REPORT CARD: Plenty of Blame to go Around

It Took a Village for the Ravens to Fall to Lions

It was just one of 17 — not enough to make a dent in the dreams of a season. But, boy oh boy, there was enough we can take out of this one to carry some concerns going forward.

The Ravens dropped an entertaining 38-30 decision to another championship contender in the Detroit Lions on the Monday Night Football stage, and the brightest spot one can take out of it is that there is still time to clean this up. But it should, you know, start pretty soon.

Let’s look at some grades.

Offense: C+

The Ravens were only able to muster 318 yards of offense, and 65 of those came on a garbage-time drive after the Lions went up by 14. They were 6-11 on third downs, and 2-4 in the red zone. The vaunted rushing attack started out well, with the Ravens tallying 36 yards on three carries on their first possession, culminating with Derrick Henry’s 28-yard touchdown. But they only managed 85 yards on the ground for the night in total, their second-straight underwhelming performance. Oh, yeah. They gave up seven sacks. We’ll get back to that.

Quarterback: B-

Lamar Jackson was 21-27 for 288 yards and three touchdowns, accumulating a passing rating of 148.1, while adding another 35 yards on the ground. Those are insane numbers. Still… it was a little uneven. He got extremely lucky that Brian Branch dropped an easy pick in the third quarter, and missed a wide-open Zay Flowers on the sideline later that quarter. There was an ugly scramble and fumble on fourth down late in the second quarter, and I felt there were times he was doing too much “big-game hunting” when the pocket would close around him — holding the ball and waiting for a big play to develop, as opposed to getting rid of it or taking off running. He was not the problem on this night. He just wasn’t as superhuman as we’ve seen him be before. Derrick Henry threw a pass and… let’s just not do that again. It wasn’t pretty.

Running Backs: D

Derrick Henry has a problem holding the ball right now, and there is a real chance this becomes a mental challenge for him going forward. He also had 11 carries for 22 yards outside of his scoring run. Yes, the line is not doing a great job opening things up for him. But he must hold the ball, and he has to get back to rumbling through arm tackles. Justice Hill contributed 45 yards on three catches, including a wild 37-yarder in garbage time.

Receivers: B

This was probably the unit of the day on offense. The tight ends both looked good in this one, as Mark Andrews had his first nice game of the year, picking up 91 yards and a pair of touchdowns on six grabs. Charlie Kolar also had a couple catches, and the two combined with tackle Roger Rosengarten to spring Henry for his long touchdown run. Rashod Bateman had his best performance of the young season, contributing a touchdown catch and 63 yards on his five catches. Zay Flowers was quiet, with two small-gain catches, and DeAndre Hopkins had a great sideline catch. Devontez Walker continues to take advantage of his opportunities, and had a 34-yard catch.

Offensive Line: F+

PFF posted this little nugget: The Lions defense had seven sacks, 30 pressures and one turnover forced. Pssst… a lot of that falls on this unit. They struggled to open run lanes, allowed constant pressure throughout the night and allowed Al-Quadin Muhammad to look at times like Aidan Hutchinson, who, by the way, looked like Aidan Hutchinson all-too-often. It wasn’t all on them, as it rarely does all fall on one thing, but a lot of it was on them. The guards are not performing. Actually, the guards are performing — just not in the way we’d prefer. The tackles can get beat by the “elites” in the league. At least Tyler Linderbaum seemed to hold his own most of the night.

Defense: F+

Hey, I couldn’t give the defense a better grade than the offensive line, especially considering they were probably both equally responsible for this stinker. We’ll get to coaching later, but players are not winning their one-on-ones and I’m not sure what an X or O can do to solve that. The line started out looking pretty stout against the run, but they got worn down. You want to know how that happens to highly-trained athletes? The Ravens gave up scoring drives of 11 plays and 5:44 of time and 18 plays of 10:48 of clock in the first half. I looked at the stats at the 2:00 warning of the second quarter, and the Lions had combined for 16 tackles, while the Ravens had 44. They couldn’t generate a decent pass rush and allowed Detroit to convert 7-14 third downs and all three of their fourth downs. They gave up two 95-plus-yard touchdown drives. That stinks. On ice.

Defensive Line: D-

I thought they started out ok, and we saw Odafe Oweh and John Jenkins both push through for tackles for loss in the first quarter. And they did a nice job on Jahmyr Gibbs, holding him to 67 yards on 22 carries, with a long of nine. That’s a great effort against one of the young stars of the league. But they could not tackle David Montgomery, who ran for 151 yards on 12 carries, including a 72-yarder that should have been stopped at or near the line. Mike Green pressured an incompletion in the third quarter, but got beat on a third-down conversion in the second quarter and couldn’t provide contain on a fourth-quarter touchdown by Gibbs. They missed Nnamdi Madubuike badly on this night as they obviously wore down. But had they made a few plays, they wouldn’t have been on the field as much.

Linebackers: D

They were responsible for some of those missed tackles, and Roquan Smith did not follow up his AFC Defensive Player of the Week performance with an equal game. He did have a few effective blitzes, and had a big stop on third down at the 2:00 warning (cleanse your mind of the thought of the fourth-down conversion the next play). Teddye Buchanan was active, and had eight tackles, but most of those felt like they were several yards downfield. Trenton Simpson had one more tackle than I did.

Secondary: C

They gave up two way-too-easy completions to Jameson Williams on the opening possession, and then he never caught another ball all night. Amon-Ra St. Brown had seven catches for 77 yards and a touchdown, and had that huge fourth-down conversion against Marlon Humphrey. By the way, Humphrey did give that up and the touchdown pass on a perfect throw, but he did penetrate for a tackle for loss in the second quarter, blitzed a backwards pass (allegedly) out of Goff for a nine-yard loss in the first and looked like the Roadrunner chasing down Montgomery on his 72-yard run. Nate Wiggins blew up a third-down screen at the end of the first half, and had a beautiful pass break-up in the fourth. Malakai Starks got beat by Sam LaPorta on a third-down conversion in the first quarter, had eight tackles and was in on a tackle for loss. Kyle Hamilton had a quiet nine tackles to lead the team. I thought TJ Tampa flashed well a few times.

Special Teams: B-

They gave up an average of 27.5 yards on four kickoff returns, but 0 yards on one punt return. LaJohntay Walker has some of the most exciting, tantalizing 10-yard punt returns the league has ever seen. He’s fun to watch, but I kind of want to see him plant his foot and just go more. Rasheen Ali looked good on kick returns, but will be the subject of some ribbing in film sessions when the team sees him get tackled by the kicker. Tyler Loop has got to fix this kickoff issue, but he made his extra points, and somehow slipped in his lone field-goal attempt over the bar. Jordan stout had two terrific punts, with TJ Tampa dropping the returner on the 2, and then another downed at the 5 later.

Coaching: C-

I’m not as tough on the coaches in this one as a lot of the social-media world appears to be, particularly on defense. Yes, they were unable to generate a pass rush, and Williams was wide open on those two first-quarter passes. Other than that? Make a tackle. Get off a block. Knock down a pass. Generate a turnover. Players have to do stuff sometimes, too. On offense, the red-zone offense appeared, well, intoxicated at times. Henry pass? Goofy rollout on fourth down? I also wasn’t a fan of a lot of the protection schemes. Sure, it was tough to keep guys in late when the Ravens were trying to score fast after falling down two scores. But there were few answers all game, and answers are needed against the league’s best.

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Source: https://russellstreetreport.com/2025/09/23/report-card/lions-at-ravens-report-card/