If you had told Ravens fans before the season they’d be sitting at 5-1 with the lone loss coming in a game against the Chiefs, I think most would have been happy with that. Well, the Ravens are in that spot and … Ravens fans, far as I can tell, are not exactly thrilled. They’re worried, and rightfully so, because something doesn’t feel right with an offense that moved the ball so effortlessly just a year ago.
On the scoreboard, things aren’t all that different through six games. At this time last season, the Ravens were averaging 30.6 points per game compared to 29.8 points this season. But the team’s average gain is down a half-yard per play, its average time-of-possession has dropped by about five minutes per game and the offense’s EPA per play has been cut in half, per RBSDM.com.
The picture becomes bleaker when you just focus on the passing game, led by reigning MVP Lamar Jackson, over the last four weeks. Since Week 3, Baltimore ranks 27th in EPA per passing play, and only Adam Gase’s Jets have a worse Success Rate over that time.
If that weren’t bad enough on its own, the run game has also fallen off from last year. That development is not nearly as surprising, though. The 2019 team was one of the most efficient rushing attacks in NFL history and this 2020 team was never going to be able to replicate that. It also appears that Baltimore focused on strengthening the wrong part of the roster with offseason moves. The Ravens drafted RB J.K. Dobbins in the second round of the NFL draft, opting to wait until the compensatory pick portion of the third round to replace the retiring Marshall Yanda, a first-ballot Hall-of-Famer who held together a suspect interior line last season.
In hindsight, passing on guards Damien Lewis and Jonah Jackson — both of whom are off to encouraging starts — to take a running back looks like a miscalculation. We know running back talent is far down the list of factors that drive success in the run game, so improving the interior line should have been higher on the list of priorities than adding a dynamic player to the backfield. The guard play in Baltimore hasn’t been very good this season and that especially true for Yanda’s replacement, rookie Tyre Phillips, who has graded out as the league’s second-worst run-blocking guard.
A possible solution for running woes
I don’t know if that fully explains the drop off in run-game success, though. There hasn’t been much of a difference in efficiency on runs inside the tackles compared to last year, when the Ravens averaged -0.03 EPA per attempt, per Sports Info Solutions. In 2020, the number is sitting at -0.04. Interestingly, there isn’t a difference on runs outside the tackle, either. In fact, Baltimore has actually been better on those runs this season. The only difference is the rate at which their runs are getting outside the tackle…
A lot of those runs outside of the tackles come from Lamar on option designs. The typical option play has the quarterback reading an unblocked defender, and if that player stays at home, the quarterback hands the ball off. If the defender crashes inside, leaving the edge exposed, the quarterback keeps it.
In 2020, defenses have mostly opted to force the give, keeping the ball out of Lamar’s hands. Designed QB runs accounted for 10.6% of Baltimore’s offensive plays with Lamar on the field in 2019. That number is down to 4.3% in 2020.
Unsurprisingly, the Ravens’ run game has been at its best on plays where the reads are reversed. In other words, when it’s Lamar who gets the ball if the defender stays home. There are a couple of ways Baltimore has done that. “Power Read” has been a big play in their playbook since Lamar took over in 2018, and it remains a productive play for the team — especially when the read keeps the ball in Lamar’s hands.
This year, they’ve run a fair amount of “Counter Bash.” The “Bash” part stands for “Back Away,” which means the running back gets the ball if the unblocked defender crashes and the quarterback keeps it if he stays home. Lamar’s 37-yard touchdown run against the Eagles came on this concept.
I would expect an increase in usage of these concepts if defenses continue to try to force the ball out of Lamar’s hands on those typical option plays. At the very least, those changeups will make it more difficult for defenses to dictate which Ravens player ends up with the ball.
Lamar hasn’t been off … except in one specific situation
But is there a fix for the passing game? Well, before we can even attempt to answer that, we have to figure out what’s gone wrong compared to last year. I think I have an answer: Lamar Jackson has gone from the NFL’s most productive quarterback in Empty formations in 2019 (53.0 total EPA) to the league’s least productive quarterback in Empty 2020 (-11.5 total EPA), per Sports Info Soltuons. When you subtract those plays from his stat line, his 2019 and 2020 are basically identical…
Defenses seem to be blitzing more when the Ravens empty out the backfield and Lamar just hasn’t reacted well in the face of that pressure. It appears he’s pressing a little too much. Instead of taking easy options underneath, he’s going straight into scramble mode and looking to get outside the pocket.
Those bad reads haven’t been uncommon. This pressure concept from the Bengals baited Lamar into the worst interception of his career.
This is where the Lamar doubters start doing the Leonardo DiCaprio pointing meme, but I don’t think there’s any reason to believe this is a foundational flaw in his game. There are examples of him handling that pressure with poise, as he does here where he knows his protection is overloaded to one side and drifts to his left to buy time to get a throw off…
And last year, Lamar was one of the league’s best quarterbacks against the blitz overall, earning an 86.0 grade from PFF on those plays.
This year, it’s been a combination of factors leading to the bad results out of Empty: Lamar is pressing a bit too much, the Ravens lack a receiver capable of consistently winning in the short and intermediate areas of the field and Greg Roman hasn’t been able to adjust to the way defenses are playing Baltimore’s pass game.
I’d be a lot more concerned if this were another team, but the Ravens have a smart coaching staff that has proven capable of making midseason adjustments on the fly. It was around this time last year that Baltimore transformed its defense into one of the NFL’s best with some schematic adjustments and a few low-cost personnel moves.
If the Ravens can pull it off again, it won’t be long before this offense starts to meet those preseason expectations. It’s a scary thought for the other 31 teams in the league, but we may have seen Baltimore’s floor over the last six weeks. If/when the offense gets rolling again, the Ravens will be right back where they were at the end of last season: At or near the top of everyone’s list of Super Bowl contenders.