HOT TAKES: Ravens Assessment After the Bye

The Ravens have returned from their bye week, as they prepare to take on the New York Giants in the Meadowlands. The Ravens are currently listed as prohibitive 14 ½ point road favorites. Might there be concerns about overlooking one of the league’s worst teams and the great Drew Lock?

John Harbaugh addressed the question on Monday:

“We’re excited to get back to work. We had a good week. I think our guys made the most of the [bye] week – different guys [did] different things. We had some rest player-wise; we also had a bunch of guys training and working and getting ready for what’s ahead. We have a four-game season in front of us right now. This is the season; it kind of begins now. The season is important to determine the important outcomes for the rest of the way – that’s what we’re focused on. We’ll be focusing on this game, putting everything we’ve got into it, and then we’ll go from there.”

So, there you have it.

Sort of…

The bye week gave the team an opportunity to rest their bodies, clear their heads and put some distance between themselves and past mistakes that hopefully aren’t repeated. Time will tell if they’re successful.

The Ravens sit at (8-5), two games behind the Pittsburgh Steelers, a team that lacks the talent of their feathered arch-rivals. But the Steelers just seem to have a knack of finding ways to win. They don’t beat themselves, but they do force opponents to make mistakes, something that the Ravens do all too often. The talent is there for Baltimore, for the most part. But the execution in key moments has been lacking in each one of their losses. The Ravens are the Ravens most threatening opponent to date.

And that’s a reflection on both the players and coaching staff. Zach Orr seems to have stabilized the defense with the help of Kyle Hamilton and Ar’Darius Washington. Special teams are inconsistent at best and the guy wearing No. 9 seems like an imposter.

The offense can look unbeatable at time but when they face teams with stout defensive tackles, all bets are off. Monken’s group then morphs into a rudderless ship. Hopefully the bye week provided some solutions.

Shock The Monken

I’ve been hearing opinions about the future of Todd Monken and most suggest that his days with the Ravens are numbered – that he will be a prime head coaching candidate once the season ends.

Really?

Color me shocked!

Monken is a fine offensive coordinator who has zero head coaching experience in the league, a dismal head coaching record (13-25) in his only gig as a skipper at Southern Miss from 2013-15, and he will be 59 years old in February. Monken doesn’t fit the profile of the young, up-and-coming coach on the fast track that teams across the league seem to prefer.

And there’s one more thing…he won’t be able to take Lamar Jackson with him.

Put me down for this – the only way Monken leaves his current gig is if he surprises everyone and retires.

Help Wanted

While the Ravens roster is stronger than that all five of the other (8-5) teams, which suggests underachievement, a roster that they can’t compete with is that of the Eagles. It was on full display during the clash between these team back on December 1.

Before the season began, the big concerns about the Ravens were as follows, and in no particular order:

• Offensive Line
• Edge Rusher
• Replacing Patrick Queen

Let’s pick them off one by one, shall we?

Offensive Line

Daniel Faalele is not a starting caliber offensive guard. He’s clumsy when trying to get to the second level, he pulls like he’s dragging a Steinway grand piano and if he’s up against a quicker opponent, well I’ve got the same advice for Lamar that others have for illegal immigrants – RUN!

Patrick Mekari has been a great soldier for the Ravens – a Johnny on the spot, filling in wherever and whenever needed. But lately, he’s been the bass drum to Dave Grohl’s thunderous pedal. He looks worn down, beaten up and lunges like the participants at a senior center exercise class.

Making this look even worse, is the fact that the Ravens let guard Kevin Zeitler leave Baltimore for peanuts – Six. Million. Dollars. Maybe they erroneously thought that someone would step up and perform at Zeitler’s 2023 Pro Bowl level. Maybe the doctors advised the Ravens personnel decision makers that the knee Zeitler injured towards the end of the 2023 season wouldn’t hold up in 2024.

Well, if so, they were wrong!

All of them!

Per Pro Football Focus, Zeitler is the league’s 2nd-highest performing guard. Comparatively speaking, Faalele and Mekari rank 59th and 39th, respectively. Besides this week pair of starting guards, the Ravens have Andrew Vorhees who the team graded as a Day 2 pick in the 2023 NFL Draft if he had been healthy, and Ben Cleveland, a 2021 3rd-round pick taken 4 picks ahead of Quinn Meinerz, currently PFF’s 5th-highest graded guard. Cleveland can’t even sniff the field, except on special teams where his singular contribution all season is a blocked field goal attempt.

