Ravens Insider: Ravens vs. Bills scouting report for Week 1: Who has the edge?

[ExtremeRavens]

The Ravens have waited more than seven months for this. Sunday night, they’ll open their season at the site of their crushing loss to the Buffalo Bills in the AFC divisional round. It won’t make or break their season, but it shoulders enough emotional baggage to magnify a tone-setting rematch.

Who will have the advantage in season opener?

Ravens passing game vs. Bills pass defense

Lamar Jackson is coming off the best passing season of his career, which happens to be one of the best passing seasons ever. No other quarterback has thrown more than 40 touchdown passes with fewer than five interceptions. Jackson topped 4,000 passing yards and finished with the fourth-highest single-season passer rating in league history. He’ll be without ascendent tight end Isaiah Likely (foot) in Buffalo but will have his first chance to throw meaningful passes to Hall of Fame-bound wideout DeAndre Hopkins.

Don’t be surprised if Baltimore’s previously elite passing attack fires out of the gates against a scratched up Buffalo secondary. Tre’Davious White, a former Raven and the Bills’ No. 2 cornerback, is rehabbing from injury. First-round pick Maxwell Hairston is on injured reserve to start the year. And Christian Benford was limited in practice this week, which raises the question whether Buffalo believes that fielding him is worth the risk. Most teams are tight-lipped on that stuff as long as they’re able. There’s a chance Jackson is served some combination of a second-year role player, a sixth-round draft pick and a practice squad veteran on a silver platter.

EDGE: Ravens

Bills passing game vs. Ravens pass defense

What Josh Allen does against Baltimore’s secondary is perhaps the most intriguing layer heading into Sunday night. Both groups bulked up this offseason. 

Baltimore used its first-round pick on safety Malaki Starks, signed cornerbacks Jaire Alexander and Chidobe Awuzie and expects a breakout year from sophomore cornerback Nate Wiggins — all complementary pieces to All-Pros Kyle Hamilton and Marlon Humphrey. Senior secondary coach Chuck Pagano called them the best secondary he’s seen in two decades coaching in the NFL, which speaks volumes compared with how that group struggled the first 10 weeks of last season.

As for the Bills, Khalil Shakir figures to be the top-shelf guy after logging more than 800 yards and four scores in 2024. Both Keon Coleman and Dawson Knox missed time last season because of injuries but are the next-in-line go-to targets for Allen. Joining the mix is Joshua Palmer, a former Charger who Allen deemed “one of the best I’ve been around,” and veteran Elijah Moore. It’s a deep room with new faces. A fully healthy Ravens secondary can still make life difficult for that by-committee group, which has one combined Pro Bowl appearance.

EDGE: Ravens

Ravens running game vs. Bills run defense

It feels like a distant memory severed by the gutting disappoint of a playoff curtain call, but the last time these teams matched up in the regular season offered the most electrifying play of Derrick Henry’s 2024 campaign. Henry took the first offensive snap 87 yards for a touchdown. And yet, that was against a Buffalo front at less than full strength. Buffalo’s run defense hushed Henry in January, then added five-time Pro Bowl selection Joey Bosa, a game wrecker when healthy. There’s reason to believe in Baltimore’s offensive line, but any significant Ravens offense is more likely to happen through the air.

EDGE: Bills

Bills running game vs. Ravens run defense

Last month, Ravens defensive tackle Broderick Washington Jr. spoke candidly about how much “it sucked” to have Buffalo’s running backs thrash them in the playoffs. Baltimore had the top run defense in the league. It crumbled in the playoffs. “I think everybody took that pretty tough,” he said. The Ravens lost big man Michael Pierce to retirement but still have a healthy and high-ceiling trio of Nnamdi Madubuike, Travis Jones and Washington. Like it is for Jackson and Andrews individually, Week 1 is a chance for the defensive front to avenge their demons.

That might not be enough to sway the discourse. James Cook got paid like a top running back this offseason and he’ll be out to prove why. He’s flanked by Ray Davis and Ty Johnson, who combined for 60 yards against Baltimore in January. They’re all running behind one of the best offensive lines in the league, a proven commodity returning all parts unlike a Pierce-less defense.

EDGE: Bills

Ravens special teams vs. Bills special teams

Both sides have an interesting storyline worth following at kicker. Baltimore will debut its rookie, Tyler Loop, who’s making his first appearance in a regular season game — the first time the Ravens will start a kicker not named Justin Tucker since 2012. Loop had an impressive preseason in which he made 9 of 11 field goal attempts capped by a 61-yarder in Washington. Ravens coach John Harbaugh thought that he passed the August test “with flying colors.”

Ravens kicker Tyler Loop, right, works out in June. Loop will make his NFL debut Sunday against the Bills. (Kenneth K. Lam/Staff)

Buffalo might not even have its kicker. Tyler Bass, one of the league’s most efficient legs, missed a chunk of training camp for pelvic soreness. He returned by the preseason finale, but the Bills signing three veteran kickers to try out is enough of a sign that they are taking Plan B seriously in the event that Bass’ soreness lingers into the weekend. He was limited in practice on Wednesday and did not participate on Thursday, leaving a veil of mystery. Assuming Bass’ health, he’s got the edge, but the pendulum tips the other direction if it’s one of the new guys.

EDGE: Bills

Ravens intangibles vs. Bills intangibles

It’s not hyperbole to say that Baltimore’s playoff loss influenced a reassessment on its offseason approach. Most obviously was Harbaugh’s more transparent grading system. Ravens staffers track all sorts of detailed stats from games. This offseason, on the heels of an unexpected playoff unraveling, he upped the ante to include every practice and gamified it on flat screens in every meeting room. Players are suffocated by evaluation. They love it. And it’s said to have yielded better practices. “I just think that they understand when you go through the things that we’ve gone through,” Harbaugh said, “in terms of different games and things like that, they can see when we do those things well, most of the time the game’s not even close.”

Buffalo’s training camp transparency has come in the form of HBO’s “Hard Knocks.” Transparency might be a reach — those five episodes didn’t reveal much, a far cry from the old “Hard Knocks.” Cameras didn’t give much credence to injuries effecting White or Bass, nor internal talent evaluation. One of the few highlights was an interview with NFL Network host Kyle Brandt in which Allen poetically described what a Super Bowl parade in Buffalo might look like: “Five degrees, brisk, rolling down, hearing the bus roll over all the salt and the ice …” It sounded similar to Kyle Hamilton’s “we want to get greedy” for a Super Bowl line from last week. All told, Baltimore has the better roster.

EDGE: Ravens

Prediction

This game will live up to its billing. Both teams have a sour taste in their mouths, having spent all offseason eager to avenge. Both sides have MVP quarterbacks, voted on by their peers as top-three players in the NFL heading into this season. Both offenses return 10 of 11 players. And both defenses invested in upgrades by way of top draft picks and Pro Bowl players. It will play out closer to how their last regular-season meeting did than the playoffs. Baltimore thrashed a Buffalo team that was without several defensive starters. Expect the Ravens to capitalize in similar fashion in this meeting, even if the scoreboard margin isn’t so wide. Ravens 24, Bills 17.

Have a news tip? Contact Sam Cohn at scohn@baltsun.com, 410-332-6200 and x.com/samdcohn.

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