ExtremeRavens Posted 22 hours ago Posted 22 hours ago Five turnovers sent the Ravens spiraling toward a 32-14 Thanksgiving loss to the Bengals. Now 6-6 entering the home stretch of a playoff push, they’ve left themselves little room for error. Here are five things we learned from the game: Lamar Jackson’s ‘off nights’ are piling up The problem? He says he’s merely not consistent enough. The solution? “Just be me; be Lamar [Jackson]. That’s all.” It seems Lamar Jackson hasn’t been Lamar Jackson in weeks. Thursday night, the two-time Most Valuable Player and turnover-averse quarterback coughed up the ball three times. He fumbled twice and was intercepted once on a batted pass. Jackson is riding a four-game run failing to complete 60% of his passes. That’s the longest streak since his rookie year in 2018. The obvious explanation would be his health. Jackson missed three games for a hamstring injury earlier this year, then three separate lower-body ailments shortened his practice schedule in consecutive weeks. But coach John Harbaugh and Jackson both swatted yet another round of health-related inquiries, insisting he’s OK. “I don’t miss [those throws] in practice,” Jackson argued, “so I shouldn’t be missing them in the game. … I’m ticked off. It’s not even frustrating, I’m just mad.” Countless throws appeared off time and fell to the turf off target. One over someone’s head, another out of reach. Jackson finished 17 of 32 for 246 yards. For a third straight game, he failed to throw a touchdown, the longest drought since he became Baltimore’s starter. He’s the centerpiece of an offense that isn’t working. One of the NFL’s most masterful quarterbacks, who we have come to expect the most ridiculous of performances from, looks awfully human. “Even LeBron [James] has an off night,” safety Kyle Hamilton said. Mishaps weren’t always solely falling on Jackson’s shoulders. He found Isaiah Likely on an extended play that ended in a fumble at the goal line. There was a long ball to Zay Flowers called back for offensive pass interference. But the body of work, Thursday and as of late, hasn’t been up to his standard. This recent stretch has piled into more than one off night. It’s become a troubling trend, leaving Baltimore’s offense bereft of forward progress. Even Jackson, himself, couldn’t quite put a finger on. “I don’t know, I can’t call it,” he said. “I really can’t. I don’t want to make anything up. I felt like we were doing things pretty well on the field. We got first downs, we drove the ball down the field sometimes, and then a turnover would happen — a mishap — here and there. We just have to be on the same page [and] be consistent. Like I just said, that’s the biggest key right now; being consistent throughout the game, [from the] first quarter to fourth quarter, and not putting our defense on the field as much as we did.” Even a terrible defense couldn’t save this sinking offense Thursday night: a prime opportunity wasted, a full Thanksgiving plate served on a glistening titanium platter flipped on its head. Cincinnati owns, statistically, the worst defense of the last half-century. NFL statistician Aaron Schatz rounded up data from the first 12 weeks of every season going back to 1978 and determined no team had a worse defense-adjusted value over average (DVOA). Last week’s Jets were a porous defense, too. The Dolphins were worse. The Vikings were meh, barely better than the Bears of a month ago. Baltimore beat them all. But Cincinnati? A team who let opponents score on half their drives (49.6%, highest in the NFL) and a league-most 415.8 yards per game while missing All-Pro edge rusher Trey Hendrickson? What a blessing for this Ravens offense, littered with talent struggling to keep its fanbase from forgetting that fact. Cincinnati offered an opportunity to figure out why that might be and get right. The Ravens squandered such opportunity, instead amplifying their ills against a defense they should have mowed down. Not only did Jackson turn the ball over thrice, but Likely and Flowers added insult to injury. As Harbaugh put it, “You can’t do that if you want to win football games.” The Ravens haven’t turned the ball over five times in a single game since 2013. It was among the worst collective offensive showings in recent Ravens memory. After Jackson misfired on a fourth-down throw to Flowers in the fourth quarter, the team’s top receiver trudged off the field and cast aside his helmet. He ripped his gloves off. For a moment there, Flowers looked inconsolable. He paced behind the bench to cool off. Then he went back in on the next possession and fumbled the ball away. “We have to figure it out,” he said, matter of factly. Clock’s ticking. Ravens couldn’t stop the first playoff-caliber quarterback they’ve seen in weeks Joe Burrow rolled into M&T Bank Stadium wrapped in a furry white Alo coat, tuning out the world with wired headphones and a facial expression like he was solely interested in ruining Thanksgiving. Not by stirring political debate or with a dig about how the food stinks, but with his cannon of an arm and barely healed big toe. Thursday night was Burrow’s first game back since a turf toe injury set him out in Week 2. “Everybody’s making it seem like it’s this big ‘The Dark Knight Rises’ return,” Bengals running back Chase Brown told reporters earlier this week. “It could be.” For half the night, it wasn’t. The Bengals’ Tanner Hudson, center, makes a one-handed catch in front of the