3 Reasons to be Bullish on the Ravens Defense

I do not trust the Ravens defense right now, and I doubt you do either. While Baltimore is 5-2, they have been largely carried by the offense, while the defense is only 26th in opponents points per game. But while first-year Defensive Coordinator Zachary Orr’s unit has not lived up the heights of Mike Macdonald’s dominant group last year, all hope is not lost. Even through the struggles they have shown signs of a potentially great defense, one which could round into shape as the season progresses.

Here are three reasons to be optimistic about the 2024 Ravens Defense.

Structure Remains, Problems are Correctable

While the results for the 2024 Ravens defense may look a lot different than they did in 2023, there has not been a major philosophical shift. They still are blitzing at nearly an identical rate (21.3% this year vs. 21.9% last year), and the structure of the defense still revolves around changing pressure and coverage looks after the snap in order to confuse the quarterback. The big difference between last year and this year is that it just isn’t working as well.

As much as Ravens fans might hate it when Head Coach John Harbaugh says it, the reality is that many of the problems have come down to execution. The biggest difference in the results between the 2023 and 2024 defenses has been in allowing big plays, with one of the biggest culprits being communication problems.

The inherent risk of the Mike Macdonald-style of defense is that it relies on all three levels acting as one, and when that doesn’t happen, cracks can quickly turn into craters. Part of this certainly relies on coaching; with so many moving parts, players need to be coached in this defense the same way a little league coach would teach eight-year-olds to hit the cut-off man. But Orr is seven games into his tenure as a Defensive Coordinator, and he deserves time to build a more coherent unit. This is around the time that Macdonald’s group started to come together in his first year.

If this defense still looks disjointed in December, we can revisit the discussion. But this is not a fundamentally flawed unit like the 2022 Ravens offense, when it was obvious that the problems facing that group were un-fixable and a major change was in order.

The process that made Macdonald’s defenses great is still there. Orr now needs to turn that into results.

The Schedule of Opposing Quarterbacks

The 2024 Ravens defense has one of the biggest advanced number discrepancies that has served as fodder for stat nerd discussions. The two most frequently cited wholesale advanced numbers to look at units are EPA/Play (Expected Points Added) and DVOA, which looks at how a unit performs per play compared to the league average. The 2024 Ravens Defense is 27th in EPA/Play, but 13th in DVOA. While Aaron Schatz, the creator of DVOA, posted a long Twitter thread examining the discrepancy in more detail, one of the basic reasons is that DVOA takes into account strength of schedule.

Simply put, the Ravens have played a murderer’s row of opposing quarterbacks so far in 2024.

Patrick Mahomes and Josh Allen are the two best quarterbacks in the game outside of Lamar Jackson, while Joe Burrow and Dak Prescott are not far behind and Jayden Daniels has been lighting the league on fire as a rookie sensation. Even the Buccaneers have had one of the more prolific passing offenses in football this year. Facing that list of quarterbacks would be a lot for any team in a whole season, let alone seven weeks. And while the defense has certainly had their faults, there have been moments where there is not much they could have done. Football is an odd sport in that the performance of the offensive and defensive units are so interdependent on each other that we sometimes forget that just like a basketball player can show up and make or miss all of his shots, football players can also show up to the field some days on a heater. And the Ravens seem to have caught some really good quarterbacks on some of their really good days.

This was particularly the case in Week 5, when Joe Burrow shredded Baltimore. Mike Macdonald had always had particular success against Cincinnati, in large part because he consistently won the battle of the minds with the Cincy QB. The Ravens defense was not doing much different schematically this time around, but this time Burrow consistently identified who was coming and who was not pre-snap and would immediately throw into the vacated windows. And when those windows were not there, Burrow was able to adjust much faster than he had in previous matchups and find his one-on-one’s with either Ja’Marr Chase or Tee Higgins.

Take two third-down completions to Chase that went for 16 and 12 yards, respectively.

In both plays, Burrow is being forced to get rid of the ball with well-covered receivers, with the idea being that the rotating defense confuses Burrow enough that by the time he finds his single coverage matchup the pressure has already gotten home. But in both situations, Burrow was decisive enough to find the right look, and at that point there is not much the defense can do when two of the best players at their respective positions are at the top of their game.

It is also worth mentioning that as good as Burrow and Daniels were against the Ravens, they stymied Allen the week before. Stopping good quarterback play in the NFL is really hard. And while the results could have certainly been better against this group of signal callers, this defense has time to figure things out before once again facing a similar caliber of quarterback in the playoffs.

But in the meantime, the results should look better as the opposition gets worse.

Non-Predictive Plays

While the Ravens have had some systemic issues defensively, there have also just been weird things that have happened in their games so far. One has just been that they have been dropping a lot of interceptions. The Ravens have only five interceptions this year, but according to PFF, they have dropped five more. And while yes, there is a reason those guys are playing defense, dropping 50% of interceptions thrown your way is something that should regress to the mean. The only true remedy is to get some extra reps on the jugs machine.

It is also worth mentioning that the Ravens defense has been hurt by bad calls. I am not someone who believes the NFL is rigged, and I generally believe that what people attribute to malice in bad officiating is just the zebras being bad at their jobs. But it is undeniable that the Ravens defense has wound up on the wrong end of a few atrocious calls in big situations this year. Jawaan Taylor and Ronnie Stanley seemed to be playing with different alignment rules in Week 1, while the Week 2 loss to the Raiders was heavily affected by a horrific Defensive Pass Interference call, as well as a questionable roughing the passer penalty. The following week, the Ravens were once again flagged for a brutal roughing the passer as well as a questionable illegal contact penalty that allowed Dallas to get back in that game. This is something that has already reverted the mean – those calls were all in the first three weeks – but our perception of this defense is still affected by some of the early-season meltdowns, which were heavily affected by bad calls. Ravens fans generally do a good job of not blaming losses on the referees, and those games were not won or lost because of the officials. But it is inarguable that they made life more difficult on the Ravens defense.

Finally, it is also worth noting that the defense has been put in some tough situations. The Ravens allowed six fourth quarter touchdowns against Dallas and Tampa respectively, but of those six touchdown two came off successful onside kicks, while another came on a fumbled backwards pass, and another came off a Justin Tucker missed field goal. This is not to say that turnovers or missed goals are not a part of football (although giving up onside kicks is not something that should happen). But it is to say that many of the situations where the defense has looked most vulnerable have been exacerbated by stupid offensive or special teams mistakes in which they had no part.

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Source: https://russellstreetreport.com/2024/10/25/street-talk/ravens-defense-will-improve/