The 2021 Ravens staged TV’s greatest cleaning soap opera final 12 months, sacrificing conventions and normalcy for madness and drama virtually each week. Solely Hollywood scriptwriters might have dreamed up a regular-season opener and regular-season finale each ending with additional time losses.
Or an offense dropping its high three operating backs in a 12-day preseason span.
Or quarterback Lamar Jackson going from NFL Most Useful Participant front-runner to blitzed into submission in a matter of weeks.
Or a workforce with an historic damage toll and end-of-season free fall practically making the playoffs.
These Ravens have been nothing if not unpredictable. These Ravens, with their damage uncertainty and Jackson’s unresolved contract state of affairs, could possibly be simply as laborious to pin down. However we’ll attempt anyway. Listed here are 10 guesses — some daring, others not a lot — at how 2022 will unfold.
Rashod Bateman will eclipse 1,000 receiving yards
This isn’t the certain factor it'd appear to be. In 2019, Jackson’s first season as a full-time starter, then-rookie Marquise “Hollywood” Brown led all Ravens broad receivers with 584 receiving yards. In 2020, Brown had a team-high 769 yards. Final season, with an expanded 17-game schedule, Brown turned the primary Ravens broad receiver since 2016 to high 1,000 receiving yards — however simply barely (1,008).
With Brown shipped off to the Arizona Cardinals this offseason, Bateman’s manufacturing ought to bounce dramatically. Regardless of rookie-year struggles, together with preseason surgical procedure that restricted him to 12 video games, the 2021 first-round choose had 46 catches for 515 yards. His largest obstacles to manufacturing this 12 months is likely to be structural: Jackson’s reliance on tight ends Mark Andrews and Isaiah Seemingly, and extra run calls from offensive coordinator Greg Roman. Nonetheless, Bateman’s too proficient and too versatile to not function prominently within the Ravens’ passing assault.
No operating again will exceed 150 carries
J.Okay. Dobbins and Gus Edwards each tore their ACL earlier than the primary snap of the 2021 common season. From there, the Ravens by no means settled on a featured runner. In some video games, it was Latavius Murray. In others, it was Devonta Freeman. However the pair of veteran fill-ins mixed for simply 252 carries. For a little bit perspective, Jamal Lewis toted the ball 387 instances in his signature 2003 season.
The Ravens hoped to have Dobbins and Edwards at or close to full energy for Week 1 of this season. We already know that won't occur. Edwards is on the reserve/physically-unable-to-perform checklist and can miss at the least 4 video games. Dobbins appears to be like faster by the day in apply, but it surely stays to be seen how shortly coaches will topic his knee to a full workload. With this prediction, we’re saying the Ravens will spend the primary a part of the season scrambling at operating again, a lot as they did final 12 months.
Even in more healthy instances, they unfold the wealth. Mark Ingram was their final operating again to surpass the 150-carry mark, with 202 in 2019. It’s tough to think about them using Mike Davis or Kenyan Drake or the recovering Dobbins to that diploma. As a substitute, Jackson will once more function the fulcrum of Roman’s floor assault, and they're going to experience the most well liked again every week till they’re satisfied Dobbins has regained the explosiveness that made him a breakout candidate coming off his rookie season. The operating sport will likely be extra productive than it was in 2021, however not in a approach that satisfies fantasy house owners trying to find a workhorse again.
Lamar Jackson gained’t rush for 100 yards in a sport
Along with his eleventh profession 100-yard sport, Jackson would draw back from his childhood idol, Michael Vick, and set an NFL dashing report for quarterbacks. However defenses aren’t making it simple for Jackson these days. In 2019, he hit the century mark 5 instances. In 2020, he reached it twice. In an injury-shortened 2021, one other two.
Jackson arrived at offseason exercises with about 15 kilos of muscle added to his 6-foot-2 body. Coaches and teammates have mentioned he hasn’t misplaced his blazing velocity. However it’s truthful to surprise how a lot we’ll see of it. If the Ravens must depend on the just-arrived Drake early within the season, issues over the mesh level alternate might restrict the viability of Jackson’s zone-read choices. If Davis is closely concerned, defenses can deal with Jackson as the first exterior operating menace. If the Ravens play from beneath heart, as they did at instances within the preseason, Jackson could be restricted to scrambles and bootlegs.