Ravens’ Kyle Hamilton, left, for a touchdown in the third quarter. The Bengals defeated the Ravens 32-14 on Thanksgiving. (Kenneth K. Lam/Staff) The Ravens defense bent but wouldn’t break. They were left to survive impossible circumstances – like a Jackson fumble inside their own 5-yard line — and bowed up, holding Cincinnati to a field goal. Twice more the Bengals charged inside the red zone and managed three points, not seven. But Burrow is the best quarterback the Ravens have faced since Los Angeles’ Matthew Stafford in Week 6, the last time they lost. By night’s end, Burrow threw for 261 yards and two scores, breaking Baltimore’s winning streak and its run of holding six consecutive teams below 20 points. He orchestrated a time of possession beatdown, too, keeping Baltimore’s defense on the field an extra 17 minutes. “Obviously, I had to knock the rust off in the first half,” Burrow said. “I thought the second half, I started to put it more where I wanted. I settled in a little bit.” Cincinnati has four wins and a 4% chance to make the postseason, according to The New York Times’ playoff simulator. Even Burrow can’t rescue that train wreck. He is, however, the kind of quarterback the Ravens need to fight past to get where they want to be. “He is one of the elite quarterbacks in this league,” linebacker Roquan Smith said. “So he’s always going to present a lot of challenges, but at the end of the day, it is more about us, and it’s about us just doing our job to the best of our ability, and we didn’t do that play in and play out.” Ravens are ready to give Emery Jones Jr. a shot This is sort of like the backup quarterback theory. When the starter isn’t playing up to snuff, the backup, occupying some unknown cosmic reality, presents a potential upgrade. Like Schrödinger’s cat. No one is certain, but the prospect of the a guy who hasn’t played potentially being the much-needed savior is intriguing. In Baltimore, it’s not the quarterback. It’s the offensive linemen fans are calling for. On the Ravens’ second drive, rookie third-round pick Emery Jones Jr. checked in for his first big league snap. The Louisiana State product underwent successful shoulder surgery shortly after the NFL scouting combine sidelining him for the entirety of training camp. Jones ramped up in early October, was promoted to the 53-man roster later that month and made active last weekend against the Jets. Emery Jones Jr., shown at LSU in 2024, is being trusted with meaningful snaps for the Ravens as a rookie. (Michael Woods/AP) He was part of a rotating plan at left guard with Andrew Vorhees, swapping out every couple drives. Both were penalized once, Jones for a holding call that negated a 6-yard run and Vorhees jumped offsides. “I think I had a good night,” Jones said. “I had the one holding call that I wish I could get back but other than that I feel like I played pretty decent.” Added All-Pro left tackle Ronnie Stanley: “I thought he played great besides the one penalty. But the effort he gave, he showed that he can play this league.” The reason some have been clamoring to see Jones is because the offensive line as a whole seems to have regressed. Jackson already passed his sack total from all of last season, while his pressure-to-sack ratio plummeted from near the top of the league to the basement. He recently acknowledged, somewhat in jest, that he’d have to have a talk with his O-Line. And Henry hasn’t repeated the gaudy success of a nearly 2,000-yard season. Much of that falls on the big guys up front not controlling the trenches. Harbaugh has both defended the offensive line, calling them “pretty darn good,” and acknowledged he’s open to making changes. Calling on Jones proves the latter and shows faith that the rookie, over any other backup on the roster, can challenge to be the upgrade they desperately need. Be thankful for a messy AFC North Harbaugh gave about as simple an explanation as he could of after watching his team unfurl in total calamity. “They played a winning football game and deserved the victory,” he said. “We did not play a winning football game, and that’s what happens when you don’t play winning football.” Ravens fans head for the exits during the fourth quarter of Thursday's loss to the Bengals. Even at 6-6, Baltimore is in good position to win the AFC North. (Karl Merton Ferron/Staff) Thursday night felt like a culmination of all that has been a rough watch finally catching up to them. The Ravens have played plenty of losing football as of late, still winning games despite the offense’s shortcomings or because the opposing team is too inept to capitalize (looking at you, Jets and Browns). Still, this holiday season, the Ravens should be thankful the AFC North is such a mess. The Steelers are trending in the wrong direction. The Bengals don’t have enough time to make up all that ground. And the Browns are the Browns. That means this loss won’t end their season. But math says they can only afford maybe one more on a five-game schedule that includes three divisional bouts. “Objectively, a lot rides on this game coming up and pretty much every game, including this one, from here on out,” Hamilton said. “They remember what you do in December, so December’s coming up. We have a big December. “And yes, I think we have the guys to do it. We have the mentality to do it. It’s just a matter of doing it.” 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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