The Baltimore Ravens are sliding hard from their early-season play but the Browns still need to worry about these three players on Monday night.
The Baltimore Ravens don’t look like they did in Week 1. The high octane, defensive brutes have been rendered very human after walloping the Browns 38-6 to start the season. After starting 5-1, the Ravens have gone 2-4 since then. Making their showdown on Monday night not just imperative for the Browns and Ravens rivalry but a must-win to keep their playoff hopes alive.
For that reason, these are the three Ravens players the Browns should gameplan for.
Patrick Queen
Patrick Queen is having a rough up and down year. While their defense is very effective as a unit, they’re not getting much individual production anywhere. Especially not as a pass rush unit, as no one player has shown the ability to get after the quarterback. Forced to rely on stunts and blitzes, this is where Queen may prove to be a headache.
The Browns got rolled the last time against the Ravens in part because of their blitz packages. Queen may just become one of those names to worry about as the Browns have struggled against blitzes in the past. Queen is strong enough and fast enough that if he were sent up the middle could become someone to worry about. While not grading out well in the eyes of PFF, he’s a fast player who has sure tackles and can put most anyone down with a clean hit.
Marlon Humphrey
Marlon Humphrey has emerged as the Raven’s best secondary player. He’s become a real force to be reckoned with and has constantly outplayed higher profile players on his team like Marcus Peters and DE/LB Yannick Ngakoue.
For Humprhey, the issue isn’t just his ability to cover a receiver, but his sureness when he makes contact with a ball carrier. He’s third on the team in tackles with 64 total and second among defensive backs. All the while doing so as a cornerback, something that you don’t see often. He’s also a playmaker everywhere he goes, having one interception, seven pass deflections, and a whopping six forced fumbles. Tacked on to that is his two and a half sacks, which shows you he’s just as likely to knock down the quarterback as he is their passes.
The other issue when facing Humphrey’s is going to be who from the Browns he’s assigned to cover. The team will need to scheme ways to get anyone who Humprhey is on open. That’s not an easy task. Expect to see more drag routes where receivers “bump” off a cornerback on a technically-illegal screen.
Finding out where Humphrey is on the field and avoiding him at all costs is going to be paramount for the Browns to find success in the air.
Lamar Jackson
Lamar Jackson has proven everyone right; he really isn’t a good passer. Jackson is served well by the fact that he might be the most athletic quarterback the league has ever seen. As he’s such a threat running the ball, oftentimes teams bring up their secondary and try to have a linebacker, or thre,e spy on Jackson. This allows Jackson to basically be a perpetual play-action threat, as one simple foot forward could bring the entire secondary down in an attempt to contain him from breaking a big run. That’s when Jackson lobs a duck to the open man and off they go to a touchdown.
Defensively, the Browns don’t have anything to write home about to stop him. Myles Garrett can make plays but who knows what he’s going to be like in Baltimore. He was a non-threat in Tennessee after coming off of the Covid list and even if he were playing as well as he was at the mid-way of the season, Garrett’s not fast enough to contain Jackson alone.
So the team’s best course is to try and cancel out the run and go from there. The Browns were able to handle Derrick Henry in Week 13 but many feel that was more of an issue with the Titans, with not as much credit goes to the Browns. So the best bet is to try and keep the Ravens offense off the field entirely, which has been the Browns’ best gameplan all year.
Limit the time and opportunities the opposing offense gets, and you’ll be able to amp up the stress more and more, making each drive matter way more than it should on its own. When a team feels that sort of pressure, eventually they crack. Yet, the defense will still need to take away Jackson’s lanes and force him to throw eventually. Otherwise, this is going to be a wild west shootout.
Which would be new, and weird.