is in fact unlike anything we’ve seen in the NFL, ranks third in offensive DVOA and, along with its quarterback, seems to be getting better every week. The Texans were the latest in Jackson’s destruction tour of the NFL. The MVP candidate tossed four touchdowns, averaged 9.3 yards per attempt and added another 87 yards on the ground in a 41-7 romp over the Texans.

While those 41 points jump off the screen, don’t overlook the seven spot. That was no fluke. Baltimore’s defense was just as impressive as its offense, and that’s been the case for the last month or so. In fact, since the trade for Marcus Peters before Week 7, the Ravens have had the NFL’s best defense, per Football Outsiders’ DVOA.

The Ravens having one of the NFL’s best defenses is not necessarily a surprise. That was the preseason expectation. But after a rough start to the season and a few key injuries, those expectations were tempered as excitement for the offense grew. After four weeks, the Ravens had plummeted to 29th in defensive DVOA and were coming off a 40-25 loss to a struggling Browns team. This was one week after a lifeless defensive display in Kansas City. I’ll let defensive coordinator Don “Wink” Martindale explain how bad that performance was…

“I lost four pounds this week,” Martindale said, via Penn Live, “because I watched it three times and threw up all three times.”

Those two losses — Baltimore’s only losses of the season — were a low point for the defense but they can also be considered a turning point. The losses forced Martinadale to make changes in order to address the unit’s two biggest issues: (1) A glaring lack of pass rush, and (2) poor communication in the secondary.

After the seven-sack performance against the Texans, we can say those issues have been ironed out. Baltimore didn’t give up any huge plays and the pass rush put Deshaun Watson under duress all afternoon. Harbaugh was asked about the improved pass rush and what had changed since the slow start to the season. He wasn’t entirely forthcoming…

Sorry, Harbs, but that’s not really true. Changes were made after that Cleveland made. Changes had to be made after that game because the Ravens pressured Baker Mayfield on only three of his 32 dropbacks.

Baltimore wasn’t getting home with a traditional four-man rush and that was exacerbating issues in the secondary. So Martindale did the sensible thing and start calling more blitzes. A lot more blitzes, in fact. In that Week 4 loss to Cleveland, the Ravens had blitzed only 10 times. The following week, that number jumped to 16. In the game after that, Baltimore blitzed 30 times! Since Week 4, the team’s blitz rate has not been below 40.5% in any game.

Martindale is unafraid as a play-caller. He will send a blitz in any situation and he isn’t afraid to crowd the line of scrimmage against spread sets, either. He’s also not dumb. A lot of the pre-snap looks he throws at a quarterback are more daunting than what follows after the snap. The aim is to maintain a numbers advantage in coverage while getting the offensive line to slide one way so the Ravens can send a blitz from the opposite direction.

This is how every blitz would play out in Martindale’s ideal world…

The Ravens have seven potential blitzers near the line of scrimmage. Brady makes a miscalculation, thinking the two defensive backs, Chuck Clark and Earl Thomas, will drop into coverage. He calls for a half-slide protection to his right (yellow in the diagram below), which leaves the left guard and tackle, plus the back, to protect his blindside.

But Martindale has Matt Judon (99) and Tyus Bowser (54) dropping into coverage leaving three Pats linemen responsible for one pass rusher to the left side. On the other side, the Ravens are sending four against only three blockers, creating a free rusher. So, Martindale has created a two-on-one in coverage to the top of the screen, a four-on-three to the bottom of it and a four-on-three in the rush.

It’s as if there are 13 defenders out there.

In order to accommodate the more aggressive approach upfront, Martindale has had to make changes on the backend. That started with the season-ending injury to strong safety Tony Jefferson. Since Jefferson went down, Earl Thomas has been playing closer to the line of scrimmage. At the beginning of the season, he was lining up where he’d typically line up in Seattle’s defense — about 15 yards from the line of scrimmage.

Now he’s playing at a 10-yard depth, where he’s closer to the ball and better able to disrupt intermediate route concepts, as he does here before looking to stop a scrambling Watson.

That positional shift has helped Thomas immensely. He was perfectly suited for the role of centerfield safety in Seattle’s defense but that deep positioning did limit his play-making opportunities. That’s no longer the case, and Thomas is now a more disruptive force, and I’d even go as far as to say he’s a more valuable player now than he ever was in Seattle because of it.

Even when Thomas isn’t line up in centerfield, he still has the range to defend that area of the field, as Brady found out in the Ravens’ 37-20 win over the previously undefeated Patriots.

With Thomas playing closer to the line of scrimmage, the Ravens have called more two-deep safety coverages in to give him more help deep. Per Sports Info Solutions, Baltimore’s usage of those coverage has nearly tripled since Week 4, jumping from about 10% in September to 28% over the rest of the season. That strategic shift has coincided with a vastly improved pass defense. After Kyler Murray, Patrick Mahomes and Baker Mayfield averaged 0.33 Expected Points Added per attempt against the Ravens in Weeks 2 through 4, opponents are averaging -0.31 per attempt since, and that includes games against Brady, Watson and Russell Wilson.