Edge Rusher

The Ravens crossed their fingers and hoped that Odafe Oweh would step up his game, and at times he has. They also hoped that the light would come on for David Ojabo this season, once thought to be a first-round worthy prospect before he injured his Achilles at The Combines. Unfortunately, instead of adding to his sack stats, he racks up healthy scratches on game day. Apparently he hasn’t paid his utility bill.

No one should fault GM Eric DeCosta for letting Jadeveon Clowney go. He’s a bit of a hired gun – a mercenary looking to cash in on his career-high sack totals from 2023 (9 ½). But just like the offensive line, the next man up at edge just hasn’t gotten it done.

No More PQ

The Ravens mishandled Patrick Queen. They thought that he was a plug-and-play asset playing beside and benefitting from Roquan Smith. They thought he was a replaceable widget and the replacement, Trenton Simpson, would simply be a marginal step back that they could overcome. Well, they thought wrong.

And Queen’s departure not only weakened his vacated weak-side off-the-ball linebacker spot, but it also hurt Nnamdi Madubuike. Why? Because Madubuike benefitted in 2023 from Queen’s explosiveness as an interior blitzer. Without Queen, Madubuike has been decent but nothing like he was last season, and now, he’s a player not playing to the level of his contract.

More Personnel Issues

Speaking of players not playing to the level of their contract, there’s Marcus Williams, another terrible safety signing by DeCosta, one nearly as bad as Earl Thomas. It’s no coincidence that since Williams was benched, the Ravens pass defense has been among the league’s best. Meanwhile, Williams still receives his weekly direct deposit of $666,666.67 while being a drag on the cap to the tune of $18.7M in 2024. Almost $19M of cap space parked on the bench, invested in a player who doesn’t even contribute on special teams.

And let’s be honest, the 2024 draft hasn’t provided much of a punch either. First-round pick Nate Wiggins has played decently but he can’t even take full command of the starting job. Wiggins has played in 11 of 13 games and has started in just three. PFF has him ranked as the league’s 63rd best corner. And apparently, he isn’t good enough to wrestle control of Brandon Stephen’s starting job despite his rank of 166 among the 213 CBs graded by PFF. Meanwhile, a player the Ravens could have drafted instead of Wiggins, one who is far more versatile, is Cooper DeJean, who by the way is PFF’s 7th-ranked CB.

Besides Wiggins, the only 2024 draft pick that has made any noteworthy contribution is 2nd-round Roger Rosengarten. Third-round pick Adisa Isaac (Edge) has dressed just four times and has four tackles. WR Devontez Walker (4th) has been a healthy scratch for 8 of 13 games and has yet to be targeted as a receiver. Safety T.J. Tampa (4th) has spent more time in the trainer’s room than on the field. RB Rasheen Ali (5th) has had a few kick returns but is practically unnecessary. QB Devin Leary (6th) picked up some Ravens swag and a couple months of free lunches before he was cut loose. C Nick Samac (7th) has done nothing other than eat up a roster spot and safety Sanoussi Kane (7th) seems like a decent special teams player.

That’s it!

That’s the Ravens 2024 draft class.

By the trade deadline, DeCosta managed to trade for two players nobody wanted – Tre’Davious White and Diontae Johnson and the latter, apparently the Ravens don’t want either. It hasn’t been a good season for the former NFL Executive of the Year.

Hope Remains After The Bye Week

With the bye week behind them, there’s still a chance that the Ravens can go on a run and finish the season at (12-5). There’s also a chance they could finish (10-7). We’ve seen Ravens teams in the past head into December struggling yet pull it together and successfully sprint to the finish line. In a league that has no dominant team, that remains a possibility. But they’ll need consistency and so far, if anything, the Ravens have shown themselves to be highly inconsistent. And let’s not forget that beginning on Sunday, they’ll be forced to play three games over the course of 10 days, Christmas included.

That’s a slippery slope.

But there’s always hope.

You may have reached this point of the article thinking that I’ve painted a picture of gloom and doom. But here’s the thing…if during the bye week, the Ravens haven’t taken a hard look inward, an honest assessment of themselves and done some critical self-scouting, and they fail to come out on Sunday without a sense of urgency, this painted picture will become reality.

And then the real soul searching will begin a month from now.

[Related Article: Looking Way Ahead]

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