Oct 18, 2020; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA; Baltimore Ravens outside linebacker Matt Judon (99) and linebacker L.J. Fort (58) stop Philadelphia Eagles quarterback Carson Wentz (11) on a two-point conversion during the fourth quarter at Lincoln Financial Field. Mandatory Credit: Eric Hartline-USA TODAY Sports
WE HAD IT ALL THE WAY . . . UNTIL WE ALMOST LOST IT
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Key Play of the Game — Matthew Judon blowing up the mesh point on the two point conversion attempt at the end of the game to try to force overtime. He was assisted on the tackle by L. J. Fort.
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Key Player of the Game — Justin Tucker who converted long field goals of 55, 46 and 46 yards — “MONEY”! Can’t take for granted that we have the most consistent kicker in NFL history. Lamar made a crucial mistake on the first drive of the second half to take a sack and knock us out of field goal range. But he learned his lesson late in the game with a key throwaway in a similar situation.
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Best defensive secondary performance — Jimmie Smith who showed excellent technique all evening — draped all over diving receivers without any pass interference. He was instrumental in breaking up some critical pass attempts.
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Worst defensive secondary performance — Marcus Peters has always been tagged as a cornerback who likes to take risks and can get burned on double moves as he peeks into the backfield seeking interceptions. For the most part in his Ravens career this has not hurt us. He has been more helpful with his interceptions. But against the Eagles he had a few missplays. He was burned early on but the receiver dropped the ball. He was targeted at the end of the game and seemed too tired or dinged up to get any elevation to tip away a TD pass. The call against him for pass interference on the final drive for the Eagles seemed lame — just mutual hand fighting. In the second half, Wentz went crazy against our vaunted secondary. We had too many communication issues and blown coverages.
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Worst execution of our four minute “hold-the-ball” offense at the end of a game — The Ravens had an 8 point lead and received the ball back with 3:48 left on the clock. They just needed to grind out a couple of first downs on the ground to seal the victory. They ended up punting the ball back to the Eagles with 3:21 on the clock and leaving them with their final timeout — could not have been poorer execution.
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Worst dropped interception — Bowser delivered a hit on Wentz that caused him to throw a duck that Deshon Elliott dove for and had his hands underneath the ball but it slipped thru and hit the ground. That would have been a huge play for the defense.
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Failed attempt to spread receptions around to the under-utilized receivers — The Ravens started their first drive on the right track with an obvious effort to throw the ball to anyone not named Andrews (#89) or Brown (#15) = his favorite two targets by a mile. That was commendable and initially successful. Boykin and Duvernay made key catches and then Lamar danced around at the goal line — buying time as only he can do — before slinging a quick dart to my buddy Nick Boyle for the TD. [Boyle had a solid game with several catches.] But for the rest of the game, the only effective receiver seemed to be Hollywood Brown.
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Worst looking passes — Lamar Jackson seemed messed up on his mechanics all afternoon. For some reason he fell in love with the sidearm and off-angle delivery of the ball. He tried to justify it in his post-game comments by claiming that he had to find throwing angles to get it around the tall pass rushers. But there were many times that a normal delivery would have sufficed. He did not throw many tight spirals. It seemed like his balls were wobbling badly. He had several balls tipped and some of his poorer throws looked tipped even when they were not. I hope he is not regressing in his mechanics.
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Best QB runner — Lamar was back to his old self in running the ball up the middle. He did not show any ill effects of his prior knee issues. He was fluid and elusive and picked up key yardage as well as the easy TD right down the middle. [Note: I called for the QB TD run even before the TV commentator said it was about time for Lamar to hit it.] He still is being defended well on perimeter runs.
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Poorest coaching preparation — It did not seem like the Ravens anticipated the type of plays that the Eagles would use with Jalen Hurts. He hurt us a couple of times.
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Best boxing jabs — Marlon Humphrey is spreading his punch-out technique to the rest of his defensive colleagues. On every play now it seems like the Ravens have the potential to pop the ball out. Deshon Elliott is his best disciple at present. When is the league going to figure out how to protect the ball against this threat?
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Best pass rusher — Calais Campbell had a monster game with 3 sacks — critical with the Ravens missing Williams and Wolfe on the defensive interior. Calais is the ultimate leader on the defense — helping the young guys on the line step up to the plate for this game.
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Ineffective ground game — Mark Ingram was knocked out of the game with an injury. But the offensive line was not opening any holes for the running backs. Gus Edwards had more attempts — but could never generate any speed up the middle.
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Overall lack of intensity in the second half with leads of 17 or 18 points. There is no way that we should let an injury-riddled Eagles team with a makeshift offensive line and no-name receivers back into a game like this. The Ravens are causing some marital tension in the Apple household. I like to “put the hay in the barn” as early as I deem it justifiable [just a game I like to play with the family]. But it irritates my wife when it looks like we are going to blow the lead. Just one example of the typical lack of discipline in our pass rushing lanes — Ferguson allowed Wentz to leak outside the pocket and throw a TD to the tight end.
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Criticism for overall sloppy performance with too many penalties — The offensive line was penalized all game — some times for the tackles lining up too far in the backfield (would have to review to see if those were legitimate calls or ticky tack); some times for false starts. The defense keeps getting late hits on the QB which keeps drives alive and turns into TDs. We need to be more disciplined and run a tighter ship. Good time for the bye week to clean up some these things.