ExtremeRavens Posted 11 hours ago Posted 11 hours ago A chorus of boos rained down over M&T Bank Stadium as the Ravens, missing multiple starters on both sides of the ball, were outplayed and overmatched in a 44-10 loss to the Houston Texans. Their season is officially spiraling. Here are five things we learned: Ravens need to get their ‘[stuff] together’ When Derrick Henry fumbled in Week 3 for the third time in as many games, he stormed off the field and spiked his helmet. When Lamar Jackson hurt his hamstring after three quarters of subpar football, he ambled to the bench, peeled off his helmet and spiked it to the earth. On Sunday, when Mark Andrews assisted a fourth-quarter interception, so went his helmet. This Ravens season feels like one collective helmet spike, Super Bowl aspirations cast to the ground by collective regression and unthinkably poor injury luck. In Sunday’s loss, that all came to a head. Baltimore’s inactive list included seven regular starters, none more important than Jackson. Add two defensive tackles who are on injured reserve, and nearly half the team’s salary cap was relegated to the sideline in street clothes, watching a train wreck unfold in slow motion. Houston logged 417 yards of total offense and scored five touchdowns. These two teams have met four times since C.J. Stroud’s rookie year in 2023, and Sunday was the first time he found the end zone — as much an acknowledgement for what this defense has been as it is an indictment on the current group. Stroud threw for 244 yards and four touchdowns, completing 23 of 27 pass attempts without an interception. Meanwhile, Baltimore’s offense hit new lows in points and yards with a season-high three turnovers. A Jackson-less offense served Henry a get-right game on a silver platter. It was instead another uncharacteristic dud. Henry took 15 carries for 33 yards with one full-extension, goal-line touchdown. The run game “just wasn’t good enough, us as a whole,” he said. This all, after a week of imbued confidence that a battered Ravens team could give a fellow 1-3 team a fight. With the amount of talent still healthy in that locker room, how could they not? And yet, after getting molly-whopped by one of the least productive offenses in the NFL this season, outside linebacker Kyle Van Noy didn’t bite his tongue: “We got to get our [stuff] together,” he said. “Just being brutally honest. Doesn’t matter who you are in there.” Coach John Harbaugh called it a “complete disappointment.” After the third most lopsided loss in franchise history, he said, “We got beat in every way you can get beat.” The Ravens are now 1-4 for the first time since 2015, and the playoff window is letting through no more than a sliver of light, if anything. Seats could be warming up, but team backs Zach Orr Baltimore’s brass has a lot of figuring out to do. How did one of the league’s least efficient offenses hang 44 points on them, the most an opposing team has scored in Baltimore since Harbaugh was hired in 2008? “I thought we’d play a lot better than that,” the veteran coach said, “based on the way we practiced.” It’s hard to tell from the outside. The media isn’t afforded more than about 20 minutes of viewing time at the start of each practice, mainly to take attendance. But players and coaches, the ones who are most honest in confronting issues while frustratedly searching for answers, seem confounded. “It’s just not translating,” Henry said. “Not like we’re going in there and lollygagging and not doing our job.” “We practice just as hard or harder than anybody in the league,” Van Noy added. “I’m pissed.” And Van Noy refuses to give any credence to the injury bug. He pointed to the San Francisco 49ers, who also had multiple starters inactive, including their quarterback, beating the Los Angeles Rams on Thursday night. Texans tight end Dalton Schultz, left, catches a pass for a first down while Ravens linebacker Teddye Buchanan defends in the second quarter Sunday. Baltimore allowed more than 400 yards in the lopsided defeat. (Kenneth K. Lam/Staff) Still, Baltimore was forced to play without four guys of All-Pro ilk: Kyle Hamilton, Marlon Humphrey, Roquan Smith and Nnamdi Madubuike. There were six rookies on the field at one point. Two of them, Rueben Lowery and Keyon Martin, went undrafted and snuck into the final 53-man roster. As a whole, they were bullied by a Texans offense that ranked near the bottom of the NFL. The Ravens have now given up 177 points this season. That’s the most in a five-game span in team history. Statistically, Sunday wasn’t even the worst of the bunch. “There were a lot of things out there that weren’t done correctly,” Harbaugh said, specifically calling out the fundamentals. “So, we have to ask ourselves, ‘How does that not translate to the game?’ No. 1. And then, ‘What else can we do?’ What else can we come up with to figure out ways to challenge people and gain some yards and get some stops?” Harbaugh was asked point-blank if he felt a change needed to be made to the defensive coaching staff. “I do not think that that’s the answer,” he said. “We have to go to work, is what we need to do. We need to stick together, is what we need to do. We need to find ourselves. And that has to do with coaches and players [working] together.” Something is wrong. The Ravens keep losing and they keep saying they need to fix it. Schedule-makers didn’t make the first four weeks easy on them, but Baltimore was supposed to be a team right there with — if not better than — the Bills, Lions and Chiefs. Even with warm seats and a dire need for improvement, players are still standing behind defensive coordinator Zach Orr and taking the blame, as they have been for much of his tenure. “I stand behind Zach 100%,” Brent Urban said. “We’re preparing the right way and having good practices, and we’re not executing. It’s on us, frankly.” Added John Jenkins: “He is great. He understands the game, and like I said in the beginning of the interview, I’ve just got to get better. He put me in good positions to make plays, and I didn’t capitalize, so I take a lot of the blame, [and] it was on