The 2023 Ravens are off to a very fine start after they answered every blow from the defending AFC North champion Cincinnati Bengals in a 27-24 road victory. They arrived in a battered state, but a mature, resilient performance by quarterback Lamar Jackson ensured they would go home joyous.
Here are five things we learned from the game.
This could have become another bitter trip to Cincinnati, but Lamar Jackson wrote it otherwise
Eight months ago, the Ravens’ 2022 season ended in noble defeat at Cincinnati’s Paycor Stadium as their hobbled franchise quarterback, Jackson, watched from 500 miles away wanting to slam his fist into the television.
They returned Sunday to the scene of that gut punch as a re-imagined team but one already diminished by fresh injuries to five key starters. Again they knocked the defending AFC North champion Bengals on their heels and again they flirted with throwing it all away.
The Ravens owned the first half, outgaining Cincinnati 225 yards to 63, rolling up 17 first downs to the Bengals’ four, controlling the ball for almost two-thirds of the game clock.
The scoreboard told a different story.
Thanks to a coverage lapse on an 81-yard punt return by rookie Charlie Jones and a pair of holding penalties that cost them a chance at more points in the two-minute drill, the Ravens went to the locker room up just 13-10. Twice they built the lead to 10 in the second half and twice Joe Burrow rallied the Bengals to within a field goal. With 3:28 left in the game, the Ravens needed at least two first downs to make sure Burrow would not get another chance.
Here’s where it mattered a whole lot that Jackson was at quarterback rather than Tyler Huntley or Josh Johnson. On third-and-3, the Bengals covered everybody, and a trio of rushers pinched Jackson’s pocket, but he jitterbugged to his right, finding enough clear ground to glide 12 yards before going down inbounds.
Offensive coordinator Todd Monken then flashed his nerve by calling a jet sweep to wide receiver Devin Duvernay for the second series in a row: 8 yards. Running back Gus Edwards finished it off, powering 5 yards on third-and-1 behind an offensive line that was down starters Ronnie Stanley and Tyler Linderbaum.
Almost every time an answer was called for in the second half of this tense contest, the Ravens, led by a poised Jackson, provided it.
They chased away the gloom that lingered from their discombobulated, injury-ravaged opening victory over the Houston Texans. At 2-0, with a road win banked against their most formidable divisional rival, they can officially say their 2023 campaign is off to a promising start.
We have so many twists to go before we’ll be equipped to say how important this day was in the narrative of a long season, but given the Ravens’ recent history in Cincinnati and their quest for a refreshed offensive identity, it feels awfully important right now. With the Orioles doing their comeback thing to clinch a playoff spot back home, Baltimore held the center of the American sports world. Quite an afternoon.
The Ravens’ offense can trade blows with the best in the AFC North
Multiple Ravens called this a great team win afterward, and it was. But make no mistake, it was the first trial by fire for Monken’s re-imagined offense. If Jackson and company had not answered Burrow multiple times in the second half, a promising afternoon would have ended in defeat. The Ravens churned out first downs from the opening moments of the game to the closing, and they needed every one of them.
Their first drive was their most impressive of the young season, covering 75 yards with five passes and eight runs while eating almost eight minutes of clock. A patient Jackson trusted his offensive line, with Patrick Mekari filling in at left tackle and Sam Mustipher at center, to give him precious seconds to cycle through his reads, and he did not miss.
This was a big deal, because we watched the Ravens go from a dominant first-quarter offense in 2019, Greg Roman’s debut season as coordinator, to a below-average one in 2021 and 2022.
After a pair of ragged drives ended with no points, the Ravens scored on four straight possessions from early in the second quarter to early in the fourth, refusing to let the Bengals get their noses in front. Aside from a fumble that was wiped out by a Cincinnati penalty, Jackson never looked flustered as he had in the opener against Houston. He read the field adeptly and seized the opportunities available. Sometimes, that meant a spectacular pass, such as his 52-yard strike to rookie Zay Flowers that split two defenders or his lovely 17-yard teardrop to Nelson Agholor for the deciding touchdown. More often it meant a short dump-off to keep a drive moving.
And what a clutch performance by an offensive line playing without its top pass blocker in Stanley and its central cog in Linderbaum. Jackson was not sacked once, and the Ravens, operating without their most dynamic running back in J.K. Dobbins, ground out 178 yards on 37 carries, including those crucial ones to put the game away.
“[The] offensive line played a great football game,” coach John Harbaugh said. “Pass protection was outstanding. Run blocking was outstanding, just all across the board. Pat [Mekari] was a great part of that, and Sam Mustipher stepped in, and he just played tremendously well.”
Everyone who has ever worked with Monken says his great gift is making an offense what it needs to be to win in a given week. We saw the Ravens take on different guises as conditions changed Sunday, never wedded to downfield finesse or brute force but capable of either.
They’re no finished product. We still saw Jackson mistime a few deep throws, and Monken will no doubt find more to clean up upon closer examination. But this offense faced its first moments of genuine stress and answered with a convincing demonstration of its potential.
