ExtremeRavens Posted October 3 Posted October 3 The Ravens smashed the Bills on Sunday Night Football. The Bengals finally picked up their first win of the season against the Panthers. Who will have the advantage when these AFC North rivals meet Sunday afternoon in Cincinnati? Ravens passing game vs. Bengals pass defense The Ravens continued their low-volume, high-efficiency passing against the Bills, with Lamar Jackson completing 13 of 18 for 156 yards and two scores. He has attempted just 33 passes over the last two weeks, the lowest two-game total of his NFL career. That means every significant pass catcher on the team, from Zay Flowers to Mark Andrews to Isaiah Likely, is seeing the ball less than expected. The one exception against Buffalo was running back Justice Hill, who caught all six passes thrown his way. Those included a 19-yard touchdown grab and a twisting 17-yard catch-and run that extended a vital touchdown drive in the third quarter. Hill has become an essential complement to Derrick Henry and a favorite target for Jackson when he needs to beat pressure with quick throws. Fewer passes have meant less burden on an offensive line that struggled against elite pass rushers in the Ravens’ opening pair of losses. Rookie right tackle Roger Rosengarten performed well in his first career start against the Bills as Patrick Mekari shifted to left guard to fill in for injured Andrew Vorhees. Might this alignment stay in place even if Vorhees is ready to face the Bengals? Rosengarten projects to start at tackle for years to come, so there’s good reason for the Ravens to keep feeding him opportunities. The Ravens will face a Cincinnati defense that has struggled to generate pressure, ranking 31st in the league in sacks and pressures per dropback. Defensive end Trey Hendrickson (three sacks, six quarterback hits) remains the team’s top pass rusher but hasn’t gotten much help from defensive end Sam Hubbard or defensive tackle B.J. Hill. The Bengals have allowed 6.1 yards per attempt and rank 26th in DVOA, down from 19th in 2023. They lost starting cornerback Chidobe Awuzie after last season and Pro Bowl safety Jessie Bates III the year before that. Their replacements, including former Ravens safety Geno Stone, haven’t been as good. Jackson diced up the Bengals in a pair of Ravens wins last year, completing 67.7% of his passes for four touchdowns and no interceptions. EDGE: Ravens Bengals passing game vs. Ravens pass defense Despite Cincinnati’s 0-3 start, quarterback Joe Burrow’s statistical lines have been vintage over the last two weeks. His No. 2 target, Tee Higgins, is back after missing the first two games, and Ja’Marr Chase (19 catches on 24 targets, 300 yards, three touchdowns) remains one of the league’s elite wide receivers. Burrow took eight sacks over the first three games, and the Ravens will surely try to attack rookie right tackle Amarius Mims, who’s filling in for injured veteran Trent Brown. Former Raven Orlando Brown Jr. has done a solid job protecting Burrow’s blind side. The Ravens have done an excellent job keeping Burrow off-balance and reluctant to look downfield since he torched them in a pair of 2021 blowouts. Former defensive coordinator Mike Macdonald did it with disguised coverage schemes and well-timed pressure. Successor Zach Orr’s plan against Burrow will be one of Sunday’s key stories. Orr flooded the field with extra defensive backs against the Cowboys and Bills and showed a deft touch for varying his pressures, using cornerback Marlon Humphrey, for example, as an effective blitzer against Josh Allen. Allen made a few great throws against the Ravens but finished 16-of-29 for 180 yards and no scores. He faced steady harassment from edge rushers Odafe Oweh and Kyle Van Noy and defensive tackle Travis Jones, all of whom are off to outstanding starts. Safety Kyle Hamilton’s versatility around the line of scrimmage could also be a major factor against Cincinnati. After struggling to hold leads in their previous two games, the Ravens put Buffalo away with a pair of back-breaking sacks from Van Noy and Oweh in the third quarter. EDGE: Even Ravens running game vs. Bengals run defense The Ravens destroyed their last two opponents on the ground, outrushing the Cowboys and Bills by a combined 545 yards to 132. They’re averaging 6.4 yards per attempt, easily the best in the league. Jackson remains the orchestrator and a devastating threat (77 yards per game, 7.5 yards per attempt), but this is the first time he has worked with a running back who scares defenses as much as he does. Henry went 87 yards on his first carry against