Ravens Reacts: AFCCG vs. Chiefs Recap!
The worst game of the season comes at the worst possible time!
Welcome back to another edition of ‘Ravens Reacts’, a Cool Sports Newsletter series made by a die hard Ravens fan! The Baltimore Ravens season came to a close Sunday afternoon against the Kansas City Chiefs, one that stings me and I think all of us in the Flock Nation community harder than any loss we’ve ever had. The Ravens just came out with a terrible game plan and played their worst game of the season, shockingly, at the worst possible time. Here are my thoughts, positional grades and overall breakdown from a loss I’m not quite sure I’ll ever get over.
Were my predictions correct?
Lamar Jackson has 3+ total touchdowns (Wrong; he had 1 touchdown)
Patrick Mahomes throws for 265+ yards (Wrong; he had 241 passing yards)
Patrick Mahomes throws 1+ interceptions (Wrong; he had no turnovers)
Odell Beckham Jr. has 60+ yards (Wrong; he had 3 catches for 22 yards)
Mark Andrews has 4+ catches (Wrong; he had two for 15 yards)
The Ravens win the turnover battle (Wrong; they lost is 3:0)
Ravens win 34-19! (Wrong; similar score for KC; BAL forgot how to score points)
Who got injured during the game?
Charles Omenihu (ACL)
Travis Jones (foot)
Arthur Maulet (head)
The Chiefs are moving on, but unfortunately will be without their star defensive end who had 7.5 sacks in 2023, and his ACL tear will probably cost him all of next season as well. Prayers up for Charles! As for Travis and Arthur, neither of their injuries were serious and they both returned to the game; Travis to slap Mahomes in the face and get a 15 yard penalty and Arthur to really not do anything.
The game was over when…
Zay Flowers fumbled the ball at the goal line at the beginning of the fourth quarter. That play stung. Because as bad as Baltimore played, they finally made a huge play down the field and were about score, but once Zay fumbled the ball on what would’ve been a touchdown to cut the deficit to just a field goal with over 14 minutes to play, I knew the game was over. Baltimore’s offense wasn’t consistent enough, and all of the momentum went towards Kansas City. Zay’s atrocious fumble that you’ll continuously hear me talk about was the difference maker.
Positional Grades
Quarterback: D+
I still genuinely believe Jackson didn’t have an awful day. The Chiefs continued to blitz and the Ravens were not running the proper plays to adjust to that, and the Ravens O-Line was lost. Both of those things make it very tough for a quarterback to thrive. And oh yeah a fumble at the goal line by your wide receiver, a missed pass-interference call that led into an interception and no run game to help out his pass didn’t help either!
But he didn’t do himself any favors. He did not play a good game. He had many throws tipped at the line of scrimmage, one of which he had to catch. And to be honest, he would’ve probably been better off as wide receiver in this one. 54% completion rate, bad decision making and his offense scored 10 points. Point fingers at whoever you want to, but the offense he quarterbacks scored 10 points. He made some nice deep plays, a few of which to Flowers. But man was it frustrating to watch his drives stall out and watch him do nothing about it as his season went down the drain when the QB on the other hand team made offense look like a helpless joke, scoring 17 in the first half.
My main key to a Ravens win was that they needed Lamar to be the best on the field or something close to it. It’s safe to say he wasn’t that. A really tough and heartbreaking way to end what was a tremendous MVP campaign from Lamar!
Running Backs: C
Nothing is not something. But how can I blame the running backs? The same runners that cruised Baltimore to a 230 yard rushing day in the divisional round and helped lead the Ravens to the top rushing attack in the league didn’t see the day of light in this matchup, getting just six carries. Gus Edwards had a nice 15 yard run that led to a scoring drive, and Justice Hill only got three carries. Also, did Dalvin Cook disappear?! Trust me you’ll hear my thoughts on Todd Monken and the fact that he didn’t stick with the run, but I’m not going to give the running backs a good grade despite their lack of opportunity.
Wide Receivers: D
I really don’t care that Zay Flowers had five catches for 115 yards. Did he show promise that he could be a good WR1 in the future? Sure. He also showed me that I should never trust anyone in this organization and that his cocky self was one of the clear reasons why Baltimore is heading to Cancun. First off, he didn’t have to dive to end zone. He wanted to get style points for his highlight reel. How’s that highlight reel looking Zay? You don’t need to taunt a guy by standing over him after making a play for the first time in 45 game minutes. And I can assure you that going into a temper tantrum and almost cutting your finger open because of it is not a great idea. This does not include the fact that Rashod Bateman was nowhere, Nelson Agholor was traded mid-game, and how dare I say Mr. $17 million dollar OBJ. Great game wide receivers!
Tight Ends: C-
What happened to the ‘bread and butters’? To me it looked burnt bread out of the toaster and spoiled butter. Where the heck were they? It’s hard to blame Mark Andrews considering he was just coming back from injury. We probably shouldn’t have expected anything more than the two catches he gave us. But Isaiah Likely, I’d like to ask you how the sideline was? Or maybe he wasn’t there my bad just assumed so because he was NOWHERE to be found whatsoever. He is Likely to make me want to forget about the month of January for the rest of my life!