Good X’s and O’s are important but not nearly as important as having the right players to execute them. After losing Tavon Young and Jimmy Smith to injury, the Ravens did not have those players early on in the season. Outside of Marlon Humphrey, the young cornerback group was not playing well and, worse, was not communicating well either, which led to an infuriating number of coverage busts. This one against the Chiefs was particularly ugly and came after a banged-up Humphrey had to leave the game.

A few weeks later, the Ravens swung a trade for Marcus Peters. Then Smith returned in time for the Patriots game. All of a sudden, the cornerback position became a strength for the Ravens and Martindale was tasked with getting all four of his corners — Humphrey, Peters, Smith and Brandon Carr — on the field at once. His solution was a bit unorthodox and, ironically, similar to the strategy the Chargers used to beat the Ravens in last year’s playoffs. Martindale moved Carr to safety and asked safety Chuck Clark to play dime linebacker. Peters and Smith would play outside corner (for the most part) and Humphrey would take the biggest threat in the slot. Add in Thomas, and that’s six good coverage players the Ravens can throw at you in this dime package.

Since the Peters acquisition, the Ravens’ dime defense has defended 74 passing attempts. Opponents are averaging -0.38 expected points added per attempt. Some context: The Jets passing game is averaging -0.26 EPA per attempt, which ranks 32nd in the NFL.

As the numbers show, it hasn’t taken long for this rejiggered secondary to gel, which has also helped the pass rush. This snap from the Houston game shows how cohesive this unit has become from front to back.

You can see players working in tandem all over the field. First, let me direct your attention to the bottom of the screen, where Clark and Humphrey seamlessly switch responsibilities when DeAndre Hopkins runs a slant and the back heads directly for the flat. You can even see Clark pointing it out…

In the middle of the field, you have Bowser and LB Josh Bynes — another midseason pickup — bracketing the tight end…

To the top of the screen, Peters has the outside receiver until he sees the slot receiver run a quick out. Peters is responsible for that so he passes the vertical route off to Carr deep…

Thomas also plays this smartly. When Watson’s movement pulls Clark off Hopkins, he recognizes it and tails the Texans star. But he doesn’t over pursue him and stays on top of the route because he knows he has Peters lurking on the sideline, ready to undercut the over route should Watson target it…

There’s nowhere for Watson to go and he’s forced to eat a sack. A defensive coordinator could not ask for more. I’m sure this is the vision Martindale had for his defense when the season began. It just took a couple months, a handful of schematic adjustments and some smart midseason acquisitions to make it happen.

Lamar Jackson and Ravens offense have received a lot of the love this season, and rightfully so, but all of a sudden, Baltimore also has one of the league’s best defenses. It might be the best defense outside of New England. But with the Patriots offense sputtering and Baltimore’s offense doing whatever the opposite of sputtering is, it’s getting harder to deny: The Ravens are the best team in the NFL.

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Texans 100: Facts and Figures for Ravens, No. 51-75

As the Houston Texans and Baltimore Ravens take each other on in Week 11, we take a look at referee Alex Kemp and Ravens coach John Harbaugh.

The Houston Texans and the Baltimore Ravens take each other on Sunday at 12:00 p.m. CT at M&T Bank Stadium. As we get ready for the matchup, we take a look at Ravens coach John Harbaugh as well as the referee, Alex Kemp.

Facts and Figures for Ravens, No. 1-25

Facts and Figures for Ravens, No. 26-50

JOHN HARBAUGH FACTS

Steven Bisig-USA TODAY Sports

51. Harbaugh has the most 7-2 starts in Ravens history with two. The last start (2012) led to a Super Bowl win.

52. Harbaugh is 35-13 in November with a 23-4 record at home.

53. Brian Billick had a 2-0 record against the Texans while Harbaugh is 6-2, including playoffs.

54. Harbaugh is 48-43 against playoff-winning head coaches.

55. Harbaugh has started five different quarterbacks since taking the Ravens job in 2008, the second-most behind Billick’s 12 for most in team history.

56. Harbaugh is the only rookie head coach among the four hired in 2008 to still remain in the NFL, let alone at his original post.

57. Harbaugh is 46/103 on challenges for his career with an 0/4 record in 2019.

58. Harbaugh has not challenged anything related to pass interference since Week 2. He is 0/1 in 2019.

59. The Ravens are tied with the Jets for the seventh-most fourth down attempts with 12.

60. The Ravens have the ninth-fewest penalties in the league with 62.

61. Harbaugh is 1/7 active Super Bowl-winning coaches in the league and 1/6 to still be on the team he won the Super Bowl with.

62. Harbaugh is the only active coach whose immediate previous post was as a special teams coordinator.