So game 1 is down and the Ravens (along with the whole North except Cincy) are sitting in first place. I'll first say I missed most of the 1st quarter because I couldn't find a good stream. Second I'll say this, the Jets defense plays fast. They have some good speed on that defense. Also, Sauce Gardner is going to be a top CB. First game as a rookie and he damn near took Mark Andrews out the game in single coverage. The kid is nice. Would have loved for him to fall to 14 with how injured the Ravens CBs have been lately, no disrespect to Hamilton who I'm sure will be great also. Now, onto the notes of the game. - The defense looks good, but it's hard to tell how much of that was because of playing the Jets offense. One thing I like is that the new DC, Macdonald, could get pressure with just the d-line. For whatever reason, Wink Martindale could only get pressure by blitzing. I used to think it was the players, but this offseason I realized every pass rusher that left Baltimore looked like they sucked while playing for him, but looked great once they left. Z.Smith, Judon, and Yannick all posted double digit sack seasons as soon as they left but never got them here. The Ravens defense has been pretty good in years past under Wink while getting no pressure except when blitzing. Imagine how they'll be if they can keep getting pressure off 4 and 5 man rushes. - Continuing on the pass rush and d-line, this defense will still eventually get Bowser, Ojabo, and Travis Jones added back into the mix. The secondary will get Peters back eventually. That's going to be scary - The secondary looked good. The Jets passing game wasn't something scary to look out for, so it's good to see the defense played fairly well overall. That late 4th down play almost let up a TD to bad coverage, but the WR dropped on open pass. Speaking of WRs: - Let's talk Ravens offense. The WRs were expected to be the weak links on the offense but they didn't look too bad against a secondary I expect to be good this year. Duvernay stepped up and showed he deserves more looks and more playing time. Bateman, from what I'm told, had some first quarter drops but got a gifted TD running past both safeties who seemed to just be surprised his route ran that deep. - Lamar started off rusty, very rusty. Not surprising though as he hasn't played a meaningful snap since the first quarter of week 11 last year. As the game went on, he got better. He threw some nice deep balls, specifically his 3 TD passes of 17, 25, and 55 yards (no yac on any as he threw into the endzone for each one). I think he'll start faster as the weeks keep coming. - The run game was bad. Take out Lamar's runs and the offense had 15 rush attempts for 46 yards, an un-Raven like 3ypc. This has to improve. Hopefully Dobbins will make a difference when he returns, and then Edwards can add another element whenever he gets back on the field (I'm predicting November). Now, here are the most important notes for me that go beyond the boxscore and stats - Roman's passing game is still trash overall. Too many times I saw a play where players running routes ended up within two yards of each other. If that kind of thing happens once in a while you have to assume someone ran a bad route. However, since 2019, it's happened regularly with many different WRs and TEs, especially some you know are good route runners. For a field that's 53 yards wide, it's insane to me how often Roman's players are within a few yards of each other at the end of their routes. For all the issues this team has and will have, this is the biggest issue imo. - The team is still dealing with injuries, but nowhere near as bad. Juwann James, a guy who was consistently injured in his career, got injured again and looks done for the season. Kyle Fuller is also done for the season with an injury so apparently gruesome the broadcast were told not to replay it. - Mekari slid in at LT and actually played decently. The line gave Lamar more time to throw than he expected. He had happy feet early on but seemed to settle down a little once he realized he was going to be given time. - Now, my biggest take away was a positive one for the Ravens this season and hopefully going forward if they re-sign Lamar. It's one game, but there was very little read option/mesh point stuff this week. A good amount of shotgun snaps but mostly just standard drop backs. Taking that aspect out of the game is something I've secretly been hoping for because I have no doubt Lamar can run a standard offense, and because I don't care for designed runs outside of a few plays per game. Many question his ability outside of a Greg Roman offense, but I'm not one of them. I feel Lamar could thrive in any offense. Shannahan, Reid, Daboll, etc. Let him use his legs when there's no WR open or he realizes he just has a lot of open space. Or run actual RPOs as opposed to just read option. Either way, Lamar showing he can run a regular offense this season will hopefully get Greg Roman out the door and bringing in an OC with better pass concepts. For all the talk of Roman being a run game specialist, the run game surely sucked last year without superstar runners and it's off to a bad start this year.
So after years and years of saying Lamar runs too much and how his running "isn't sustainable" (even though they praise Josh Allen for his), analysts have now said that Lamar didn't run enough yesterday. They didn't say it in a loss, they said in a double digit win that he didn't run enough. Lamar truly can't win with the media. The goalposts have wheels on due to the need to constantly move them.