Then there’s the entire last-year-of-his-contract variable. What quantity of carries would the Ravens be comfy with? And what about Jackson? His enter must be thought-about.
Isaiah Seemingly will end third on the workforce in receptions and receiving yards
Generally, now we have to consider our eyes. Andrews is Jackson’s high goal. Bateman is a transparent No. 1 among the many broad receivers. No different go catcher got here near matching the productiveness or “wow” issue we noticed from Seemingly, a fourth-round select of Coastal Carolina, in coaching camp and the preseason. The rookie has each instrument you’d need from a catch-first tight finish: dependable fingers in site visitors, an inherent really feel for sliding into open areas, energy and steadiness to run by means of tackles. Ravens coaches had seen sufficient after he torched the Arizona Cardinals for 100 yards in a single half; he didn’t play once more over their subsequent six quarters of preseason motion.
Not many groups depend on tight ends to be two of their high three receivers, however nobody has accused the Ravens of orthodoxy on offense. Roman loves designing units for a number of tight ends. Jackson loves throwing to huge targets over the center. If Seemingly is half the participant he was during the last six weeks, he'll obtain loads of probabilities. On a roster and not using a clear No. 2 broad receiver, he will likely be a featured playmaker.
A minimum of three Ravens will begin at left deal with
Three Ravens — Alejandro Villanueva, Patrick Mekari and Tyre Phillips — began at proper deal with final season. Lineup juggling might inflict related turnover on the blind facet this 12 months. Ja’Wuan James is predicted to begin the season opener. Ronnie Stanley, nonetheless discovering his consolation degree as he finishes his ankle rehabilitation, is likely to be prepared for motion quickly after.
However how lengthy can they maintain up for? James, who tore his Achilles tendon within the 2021 offseason, hasn’t began since 2019. Stanley has appeared in simply seven video games over the previous two seasons. Even earlier than his ankle nightmares, he’d miss a sport or two most years with a minor damage. The Ravens gave Patrick Mekari a three-year, $15.5 million extension final season as a result of he’s the last word security web for a workforce that wants its franchise quarterback protected in any respect prices.
Odafe Oweh will develop into the primary Raven with double-digit sacks since 2017
Oweh arrived in Baltimore sick to loss of life of listening to concerning the zero sacks he recorded in his remaining season at Penn State. Critics used this useful knowledge level as a cudgel to counsel he was all exercise sizzle, no game-day steak. He put this behind him with a productive rookie season, however he got here out of it believing he nonetheless had a lot room to develop. We noticed the wrath of Oweh 2.0 all through coaching camp and briefly glimpses of preseason motion. He was extra violent together with his fingers, tougher to hit cleanly as he got here across the edge. In different phrases, he was unblockable.
Whilst a rookie, counting on frenetic effort and athleticism greater than affected person evaluation and method, Oweh recorded 5 sacks and 15 quarterback hits in 15 video games. He'll play way more snaps this 12 months beneath a brand new defensive coordinator, Macdonald, who squeezed unbelievable manufacturing from a pair of proficient edge rushers at Michigan final 12 months. All the pieces factors to him changing into the workforce’s best sack artist since Terrell Suggs, who hit double digits for the final time (with 11) 5 years in the past.
The Ravens will end within the high 5 in defensive DVOA
Defensive effectivity is inherently much less secure than offensive effectivity from 12 months to 12 months, which is what made Don “Wink” Martindale’s tenure in Baltimore so outstanding. In his first three seasons as defensive coordinator, the Ravens ranked fourth, fifth and ninth within the NFL in Protection-adjusted Worth Over Common, Soccer Outsiders’ metric for relative effectivity. 2021 was imagined to be extra of the identical. Then the Ravens’ secondary struggled, and the go rush by no means arrived, and accidents doomed the entire enterprise — and maybe Martindale’s job safety, too.
A 12 months after setting a bunch of undesirable data on its approach to a Twenty eighth-place end in DVOA, the unit ought to bounce again properly. The Ravens have already got one of many NFL’s stingiest defensive traces. Their group of edge rushers might have 4 actual threats by season’s finish. And the secondary, with its assortment of chess items and ballhawks, ought to have a extra unpredictable array of coverages beneath new coordinator Mike Macdonald. There could possibly be early struggles, particularly in opposition to high-octane offenses just like the Buffalo Payments and Cincinnati Bengals’. However the potential is immense.
