The Ravens got a lot of attention for all the wrong reasons last year with their brutal pay at home.
They got embarrassed by the Lions and Patriots at home in prime time and watched the Texans celebrate all over their field and couldn’t beat Aaron Rodgers, in Baltimore, to secure the AFC North title. The lowlights were many, and while M&T Bank Stadium hasn’t been quite the fortress it once was, if rookie coach Jesse Minter can fix this defense as quickly as many expect, then they shouldn’t be getting dogwalked by guys like CJ Stroud and Jared Goff and Rodgers anymore.
But the home failures weren’t the only issue to crop up near the end of John Harbaugh’s long and successful run as head coach. Far from it. The Ravens haven’t been as stout against AFC North opponents since Lamar Jackson became the full-season starter for the first time in 2019 to begin an historic run.
For all the games Jackson has won in the regular season – his near perfect run against NFC opponents for much of his career, and his overall primetime heroics – the Ravens haven’t been superior against divisional foes, and this at a time when the Browns have been terrible and the Steelers haven’t been a true Lombardi contender for a long time and the Bengals defense has been downright terrible the past two years.
The Ravens are just 23-19 against AFC North foes since the start of 2019, which is solid, but unspectacular. They rank 13th in the NFL in winning percentage within their division in that span (.548) – the kind of metric that will keep you battling for playoff position longer than you probably should. At home, the Ravens are 12-9 against division foes since 2019, just 11th in the NFL.
Minter is going to want to improve on this.
We suspect Minter can address all those fourth-quarter collapses, which have certainly come against some divisional foes. We believe it can be a better third-down defense, with a guy like Trey Hendrickson as a true closer to help put games away. But it also might be a more tepid offensive attack than we have become used to.
On the bright side, Baltimore’s 53-22 mark against non-divisional foes since 2019 is best in the NFL but the tiebreakers that come with division games carry so much weight. The Ravens are 49-35 vs AFC teams since 201, which bodes well for them moving forward.
But they need to be more consistent at home, and establishing more divisional superiority, especially at a time when Zac Taylor (Bengals) is now the senior head coach, is in order.
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