The Ravens suddenly look like the ‘85 Bears. What can the Bengals do to stop them?
The Ravens’ offense still has plenty of question marks to exploit, but the Cincinnati offense has to manage open-play situations well for the Bengals to move to 2-0.
So that’s it then, huh? The Baltimore Ravens, fresh off of just about as dominant a performance as you’ll ever see in the NFL — they destroyed the Bills, 47-3, not only giving up just 153 total yards but also giving up most of those yards in garbage time — are the new ‘85 Bears? The moves they made in the receiving corps were perfect, and the defense is back to ‘00 Ravens levels of domination?
We can only learn so much from 60 minutes of action, but we certainly learned quite a bit about Baltimore’s ceiling (and Buffalo’s floor) last Sunday at M&T Bank Stadium. The Ravens now have a 59 percent chance of making the playoffs, per 538, and are suddenly up to seventh in Football Outsiders’ early-season DAVE rankings (which take preseason projections into account). Not bad for a team that projected solidly in the NFL’s midsection just a week ago.
Last week was so perfect for John Harbaugh’s team, and Buffalo looked so totally hapless, that it’s almost hard to draw any impressions from it.
- The remodeled passing game worked: Joe Flacco went 25-for-34 with five different receivers catching at least one pass of 20-plus yards.
- The run defense worked — Buffalo’s LeSean McCoy gained 22 yards in seven carries.
- The pass defense really, really worked: poor, hapless Nathan Peterman and Josh Allen went a combined 11-for-33 passing, two picks, and six sacks.
- Special teams, long a Baltimore strength, remained one: Sam Koch averaged 51.4 yards per punt, with three of five downed inside the 20, and Janarion Grant added a 51-yard punt return.
Basically all we learned is that Baltimore’s ceiling is high when everything is clicking. But what happens when it doesn’t? We’ll probably find out when the Ravens take on a much more competent opponent on Thursday night in Cincinnati.
The host Bengals are a one-point favorite — what can they do to deliver a far higher level of adversity than what Baltimore faced four days ago?
First things first: the Ravens didn’t run the ball all that well against the Bills and probably won’t against the Bengals either.
It was pretty much the only thing that didn’t work. Alex Collins, Javorius Allen, and Kenneth Dixon combined to gain just 74 yards in 24 carries, a clip of just 3.1 yards per carry. Their combined success rate was a decent 42 percent on these rushes, but a lot of that success came against a demoralized defense in the second half — of seven first-half carries, only one, Collins’ 8-yard touchdown run, was successful. The other six gained a combined 4 yards.
This didn’t matter in the slightest because of Buffalo’s hapless offense and because of a couple of bursts from Flacco. He was 5-for-6 for 80 yards on Baltimore’s first drive (which produced a TD), and he was 9-for-9 for 85 yards on the last drive of the half (also a TD generator). He was otherwise 11-for-19 for just 71 yards, but with a 26-0 halftime lead, the Ravens didn’t need a single extra thing from the offense.
Render those passing bursts a little less damaging, though, and Baltimore’s offense could slow down in a hurry.
Cincinnati did well against the Indianapolis run game, rendering Colts backs to 68 yards and a 29 percent success rate in 21 carries (3.2 per carry). Any hope for consistency came from quarterback Andrew Luck and the short passing game. Force Baltimore to generate more consistency, and you might like the results.
For the Cincinnati offense, it’s all about open play.
Games are frequently defined by how well teams turn scoring opportunities into points. But maybe the biggest strength of the 2017 Baltimore defense was how well it prevented you from generating those opportunities in the first place.
Cincinnati, meanwhile, was awfully bad at that.
In open-play situations — what we’re defining as plays taking place between your 10 and your opponent’s 30 — Cincinnati struggled to either generate big plays or avoid third-and-longs. This was certainly the case in two games against Baltimore last year; in 107 open-play snaps, the Bengals enjoyed just a 36 percent success rate, 33 percent through the air.
Cincinnati created scoring opportunities (first downs inside the opponent’s 40) on just 32 percent of their drives in those two games, and they only won the second game of the series — 31-27 in Week 17 — because they scored a healthy 24 points in only four opportunities and scored on a pick six.
Have they improved at all in 2018? Preliminary signs are, well, preliminary, but they’re also encouraging. The Bengals created scoring opps on 56 percent of their drives against the Colts, powered by both an efficient performance from quarterback Andy Dalton (21-for-28 for 243 yards) and a dynamic one from running back Joe Mixon (24 combined rushes and pass targets, 149 yards). If they can get that number to at least 40-45 percent on Thursday evening, that could be enough to move to 2-0. Easier said than done, though.