Buffalo and finished the night with 199 rushing yards. He’s on pace to exceed 2,000 for the season while averaging a career-high six yards per attempt. A young offensive line that struggled to open holes in the first two weeks asserted its size and power against the Cowboys and Bills. Center Tyler Linderbaum is playing at an All-Pro level. Fullback Patrick Ricard and tight ends Likely and Andrews have done the grunt work to give Henry his favored outside running lanes. The Ravens will look for another dominant performance against a defense that ranked 28th in DVOA against the run in 2023 and ranks 22nd so far this season. The Bengals have allowed 145.5 yards per game and 4.4 yards per carry against ground attacks that do not measure up to Baltimore’s. They have a pair of good linebackers in Logan Wilson and Germaine Pratt but badly miss D.J. Reader, who was their dominant interior run defender for years. The Ravens lead the NFL in rushing yards through the first four weeks of the season. (Kenneth K. Lam/Staff) EDGE: Ravens Bengals running game vs. Ravens run defense The Bengals ran for just 144 yards over their first two games, but porous run defenses from Washington and Carolina helped them pick up the pace over the last two. They said goodbye to longtime running back Joe Mixon in the offseason, replacing him with Zack Moss, who’s averaging 46.8 yards per game and 3.9 per carry. Moss has carried more than backup Chase Brown, but Brown has been more efficient, averaging 6.3 yards per carry. Burrow is no threat on designed runs but can scramble well enough in a pinch. The Ravens always played well against Mixon and have smothered opposing ground games this year, holding them to 58 yards per game and three yards per carry, both league-best totals. They didn’t miss nose tackle Michael Pierce (shoulder) against Buffalo, in part because the 6-foot-4, 338-pound Jones is emerging as a star. Hamilton has done his best work this year against the run. All-Pro linebacker Roquan Smith is off to a slow start by his standard but still leads the team in tackles. EDGE: Ravens Ravens special teams vs. Bengals special teams Justin Tucker didn’t attempt a field goal against the Bills after missing one wide-left in each of the Ravens’ first three games. Fans will watch anxiously the next time the greatest kicker in NFL lines up, especially if it’s from 50 yards or more. Punter Jordan Stout has performed much better (57.1% inside the opponent’s 20-yard line for the season) since he shanked a key kick in the Ravens’ collapse against the Raiders. Deonte Harty is averaging a solid 11.6 yards on punt returns. Cincinnati kicker Evan McPherson has made nine of 10 field goal attempts, including all three from 50 yards or beyond. The Bengals rank 26th in special teams DVOA because they’ve gotten little from their return game and have struggled in kickoff coverage. EDGE: Ravens Ravens intangibles vs. Bengals intangibles The Ravens-Bengals rivalry has swung wildly in recent seasons. Cincinnati won a pair of blowouts in 2021 and ended the Ravens’ season (with Jackson out) in 2022. Baltimore bounced back to win both meetings (with Burrow getting hurt in the second) last year. Cincinnati started 0-3, so coach Zac Taylor and his top stars will treat this as a must-win game. The Ravens are riding high coming off their season-best performance against Buffalo and could make their 0-2 start a distant memory with a win in Cincinnati. “We don’t want to listen to the good stuff,” coach John Harbaugh said after the Bills win, signaling that he wanted the Ravens looking ahead instead of enjoying what they’d done. They won’t overlook the Bengals given the feisty history between these teams and the built-in importance of any AFC North game. They have played well in Cincinnati the last two seasons, making life uncomfortable for Burrow. EDGE: Ravens Prediction As long as the Bengals have Burrow throwing to Chase and Higgins, they’ll be a threat. They’re better than their 0-3 start, especially on offense. The Ravens don’t want to spot Cincinnati a lead and have the game turn into a throwing contest. The good news for the Ravens is they have the right playmakers to punish a Cincinnati defense that has lost a lot of talent over the last few years. Led by Jackson and Henry, they’ll try to follow the same script that worked against the Cowboys and Bills. The Bengals won’t be the team to stop them. Ravens 30, Bengals 24 Have a news tip? Contact Childs Walker at daviwalker@baltsun.com, 410-332-6893 and x.com/ChildsWalker. View the full article Quote
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