Ravens Stock Report: Lotta Red Through Six Weeks

The Ravens are off to an abysmal start to the 2025 season. At 1-5, they are teetering on the edge of being completely irrelevant until the offseason begins. They would have the #2 pick in the NFL draft right if the season ended today, an absolutely incredible thought to imagine.

Fans are turning on John Harbaugh and Eric DeCosta.

It is a mess right now but there are some signs of hope. The defense just played a particularly good offense led by Matthew Stafford and held them to less than 250 total yards and just 17 points. Yes, the Rams had some self-inflicted wounds that helped keep those numbers down, but the Ravens had some of their own, including a fumble that handed L.A. points. Over the course of a game, those types of things tend to even out, so I am willing to give the team the benefit of the doubt when they say (and have said) that the defense is better on tape than how things appear. We saw evidence of that this past weekend and now that more guys are coming back from injury, perhaps we will see the defense settle down.

Offensively, things are very bad without Lamar Jackson, who has missed two games and change due to a strained hamstring. Cooper Rush, who was a good backup in Dallas, has struggled protecting the ball and hasn’t shown the ability to move the offense down the field on a consistent basis.

Derrick Henry broke out of his slump against the Rams, but the run game has been nonexistent by Baltimore standards this season. Most of that is not on Henry, but his fumbling certainly hasn’t helped.

Even with King getting on track in Week 6, the passing game wasn’t there, and not having Lamar has proven to be a hill too big to climb, as the offense looked terrible on home turf against both Houston and LA.

The hope is that Jackson and Roquan Smith will be back after the bye week. With other starters already back from injury, the Ravens could field their “normal roster” (minus Beeks and Tavius Robinson) for the first time since Week 2. Will that be enough to make a run? Given their schedule, I think they can do it, but obviously it will be an uphill battle.

So far this year, we have seen some ups and many downs. Let us look at our stock up/stock down report through the first six weeks of the season.

STOCK UP

Kicking/Punting

Jordan Stout is having the best year of his career. Heading into the Rams game, he had the highest net average of any punter in the NFL and the best of his career. A guy who has disappointed since being a fourth-round pick, he is starting to come into his own.  Tyler Loop has done a respectable job as a rookie replacing a legend. Yes, he missed one extra point but has been otherwise flawless with that, and he has only missed one FG in 10 attempts so far. Both guys are upgrades so far over the performances we saw last year.  One area for Loop to improve is on kickoffs, where he’s had trouble hitting the “landing zone.”

D-Hop

DeAndre Hopkins‘ stats don’t stand out, but he has made several exceptional catches and is becoming increasingly familiar with things. If the Ravens can turn this season around, I think you will see them leaning on him increasingly going forward, as he is probably the most reliable WR on the team right now. The plan was always to use him sparingly early on, keeping him fresh for December & January. But circumstances dictate an acceleration of that timeline.

QB1

Lamar Jackson’s stats have been fantastic this year but even more than that, his absence has highlighted just how valuable he truly is. Last year, having Henry hurt him in the MVP voting. Unlike many of my fellow fans, I think that was reasonable. Henry kept telling everyone how Lamar was the one making him better, and I think that also becomes something that was largely ignored, especially by the national media. I have a feeling Jackson was already dealing with some leg issues earlier in the season. The hope is that he gets himself fully healed and can start getting back to running, while continuing to sling it as he already was.

T.J. Tampa

Tampa is currently ranked as the 39^th overall CB on PFF. He has become the 3^rd CB with Chidobe Awuzie out and while the team clearly still does not trust Jaire Alexander.  Once Awuzie is back, maybe he moves back into his starting role, but Tampa has been good and appears to have a bright future.

STOCK DOWN

Health

This has been the #1 culprit to the bad start. Unfortunately, the early season Ravens are mirroring the early season Orioles.  The Orioles season was buried when they had a 6-20 stretch from late April to late May. Could the same thing happen with the Ravens?  Could this four-game stretch bury them?  It’s obviously possible. Players are coming back, but you also just lost Tavius Robinson for 6-8 weeks. Will the injuries stop or are they looking at more to come? Every year, there seems to be a team or two that sees their season derailed because of injuries. After several seasons of good injury luck, the Ravens could be that team this year.

