ESPN+: AFC wild-card bracket race, teams
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Baltimore Ravens (8-5)
FPI chance to make playoffs: 97.3%
For the first two months of the season, it looked as if the Ravens were going to thrive through their offense. Quarterback Lamar Jackson and running back Derrick Henry were viable MVP candidates and the most productive players at their respective positions. The oft-dominant Ravens defense, meanwhile, was struggling to live up to expectations after losing coordinator Mike Macdonald, linebacker Patrick Queen and others from the league-best 2023 unit.
Over the past three games -- a stretch which has included losses to the Steelers and Eagles -- the strength of the team has flipped:
EPA/snap rank Offensive, Defensive
EPA/snap rank Weeks 1-10 No. 1 No. 28
Weeks 11-13 No. 15 No. 8
While Henry has still been a valuable back, the big plays that were marking his spectacular start to the season have unsurprisingly slowed down. When I wrote about Henry and Saquon Barkley after Week 7, Henry's big-play rate was approaching astronomical heights. Ten of his 137 carries had produced gains of 20 yards or more, yielding a 7.3% big-play rate -- nearly double his best percentage as a pro. Since then, Henry has four gains of 20 or more yards on 106 carries, which is back down at 3.8%. And after runs of 51, 81 and 87 yards during the first seven games of the season, Henry doesn't have a single run topping 40 yards over the past six games. He has been an efficient, effective back, but he hasn't been as spectacular as he was earlier in the season.
Jackson, meanwhile, hasn't been as consistent sustaining the offense as a passer. Through Week 10, Jackson was converting 44.4% of his pass attempts into first downs, which was the best mark in football and the fourth-best mark by any QB through 10 weeks in any season since 2007. While Henry's big plays had already begun to slow down, Jackson's remarkable efficiency as a passer meant that teams simply couldn't get the Ravens off the field. But over the past three weeks, that number has dropped to 28.6%, which ranks 30th out of 33 passers.
Sure, the Ravens have played a trio of great defenses in the Steelers, Chargers and Eagles, which obviously goes a long way in impacting those numbers. But Jackson has been hurried and more inconsistent as a passer. Teams have been able to sack Jackson at a much higher rate; despite only a modest increase in pressure rate, Jackson's sack rate has jumped from 3.9% through the first 10 weeks to 5.9% over the past three games. That's two extra sacks, and while that might not sound like much, the Ravens score touchdowns on 37% of the drives where Jackson doesn't take a sack and have just one touchdown on the 17 drives where Jackson has been sacked (5.9% rate).
And then, perhaps owing to the added pressure, the degree of difficulty or just random variance, Jackson has been less accurate as a passer. His off-target rate has jumped from 12.6% (sixth-best mark in the league) to 20.2% (25th). ESPN has a metric called precision pass rate, which measures how frequently quarterbacks hit their receivers in stride near the torso. Jackson was hitting those passes at the 10th-highest rate in football through Week 10, but that has fallen to 30th over the past three games.
These are narrow margins over a small sample. Look at some of Jackson's missed third-down attempts on Sunday. Mark Andrews was rerouted slightly on a crosser to start the game, and Jackson's throw was narrowly too high for a leaping catch on a throw that could have produced a touchdown. Jackson missed more severely on a flat route to Zay Flowers that should have yielded a first down early in the second quarter. And the reigning MVP then hit Nelson Agholor in the hands on a deep corner route 45.8 yards downfield in the second half, but the former Eagles wideout wasn't able to bring the catch in. Justin Tucker then missed a field goal.
Tucker, of course, is in the middle of a nightmarish season. The legendary kicker, who had hit 90.2% of his field goals before this season, missed two and an extra point on Sunday, costing the Ravens dearly in a game they would eventually lose by five points. He has now hit just 70.4% of his field goals this season, missing a career-high eight field goal attempts with five games still to go.
Is the once-automatic Tucker broken? I'm not sure even the future Hall of Famer knows the answer to that question. At 35, Tucker's getting to the point where we would expect drop-off at virtually every other position, but we know kickers can continue to perform at a high level into their 40s. As I wrote about a couple of weeks ago, Tucker had already begun to decline some last season by advanced metrics, though he was still significantly better than he has been in 2024.