A maligned secondary made several game-saving plays
We spent the summer bemoaning the Ravens’ lack of quality depth in the defensive backfield. As soon as Pro Bowl cornerback Marlon Humphrey went on the shelf to have foot surgery, skeptics circled this trip to Cincinnati as the day when an undermanned group would face its reckoning.
Bengals wide receivers Ja’Marr Chase, Tee Higgins and Tyler Boyd have tormented decorated Ravens secondaries over the years. What would they do to this humble group?
Well, they had their moments in the second half, especially the 6-foot-4 Higgins, who posted up Ar’Darius Washington and Ronald Darby for a pair of touchdown catches. But players such as Darby and Rock Ya-Sin, filling in for Humphrey, and safety Geno Stone, filling in for injured starter Marcus Williams, gave as good as they got.
The Ravens sent the Bengals off the field three-and-out on their first two drives thanks to sound coverage and impressive open-field tackles by Stone and linebacker Patrick Queen.
After playing just eight defensive snaps in his Ravens debut, Ya-Sin showed tremendous fight in pushing the ball out of Chase’s grasp to prevent a Cincinnati touchdown late in the second quarter. Harbaugh said Ya-Sin would play a more central role as he built up his fitness coming off a preseason injury, and he delivered against one of the league’s great playmakers.
“We pressed them,” Harbaugh said. “We got up there, and we pressed them, and we played well. They weren’t hitting any fade [routes] on us. Our guys played fantastic out there on the edges. [I’m] just really proud of those guys — really proud of them.”
With the Bengals in the red zone again on their first drive of the second half, Stone stepped in front of Higgins to pick off Burrow and set up a Ravens touchdown drive. That turnover proved to be as important as any play in the game and reminded us what an admirable job Stone, who was honored with a game ball, did filling in for Williams last year.
The Ravens will be delighted to have Humphrey back, whether that’s this week or soon after, but opposing quarterbacks have not feasted in his absence. Harbaugh and his staff could not have hoped for more.
The Ravens leaned on a new sensation and old reliable in the passing game
We haven’t said the name Mark Andrews yet, but the Pro Bowl tight end made his presence felt after he missed the opener with a quadriceps injury.
After Stone’s interception and Flowers’ brilliant catch, the Ravens faced third-and-goal with a chance to build their lead to 10. Jackson looked to the man who has been his most trusted target since they were both rookies. Andrews caught the ball, lowered his shoulder and extended just over the white chalk of the goal line.
The next time the Ravens had the ball, needing an answer to Burrow’s first touchdown drive of the day, they faced a daunting second-and-23 on their side of the field. Again, Jackson’s eyes found No. 89, and he zipped the ball into the slight pocket of space Andrews had discovered 20 yards downfield. Second-and-long became third-and-short, and the Ravens kept moving.
The Kansas City Chiefs have built a near-dynasty on Patrick Mahomes looking for his tight end, Travis Kelce, in such scenarios. Sunday’s clutch catches reminded us that for all the new candy in the Ravens’ offense, Andrews is still that guy for Jackson.
Of course, new candy is sweet and boy does it seem the Ravens found a treat when they drafted Flowers in April. The rookie was less prolific — four catches on five targets, one carry — than in his debut, but ordinary players don’t cut between a pair of defenders and make the adjustment he did to snare that 52-yard ball from Jackson.
“As good as it gets,” Harbaugh said of the connection.
“Just watching film knowing what they were going to do, we had to cross the route and I saw the safety driving on that cross route and Zay, he’s going to get away from corners,” Jackson explained. “They have explosive guys, fast guys; I just had to give him a chance, and he made a heck of a catch.”
Something old and something new — Jackson relied on both to deliver this victory.
The late signing of Jadeveon Clowney is paying off
Clowney did not do anything spectacular in his Ravens debut, but he played the second-most snaps of any edge defender, earned strong grades against the run and delivered a pair of pressures. He was a reliable anchor as Odafe Oweh and David Ojabo stood out, exactly what the Ravens envisioned when they brought the 30-year-old onboard in mid-August.
The Ravens needed more from Clowney in Cincinnati as Oweh dealt with an injury that Harbaugh said did not appear serious. He answered loudly, especially in the second half. His sack on Burrow was the key play in forcing the Bengals off the field on their first drive of the fourth quarter. His third-down deflection forced another Burrow incompletion a bit later. He made four tackles on the afternoon, more than the rest of the team’s outside linebackers combined.
The Ravens are excited about what’s ahead for Oweh and Ojabo but knew they needed a proven player to cover for the pass-rush sizzle and edge-setting strength they lost when they did not re-sign Justin Houston or Jason Pierre-Paul. The beauty of Clowney is that when he’s locked in, as he appears to be now, he’s a more versatile force than Houston or Pierre-Paul. That’s real bang for the modest price of $2.5 million.
Week 3
Colts at Ravens
Sunday, 1 p.m.
TV: Chs. 13, 9
Radio: 97.9 FM, 101.5 FM, 1090 AM
Line: Ravens by 8 1/2