Coaching

For some reason, Ravens fans tend to give players a pass, generally speaking. The vitriol is towards Harbaugh and DeCosta, similar to how O’s fans were/are with Brandon Hyde and Mike Elias. The players are making a lot of mistakes on the field that aren’t coaching issues.

That said, the coaching staff is off to a bad start.  Game plans and schemes have been poor most of the time. Against LA, we seemed to finally see an opponent-specific plan, but that had been sorely lacking in previous weeks. A larger concern is that we aren’t seeing young players take that next step. Defensive coordinator Zach Orr may have saved his job for now with that performance against the Rams, but his status has to be in doubt.

On the other side, Todd Monken has made several questionable play calls – most glaringly in the red zone – and the offensive line isn’t working. They have three players (center and tackles) who are better zone blockers (along with Henry, a better zone runner), and guards who are better in man schemes (or aren’t good at all…see next point), and continue to try to shove square pegs into round holes.

Starting Guards

Andrew Voorhees and Daniel Faalele have really struggled this year so far (although Vorhees is coming off his best game). Overall, Voorhees is ranked 83^rd out of 106 on PFF’s rankings at the position.  He has struggled to get push, and the pass protection has been below average. Faalele is faring a little better. He is ranked 53^rd and has an excellent pass blocking grade of 73.3, which is good for 21^st amongst guards. But his run blocking has been awful and there are regularly clips of him missing assignments and falling down. Harbaugh mentioned in yesterday’s press conference that they could be looking at O-line changes during the bye and if that happens, it would be to either or both of these guys.

Rookie Class

What looked like a promising rookie class has come up empty so far. Malaki Starks, widely praised as an excellent pick, hasn’t had much impact early on. Mike Green has been nonexistent. Though he doesn’t drop into coverage as often as some fans seem to think, it’s glaring when he can’t do anything on the snaps where he does rush the passer.  Emery Jones, who could be in the mix at guard once he gets up to speed, has been hurt. Teddye Buchanan has shown some flashes but overall, has been exposed at times, especially in zone coverage. On the bright side, Loop has been solid, LaJohntay Webster has been an effective returner and Aeneas Peebles has shown that he can rush the passer, although he is a liability against the run (and was a surprise inactive in Week 6).

Jaire Alexander

He was brought in to be CB3 or CB4 and he has done nothing except help the Bills win the opener. He has been a disappointment and it would be worse if Awuzie and/or Tampa weren’t playing as well as they are. Hopefully we see Jaire get 100% healthy and up to speed after the bye week.  Snaps are going to be hard for him to come by but if called upon, you hope he can play at a high level.

Roquan Smith

Roquan Smith is out with a hamstring injury, but he hasn’t been good either. He was the AFC Defensive Player of the Week for Week 2, but that was the exception, by far. He is currently ranked just inside the top 50 for linebackers on PFF. That just isn’t good enough. The Ravens traded for him, paid him a premium at a devalued position in the face of a good bit of criticism, and they can’t have him be just an average guy there. I want to start hearing less talk from him and seeing the guy they traded for in 2023.

Rashod Bateman

Rashod Bateman has to be on a milk carton, right?  For the season, he has 11 catches for 120 yards. He is averaging the worst YPC of his career, and has only seen 22 targets, with seven of those coming in one game. Over the last three weeks he has just two catches on seven targets. Getting him more involved has to be a priority coming out of the bye.

Ball Security

The turnover margin woes continue. We’d hoped to see the same strong ball security we saw in 2024 (11 turnovers all season) combined with an increase in takeaways from the defense, which we were told was a priority all offseason and training camp. Instead, they’ve stopped protecting the ball (10 giveaways already), and are somehow even worse at taking it away (three takeaways).

Henry’s fumble likely cost them the Buffalo game, and then he came back and did it again to derail any chance of a comeback against Detroit. Jackson’s ill-advised first-down interception in KC helped tilt that game in the Chiefs’ favor early. Then, this past week, Rush’s awful interception followed by the two Zay Flowers fumbles killed them.  This just can’t keep happening.

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Source: https://russellstreetreport.com/2025/10/14/ravens-stock-exchange/stock-report-red/