Should the Ravens move on from Tucker right now? Unless there's something behind the scenes (like an injury or mental block) that we're not aware of, I'm not so sure that's a great idea. For one, the Ravens would be signing a kicker off another team's practice squad. Although kickers can excel coming from out of nowhere -- as John Parker Romo has for the Vikings so far this season -- we can't say with any sort of confidence that the Ravens would feel better having a replacement-level kicker line up for a key field goal in the postseason than they would with Tucker.
We've also seen other legendary kickers go through a disastrous season and come out of it on the other side looking fine. As a 30-year-old in 2002, Adam Vinatieri led the league in field goal percentage, hitting 90% of his kicks. The following season, Vinatieri was 25-of-34 (73.5%) on his kicks, even while attempting just one kick over 50 yards all season. During the playoffs, Vinatieri went 7-for-10 on field goal tries, but he was 5-of-5 in a 24-14 win over the Colts and hit the game winner from 41 yards out against the Panthers in the Super Bowl. He led the league with a 93.9% conversion rate on field goals in 2004.
What the Ravens could instead do, though, is adjust their expectations for Tucker appropriately. The best teams have models for game management and decision-making that are adjusted for the quality of their offense, opponents and kickers. The Ravens, one of the most analytically inclined teams in the league, are surely among them. Until Tucker proves otherwise, the Ravens can't assume that he is the 90-plus-percent kicker he was at his best. Treating him as a more generic kicker would encourage the Ravens to be more aggressive on fourth downs, which would then also impact their third-down playcalling.
For instance, Jackson threw deep on that third-and-7 attempt to Agholor on Sunday; if the Ravens don't trust Tucker from 53 yards, maybe they're more inclined to run the ball on third down and set up a fourth-and-short for the offense.
The only good news for the Ravens is that the defense is showing signs of life after wholesale changes. The Ravens were 29th in yards per pass attempt and 30th in third-down conversion rate on defense through the first 10 games of the season. Over the past three weeks, their pass defense has come to life. They've been third in yards per attempt allowed and third in third-down conversion rate. Their sack rate has jumped from 14th to third.
Those improvements have come alongside personnel changes, especially over the past two games. Up front, 2022 second-round pick David Ojabo has been phased out of what had already been a modest role, as the Michigan product has played just eight defensive snaps over the past three games. Yannick Ngakoue, signed in midseason, was released and joined the Patriots. Tavius Robinson, who has 3.5 sacks and 12 knockdowns this season, has carved out a larger role.
At linebacker, the Ravens haven't really been able to solve the departure of Patrick Queen. Trenton Simpson was given first crack at taking the job, but he has moved into a part-time role over the past two weeks, with longtime special-teamer Chris Board getting regular defensive snaps for the first time this season. We've also seen more Malik Harrison in a hybrid role.
The big changes, though, have come at safety, where the Ravens were simply allowing too many big plays. Veteran Eddie Jackson, who had played about half of the defensive snaps, was released by the team. And big-ticket free agent signing Marcus Williams, who had been benched for a game earlier this season before returning, is out of the lineup again. He has played just one snap over the past three games and was a healthy scratch against the Eagles.
Williams' descent from useful player to unplayable at 28 years old has to be concerning for the Ravens. He has allowed a staggering 148.4 passer rating in coverage this season and looked lost at times in Zach Orr's defense. Williams has no guaranteed money after this season, which makes him a likely candidate to be released next spring, but he has the sixth-largest average annual salary on the roster, just behind receiver Diontae Johnson -- who has one catch in four games with the team since joining before the trade deadline. (Johnson was suspended for one game this week for conduct detrimental to the team.)
There's a version of this team that could be absolutely spectacular, where the Ravens combine the offense we saw during the first 10 games with the defense we've seen firm up over the past three. That's essentially what the Ravens had a year ago, when they went 13-4 and posted one of the best point differentials in recent memory.
On bye right now, the Ravens can get into the postseason without needing to pull any upsets. A road win over the Giants in Week 14 and a home victory over the Browns in Week 18 would all but clinch a playoff spot for the Ravens, even if they lose their two remaining games against potential playoff opponents in the Steelers and Texans. Finishing as the No. 5 seed would allow the Ravens to face the Texans again in a potential playoff rematch, and Houston would seem to be the most beatable of the likely division winners.
Then again, if the Ravens can win their rematch with Pittsburgh, they could find themselves in position to win the AFC North again, given that the Steelers still have games against the Chiefs and Eagles.
