[Baltimore Sun] Mike Preston: Ravens need to find answers after looking lost in coverage | COMMENTARY
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ARLINGTON, Texas — The problems in the secondary have become a primary concern for the Ravens.
They pounded the Dallas Cowboys for nearly three quarter Sunday in a game that should have been a blowout, yet the Ravens had to get a 10-yard run from quarterback Lamar Jackson late in the fourth quarter to secure a 28-25 victory against the Dallas Cowboys here before a crowd of 93,566 at AT&T Stadium.
By all accounts, this game should have easily been put in the win column. The Ravens led 21-6 at halftime and 28-6 at the end of the third quarter. But the Cowboys scored 19 unanswered points in the fourth quarter, including touchdown passes of 15 and 16 yards in the final 7:07 to make this game unbelievably, and at times unrealistically, close.
Now, it’s time to take a more serious look at first-year defensive coordinator Zach Orr. It’s not that the Ravens are significantly worse than a year ago, but the coverage in the secondary has been poor, which is why they were ranked No. 31 in pass defense entering Sunday.
It’s easy to see why.
Dallas quarterback Dak Prescott completed a 15-yard touchdown pass to receiver Jalen Tolbert with 7:07 left in the game and then a 16-yard touchdown pass to KaVontae Turpin with 2:53 remaining to pull the Cowboys within 28-25. The scores weren’t so mystifying, but the looks on the faces of Ravens middle linebacker Roquan Smith and cornerback Marlon Humphrey were puzzling.
It was a clear signal that the Ravens were lost in coverage. That might happen if an opposing team is balanced with the run and the pass, but the Cowboys were clearly one-dimensional in the fourth quarter, and their only resort was to throw the ball. Yet the Ravens had to sweat out the victory after giving up only 189 yards in the first half.
Before the start of the season, there was major concern about the Ravens getting consistent pressure on quarterbacks after defensive end-outside linebacker Jadeveon Clowney signed with the Carolina Panthers. But in three games, the outside linebacker tandem of Kyle Van Noy and Odafe Oweh has performed well. The Ravens sacked Prescott three times Sunday and got pressure on him seven other times.
But there is something missing in the secondary. At first, the coverage was logical because the Ravens looked to be playing a lot of zone and not wanting to give up the big play. But by the fourth quarter, they were lost, like nomads in the dessert. They couldn’t find Dallas receivers if they had GPS. A team can get away with that against some opponents, but that won’t work in the postseason. It didn’t work two weeks ago against the Kansas City Chiefs or even a week ago against the Las Vegas Raiders.
“It definitely has a sour taste in our mouths, just based on how good we started and what the score looked like, especially those three first quarters that we had,” Oweh said. “At the end of the day, it’s getting that ‘W’ and getting that win, and we got it, but we definitely have some things to clean up. Same story.”
He is correct. For the first three quarters, the Ravens looked like the Ravens of a year ago, when they had the best defense in the NFL. They kept safety Kyle Hamilton up near or around the line of scrimmage, and he finished as the team’s leading tackler with 12. Smith, who had been sluggish in the first two games, was able to shed blocks and had 11 tackles. The Ravens might have introduced their new shutdown cornerback in rookie Nate Wiggins, who did a decent job on one of the best receivers in the league in CeeDee Lamb, who finished with four catches for 67 yards.
But the Ravens couldn’t contain Prescott in the fourth quarter. The three-time Pro Bowl selection was 12 of 20 for 140 yards in the first half but finished 28 of 51 for 379 yards. He started picking the Ravens apart throwing underneath and over the top of coverages. It was fortunate for Baltimore that Prescott ran out of time.
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“We want to get those stops. We definitely want to get those stops,” Harbaugh said of the Ravens’ poor defensive play over the past two weeks.
The poor coverage in the secondary was the biggest concern. Even though the Cowboys came into the game with one of the worst run defenses in the NFL, the Ravens pounded them with running back Derrick Henry, who had 151 yards and two touchdowns on 25 carries. Henry turned star quarterback Lamar Jackson into a game manager, as Jackson rushed 14 times for 87 yards but completed only 12 of 15 passes for 182 yards. That’s the ideal situation for the Ravens, as Jackson still had completions of 56 and 30 yards but didn’t have to find targets and deliver great throws inside the red zone.
Overall, the Ravens were happy to just get out of Dallas with a win. If they had lost, they would have been 0-3 with games against Buffalo and Cincinnati coming up within the next two weeks. It would have been a huge hole to dig out. But at least they got a win Sunday. Now, they have to fix the problems in the secondary. They’ve been exposed for three weeks.
Dallas rallied and almost pulled the upset Sunday. It’s so glaring that no one was talking about the often maligned offensive line, which seemed to earn a one-week reprieve.
The focus is on the secondary.
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