Offensive Line: F
What in the tarnation! So much for a great O-Line with an $100 million dollar offensive lineman. I don’t know how many times I have to say it. I am so sick and tired of Ronnie Stanley playing on this team because of this extension, and watch him do nothing as a blindside tackle to Lamar. In hindsight, keeping Orlando Brown Jr. would’ve been the right move. Because whether it’s because of injury or not, Stanley has been a mess. The Ravens allowed a 37% pressure rate, and had no clue how to handle the blitz that KC sent 20 times. The result: four sacks allowed, many batted down balls at the line of scrimmage, Awful, awful game, and they had a lot to do with the Ravens offensive breakdown.
Defensive Line: C+
The Ravens got no pressure on Mahomes early in the game, a huge reason why KC scored 17 in half one. But in half 2, Baltimore finally got pressure. 0.5 sacks does not do Justin Madubuike’s performance justice, as he was at the quarterback throughout the second half and helped shut out KC in the second half. Jadeveon Clowney recorded a sack, Michael Pierce record 0.5 sacks, and Kyle Van Noy had consistent pressure in the backfield when not losing his temper and getting called for an unnecessary roughness penalty. Also, they did a great job shutting down the run in the second half, as Isaiah Pacheco was held to 2.8 yards per carry. But everything came in the second half. I would’ve loved to see Baltimore control the tempo early defensively, and the offense lost a ton of confidence watching Kansas City continuously driving down the field. So, one bad half; one good half. That’s about a C+ in my eyes.
Linebackers: B
The linebackers didn’t do much wrong. Roquan Smith recorded 16 tackles, and made an incredible 3rd down stop towards the beginning of the game. And he had a great idea to jump offsides at the end of the game to make it first and ten…if he didn’t run into a guy and get called for unnecessary roughness. If you get a pattern with this team last Sunday, it’s a B+ for effort and an F for execution. Patrick Queen also made some nice tackles in possibly his last game for Baltimore.
Secondary: D
Oh goodness! Marlon Humphrey, thank you for coming back. But again, B for effort, F for execution. He, Kyle Hamilton and literally nobody in this secondary found a way to, forget shut down Travis Kelce but at least contain him. Mahomes started the game 11/11. ELEVEN FOR ELEVEN! I get how good Mahomes is you don’t need to tell me. But to start off that well with the Ravens having absolutely no answer to it is never a great sign to a win. And some may think they played well in the second half, but Mahomes hit passes when he had to. Unbelievable way to end a great season from a position that overachieved all expectations!
Special Teams: A
The only people who didn’t mess up when they needed to step up. What else is new?! Justin Tucker knocked down his extra point and field goal, Devin Duvernay had a 21 yard punt return, and Jordan Stout even had a 66 yard punt to pin KC deep. Of course that didn’t matter because well Baltimore had no answer for Kansas City’s offense. But the special teams unit was the only area that didn’t actually mess up in this game.
Coaching: F
Mike Macdonald, congrats. You adjusted, you coached a good game, made sure pressure finally got on Mahomes, and finally started performing in the run defense department. Go ahead and congrats on a coaching job in Seattle because you deserve it. Every other coach on this team has some explaining to do. And it starts with Todd Monken.
I have LOVED having Todd Monken as Baltimore’s offensive coordinator this season. But what was going on? I don’t know if Lamar wanted to not run the ball, or if Monken was focused on other coaching opportunities, or stubbornness across the board, or maybe a combination of everything, but whatever it was that was pathetic! No adjusting. 16 rushing attempts. How do you make Lamar Jackson a pocket passer when down TEN POINTS?! Run the ball. It’s what San Francisco did, and it’s what got them to the Super Bowl. Utilize your strength. It’s exactly what Greg Roman did that ticked me off come postseason time.
And if it keeps happening with different coaches, guess who’s fault it is? John William Harbaugh. He had no game plan. No clue how to beat Pat Mahomes. No clue how to contain any of Kansas City’s stars. Harbaugh was a mess. And did not adjust mid-game at halftime. And to watch the leader of the locker room have nothing to do or say about this team falling apart when it matters most, again, was pathetic. I can’t stand it. I love John. He is my coach. And he will take us as far as we can go. He gets the best out of his players. He could be a Hall of Famer with a few more postseason wins. But man does he need to fix these issues come postseason time. Because I’m so tired of it. Giving them an F was very generous!
Overall: D
So unbelievably sad. This team had the potential to be so good. They had a golden opportunity to head to Vegas. But they blew it. They 100%, no questions about it, blew it! A huge question that everyone is asking is who’s to blame? You can say Todd Monken. His play calling was pathetic. You can say Zay Flowers, who may have blown the game away on the one possession where he taunted and then had it lead to fumbling the ball because of the same guy he taunted. Lamar has to be blamed. He was the quarterback of an offense that collapsed when it mattered most…again. And the man who runs the whole dang thing, John Harbaugh, shouldn’t get away from the criticism at all. But at the end of the day, they all collapsed. They blew away what could have been one of the best seasons in NFL history. It was unfortunate and sad. But it’s not even that they lost. But for them to go out the way they did was awful and pathetic! KC shocked the Flock, and they sure as heck shocked me!
Chase Coburn
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