ExtremeRavens Posted 9 hours ago Posted 9 hours ago On Monday night, Roquan Smith and Kyle Hamilton organized a players-only dinner for the Ravens’ defense. Whether it was a response to their blunders in Buffalo or preordained in the week’s schedule matters less than what they got out of having everybody in the same room less than 24 hours after falling to 0-1. “It’s going to be private — just because I don’t need to express what was said,” veteran outside linebacker Kyle Van Noy said. “But things were talked about, and we have to turn the page.” The nature of the NFL schedule doesn’t allow much room for deep reflection. There’s a home opener against a division foe Sunday, then 15 more regular-season games to worry about. But this loss was weighed down by well-documented emotional baggage. For one, it was the same building where Baltimore’s 2024 season ended in backbreaking fashion. The Ravens spent all season plotting vengeance in the form of a projected top-tier defense — the kind that can rack up takeaways. That defense let up 397 passing yards, 251 of which came in the fourth quarter, and failed to force a turnover. Quarterback Josh Allen spun a 15-point comeback, dismantling analytical models predicting a 99.1% chance of Ravens victory. For Baltimore, that required some additional dialogue. Two messages emerged from the dinner: Defensive coordinator Zach Orr assured his players that they would not be “repeat offenders” and, as cornerback Marlon Humphrey put it, “the guys that are doing it right are going to play.” “When you come together as a team, as men, everyone can be vulnerable,” outside linebacker Odafe Oweh told The Baltimore Sun. “You can tell each other, ‘I messed up.’ We all have each other’s back. … That dinner helped a lot of guys to understand that if the outside world wants to write us out, we got each other.” Timing wise, that meeting pressed up against what is a common rule of thumb in professional sports: The 24-hour rule. No loss shall be bothersome more than one day after the final horn. Rules are meant to be broken. Van Noy amended that sometimes losses can linger into a second day of reflection, but moping about Sunday night’s loss hit a hard deadline Tuesday night. “After emotional loss like that, I think it was OK to take 48,” Van Noy said Wednesday. “It was one of those games where you have to really look at yourself in the mirror, personally, on defense, collectively.” When Orr played back the film, he wasn’t impressed by his team’s “fundamentals and technique.” "That dinner helped a lot of guys to understand that if the outside world wants to write us out, we got each other," Ravens outside linebacker Odafe Oweh said. (Karl Merton Ferron/Staff) They were in the right positions. Humphrey went as far as to call them “perfect calls” that players failed to execute on. That snowballed into an inability to get off the field and a comeback that will live on through “NFL Films” highlight tapes. The fourth quarter alone warranted a standalone video on the league’s YouTube channel. Orr started counting on his fingers. The league average for defensive snaps per game is in the low-60s. Seventy or more is considered high. Baltimore played 85, which forced Orr to unload his call sheet. They tried man coverage, zone, blitzing, burning off the edge, showing one thing and doing another. Buffalo concocted five drives with eight or more plays (compared with the Ravens’ two). In the fourth quarter, the Ravens’ defense spent a grueling 10 minutes and 27 seconds on the field. “To our own undoing, we were out there for a long time,” Orr said. “Mentally and physically, we got worn out, which is tough to say, but that’s the truth.” There were issues all over the defense. Harbaugh’s “No. 1 disappointment” was the Ravens’ inability to keep Allen contained to the pocket. Orr said that their pass rush lanes weren’t “as tight and crisp” as they needed to be, according to Van Noy. Safety Kyle Hamilton said that practices this week have been “very intentional” in address their mistakes. Earlier this week, Humphrey said, rather bluntly, that Baltimore’s defense showed they’re “just not mature enough as a team yet.” That was something Harbaugh voiced in a meeting. Hamilton preferred the term “lackadaisical,” arguing that no offense should score 40 and “be trying to fight for the game.” Orr agreed with all of it. “Last week, the film showed it,” Orr said. “We weren’t mature enough to close out that game.” The difference between a Ravens team bouncing back from their loss in Buffalo compared with last year’s 10 weeks of defensive troubles is their unwillingness to be patient. There’s a transparency between those walls about who is making plays and who isn’t. No player is safe, because this team can’t afford to waste away games. Orr won’t be as patient as he has been in the past. As Humphrey put it, they can’t afford to “protect this guy or protect that guy” until that guy starts making plays again. Last year, safety Marcus Williams was benched nine starts into the worst season of his career, leading to his release in March. Offseason acquisition Eddie Jackson was given a similarly long leash to correct his poor performances before the Ravens eventually turned to back-end band-aid Ar’Darius Washington. That group is a distant memory. Once Tuesday night hit, the loss in Buffalo was left behind too. They’re solely concerned with not opening 0-2 like they did last fall. During a meeting Thursday, Humphrey stood up to share a nugget with the class. He spoke with his dad this week, rehashing all that went awry in Buffalo. Bobby Humphrey, a former NFL running back in the early 1990s, told his son something that Marlon reiterated to his teammates and that stuck with rookie Mike Green. “Don’t be surprised if y’all don’t lose another game.” Have a news tip? Contact Sam Cohn at scohn@baltsun.com, 410-332-6200 and x.com/samdcohn. View the full article Quote
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