Ravens need a boost to the rush
Judon got the franchise tag, so he needs to be that spark
There are certain expectations when a player signs the franchise tag, and Matthew Judon has found that out. The 28-year-old signed a one-year offer with the Ravens in April worth $16.808 million after earning his first Pro Bowl selection. Then, through the first three games of the season, he had 13 tackles and no sacks.
As the team’s top pass rusher a year ago, he was getting criticized in print and on call-in radio shows.
Then pened.
Judon had two sacks and five quarterback hits in the Ravens’ 31-17 victory against the Washington Football Team on Sunday. Though it came against one of the worst teams in the NFL, maybe that performance can be a launching point.
“Coming off that last game [against the Kansas City Chiefs], everybody was kind of looking themselves in the mirror here and there, and Judon was like, ‘Man, I just have to do more. I just have to do more,’ and he was very critical of himself to me,” Ravens cornerback Marlon Humphrey said, referring to the Ravens’ 34-20 loss to the defending Super Bowl champions last Monday night.
“It was no surprise to see him come and look like his typical self [Sunday]. I think he’s been playing decent all year, but this game, he took it up a notch, and he kind of told himself, ‘This is how I have to play every game to get back to who I am.’”
The Ravens need Judon to ignite the pass rush. They acquired defensive ends Calais Campbell and Derek Wolfe in the offseason to generate more pressure on the quarterback, but that didn’t materialize in the first three games.
Some of the criticism of Judon was justified because of his contract, but not his past performance.
Despite leading the team in sacks last season with 9½, Judon wasn’t considered one of the top 10 outside linebackers in the league. However, throughout his previous four years with the club, he showed steady improvement.
The Ravens were caught between the proverbial rock and a hard place. They desperately needed a pass rusher and didn’t want to risk losing Judon and watch him become another Za’Darius Smith. The Ravens drafted Smith in the fourth round in 2015 and he had 45 tackles in 2018, including 8½ sacks. He signed a four-year, $66 million
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to compensate for inconsistency. Now, they’re too much for most opponents, even when not at their best.
“Really, if you look at most NFL games, that’s what it boils down to,” coach John Harbaugh said when asked about his team’s reliance on big plays. “It’s always four, five, six, seven or eight plays.”
The Ravens rely on big-play defense as much as big-play offense.
The Ravens had possessed the ball just once and punted it away when Humphrey ripped the ball out of Washington running back J.D. McKissic’s arms to set up an easy, two-play touchdown drive.
“I’m not going to say we started slow, but it seemed like they were having some success, and they were stopping our offense a little bit,” the All-Pro cornerback said. “So, we were not playing great at the beginning, and I was able to get a turnover early on there and was able to catch us a little momentum.”
In the fourth quarter, outside linebacker Jaylon Ferguson sacked Dwayne Haskins for an 18-yard loss on first-and-goal, essentially killing Washington’s last chance to get back in the game.
These defensive momentum changers were as important as Jackson’s offensive fireworks and illustrated how the Ravens pressure opponents on both sides of the ball. We also saw it in their Week 2 win over the Houston Texans, when Humphrey’s strip to set up an L.J. Fort touchdown gave them a comfortable working margin.
The 2020 defense doesn’t match up statistically with the best defenses from the Ray Lewis-Ed Reed era. But players such as Humphrey and Marcus Peters share the mentality of those groups; they expect to turn the tide every time the ball comes their way
Humphrey has taken his game to another level over the last two seasons by hunting turnovers. It’s a big reason why the Ravens were wise to invest $98 million to keep him around through 2026.
Don “Wink” Martindale’s defense played a sound overall game against Washington, limiting downfield looks for Haskins and plugging running lanes. But the Ravens really outplayed a good Washington defense by striking at a few opportune moments.
Orlando Brown Jr. and D.J. Fluker held up well in Ronnie Stanley’s absence.
Any list of the five most essential Ravens would have to include Stanley, the best pass blocker in football.
If Washington was going to pull an upset, Brown, playing out of position at left tackle, and Fluker, who hasn’t been a starting tackle since 2014, were likely to be targets.
The Ravens’ lack of obvious depth at tackle was a concern coming into the season. They had long relied on James Hurst as their primary fill-in but moved on from him after last year.
So it had to be a relief to coaches that Stanley’s absence was not apparent on most of Jackson’s dropbacks against Washington. He took just one sack and three hits and regularly had time to look downfield.
“I thought those two guys did just a tremendous job,” Harbaugh said. “Orlando switched to left tackle. D.J. went to right tackle, which he’d been practicing quite a bit at left tackle all week.
“[They] adapted on the fly and it speaks volumes for the type of football players they are.
Washington played without its best edge rusher, rookie Chase Young, but the Ravens will be content with the performances of Brown and Fluker and look forward to Stanley’s return, which sounds imminent, per Harbaugh’s postgame update.
The Ravens have reasserted their dominance on special teams.
After an up-and-down 2019, Chris Horton’s units have come through with standout plays in every game this season.
It’s become a running point of humor within the team, but Sam Koch threw another beautiful ball on a fake punt to breathe life into an eventual touchdown drive in the second quarter. The most efficient passer in Ravens history is now 7-for-7 in his career, and he looks cool as can be each time he’s asked to toss another spiral.
That was the flashbulb moment. But Koch also placed all three of his punts inside Washington’s 20-yard line. Washington never started past the 25-yard line on a kickoff return and ended up with negative yardage on punt returns. Justin Tucker remained perfect for the season. Rookie James Proche II averaged a solid 9.3 yards on three punt returns.
The Ravens entered the week No. 1 in special teams DVOA, according to Football Outsiders, with positive marks in every area.
It’s the one phase in which they’re truly clicking.
The Ravens’ schedule lines up nicely as they work to recover from the Chiefs loss.
The tone of national conversations around the Ravens changed drastically after Kansas City” blew them out on Monday night. Doubts resurfaced about Jackson’s ability. to win big games with his arm. Reporters in other AFC North cities stopped treating Baltimore as an obvious favorite to conquer the division. Plenty of it was merited; the Ravens really did not look like Super Bowl aspirants when stacked against the defending champs.
But as usual, opinions swung too far based on a bad night in September. For all the fine tuning the Ravens need, they’re still more talented and better coached than most of their opponents. And they’ve entered a stretch of their schedule that will help them get well. It began in Washington, where they were never significantly threatened. Next up are the Cincinnati Bengals, friskier than last season but still trying to find themselves behind rookie quarterback Joe Burrow. After that, the Ravens will visit the draincircling Philadelphia Eagles. Then they’ll get a bye week to prepare for the Pittsburgh Steelers.
It’s an ideal period in which to tinker with roster combinations and develop greater efficiency through repetition while banking the wins needed to stay on Kansas City’s heals in the race for playoff seeding. Such talk would surely provoke a death stare from Harbaugh, who spends every waking hour guarding against let-ups.
But the Ravens will be heavily favored to reach 5-1, and if they take care of business, they’ll be set up for the road beyond, with the Chiefs loss in their rear view.