me.” And Van Noy: “I think their messaging is fine, and we have to be the group to take that, go out and do the simple things right — the fundamentals. Easy, basic stuff.” Adversity snowballs much quicker without your usual game wreckers One troubling play led to another. There was no one to stop the bleeding. A second-quarter sequence ripped open the wound, and Baltimore didn’t have the strength to close it. The Ravens had the ball inside their own 30-yard line. It was third down. Backup quarterback Cooper Rush was yanked to the dirt by a few burly Texans defensive linemen 16 yards behind the line of scrimmage. Out came punter Jordan Stout. He fired a 62-yard missile, which would have been his second-longest kick of the season if not for a penalty forcing a retry. Stout’s next attempt traveled a paltry 35 yards. Houston held a one-score lead, and now they had plus-territory to tack on. As was the case much of the afternoon, Baltimore didn’t push back much. Stroud scrambled for the longest run of his career (30 yards). The Ravens suffered a costly defensive miscue four players later. Ravens safety Kyle Hamilton, shown taking questions earlier this season, missed Sunday's game against the Texans. Baltimore was without several defensive starters Sunday. (Kim Hairston/Staff) Rookie running back Woody Marks burst from the backfield and curled to the right. Rookie linebacker Teddye Buchanan, who was Baltimore’s defensive signal-caller in the loss, and rookie safety Malaki Starks both shadowed Marks in the flat. That opened Stroud’s throwing window over the middle, where he found Nico Collins in the end zone. Buchanan didn’t have a straight answer for what went wrong, deferring to the tape he’d have to watch later. The Texans put up points on each of their next five drives. They didn’t punt until their ninth time out. Houston kept one foot firmly on the gas. Rather than wall up and put the ball back in Baltimore’s hands, Jaire Alexander got into a shoving match with half of Houston’s offense in the back of the end zone. Baltimore had no answers. No one to make it stop. The clock was their only friend Sunday afternoon. View this post on Instagram A post shared by Baltimore Sun (@baltimoresun) Cooper Rush can’t keep this star-studded offense afloat Rush’s first drive of the day had all the makings of a serviceable backup quarterback. He was quick to get rid of the ball. Three passes to three pass catchers in a four-play sequence went for at least 9 yards. Rush then let one fly to DeAndre Hopkins for a 29-yard pickup that got them down into the red zone. Even though the running game stalled out the drive and Baltimore managed only a field goal, there appeared to be signs of life. Here’s how the rest of the game went for Rush and company: punt, punt, missed field goal, interception, punt, rushing touchdown, interception, punt, interception. “We just got behind the sticks,” he shrugged, having completed 14 of 20 passing attempts for 179 yards. “On offense, when you get behind the sticks, things like that, it’s hard. Especially against a good defense. … You hurt yourself, you’re just making it easier for them. It can be hard.” Ravens quarterback Cooper Rush went 14-for-20 with 179 yards and three interceptions Sunday against the Texans. (Kenneth K. Lam/Staff) It shouldn’t be so hard with the options around him, which includes four Pro Bowl selections. But the offense couldn’t get anything going. The running game was plugged up. The passing game looked out of sorts, Rush underthrowing receivers at every level. Rush had one nice long ball to Zay Flowers for 56 yards in the third quarter, which set up the offense’s only touchdown, but other than that, they only crossed midfield twice. “We tried to do the things that were in the game plan,” Harbaugh said, “and we never really generated a rhythm.” It’s likely Jackson isn’t back healthy in time for next week’s matchup against the Rams. This week of practice could crack the door open for third-stringer Tyler Huntley, who replaced Jackson in 2022. Rush is likely the starter, but perhaps his leash is shorter than three picks and zero passing touchdowns. The season is on the brink Linebackers coach Tyler Santucci gathered his position group in the corner of the locker room. Most of the players were still flooding in or starting to hit the showers. Each guy was attentive, including the injured Smith. The emotion was stoic, but raw. The message, according to Buchanan, was about “continuing to stay the course and continuing to fight.” Four of five weeks this season have elicited similar messaging. But correcting a season from hell is easier said than done. Words alone won’t do the trick. Injuries have made it impossible to find any continuity in getting anything right. As Derrick Henry said, they’re “all kind of surprised right now by what’s transpired.” A few players sat at their lockers Sunday afternoon, eye black smudged on their faces, staring blankly out at a solemn room. Others zipped up hoodies for shelter. Their season is on life support. Only 16 teams in NFL history have made the playoffs after a 1-4 start. To be No. 17, Harbaugh said, they’re “going to have to find” themselves. The Ravens already let a win slip away in Buffalo. They got beat up by the Lions at home in prime time. Then they got “exposed” in Kansas City. Houston was as close to a must-win game as a team can have in early October, and the Texans took their lunch money. Where do they go from here? Baltimore plays a tougher Rams team next weekend, and the bye week after should be good for their health. When the messaging of urgency stays the same but the product on the field doesn’t improve, or in some cases gets worse, it’s fair to wonder: Is there enough accountability after these sorts of losses? “I think I’ll be able to answer that better after the week, to be honest — just being blatantly honest,” Van Noy said. “I feel like there’s accountability, but we will see.” Have a news tip? Contact Sam Cohn at scohn@baltsun.com, 410-332-6200 and x.com/samdcohn.x.com. View the full article Quote
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