The Ravens’ protection will produce at the least 50% extra turnovers than it did in 2021
The Ravens completed final season with simply 15 takeaways, tied for third fewest within the NFL an unacceptable whole for a workforce that spends a lot of its wage cap on defensive backs. To their credit score, they handled this as a high precedence within the offseason, although they knew they might get again their high ballhawk, cornerback Marcus Peters. Peters’ absence attributable to a torn ACL was not their solely drawback in 2021. Marlon Humphrey completed with one pressured fumble after he knocked eight balls free the earlier 12 months. The workforce’s safeties, after a comparatively sizzling begin, completed with 4 interceptions and no pressured fumbles.
So that they went looking for a high heart fielder in Marcus Williams; used their first draft choose on an extended, instinctive security in Kyle Hamilton; and rounded out their secondary with veteran cornerback Kyle Fuller, who has 19 profession interceptions. Add these items to former All-Professionals Peters and Humphrey, and so they’re a superb wager to achieve 25 takeaways, a determine that might put them within the high third of the league as a substitute of the underside third, the place they resided final 12 months with the likes of the New York Jets, Jacksonville Jaguars and Carolina Panthers.
The Ravens will sweep the Pittsburgh Steelers
Certainly one of soccer’s fiercest rivalries has produced weirdly memorable video games and one-sided sequence lately. In 2019, the Ravens swept the Steelers — first beating a Pittsburgh workforce with out Ben Roethlisberger, then profitable the rematch with out Jackson. The Steelers’ series-clinching win in 2020 got here in opposition to a coronavirus-ravaged Ravens workforce in a thrice-delayed sport. In 2021, Pittsburgh gained two video games by a mixed 4 factors, the margins determined by a failed 2-point conversion and an additional time area purpose.
Accidents, sickness and the Ravens’ 2019 dominance have conspired to restrict Jackson to only 5 begins in opposition to the Steelers over his three-plus years as a starter, another than he’s made in opposition to the Kansas Metropolis Chiefs. If Jackson can keep wholesome, he ought to begin each video games in opposition to Pittsburgh for the primary time in his profession.
That might give the Ravens a transparent benefit on the sport’s most vital place. With the Steelers’ oodles of broad receiver expertise, quarterbacks Mitch Trubisky and Kenny Pickett have unusually giant security nets. However Jackson is due for a breakout sport in opposition to Pittsburgh, which has rattled him over time. An improved offensive line and proficient secondary also needs to be sufficient to negate the Steelers’ strongest positions. If the Ravens’ go rush is as much as full energy by December, they might win in Week 14 and Week 17 handily.
The Ravens will win the AFC North
Common damage luck would put the Ravens properly forward of the dismal well being image they confronted final season as they crashed from the highest of the convention to out of the playoffs in six weeks. They’re extra prone to end first in go protection than final as they face an unremarkable slate of quarterbacks. Jackson has all the time gained, even final 12 months, when he grew skittish behind an unreliable offensive line that could possibly be considerably higher if Stanley offers the Ravens something. It will be an upset if this workforce doesn't flip round to some extent.
So what concerning the competitors? The Steelers will depend on a rookie or an also-ran at quarterback, taking part in behind a suspect offensive line. The Cleveland Browns gained’t have their franchise quarterback, Deshaun Watson, till the final six video games. That leaves the defending champion Bengals, a formidable foe with Joe Burrow at cornerback, an excellent younger receiver in Ja’Marr Chase and an improved offensive line to assist preserve Burrow on the sector. The Bengals thumped the Ravens twice and made a shocking run to the Tremendous Bowl, so if you happen to favor them, it’s laborious to argue. However they have been inconsistent final 12 months — seventeenth in general DVOA and simply two video games forward of the Ravens regardless of vastly higher damage luck. They could possibly be a greater workforce this 12 months and nonetheless lose the division due to a harder schedule and some key accidents.
Week 1
RAVENS@JETS
Sunday, 1 p.m.
TV: Chs. 13, 9
Radio: 97.9 FM, 101.5 FM, 1090 AM
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