This Is The Way For Them To Succeed

I was expecting the Baltimore Ravens to allow the Buffalo Bills to eventually comeback in their Sunday night contest. It was beginning to happen in the second half with the Ravens allowing a Bills touchdown to narrow their lead to 21-10. The Ravens offense was beginning to stall and Buffalo was driving for another score. Then Baltimore’s defense forced a fumble from Bills QB Josh Allen and all the momentum shifted back to the Ravens. Two more touchdowns were scored by QB Lamar Jackson and RB Derrick Henry and the Ravens won the game convincingly. Baltimore ran the ball 34 times and attempted 19 passes. If you have TE Mark Andrews or WR Zay Flowers on your fantasy team, you’re not liking this kind of offense. This is what has worked for this franchise since they drafted Lamar Jackson. He is a capable passer, but as a scrambling quarterback first and foremost. He isn’t and will probably never be a capable pocket passer. You saw that in the AFC Championship game last year and in previous playoff games before that. They brought in Derrick Henry to lessen the reliability of Jackson running the ball more than 10 times a game. This is what will work for them, but I still have doubts that when push comes to shove in January that they will revert back to what hasn’t worked for them once again.

They Are Getting Their Groove Back

It took overtime in Week 1 for them to go back to running the football to win that game. Detroit continued to try to win through the passing game without setting up the run first and lost in Week 2. Then they pivoted and brought out the trick plays for a touchdown on a hook and lateral play in Week 3 and the defense did the bulk of the work to win in Arizona. This last week on Monday night they put on a clinic that Seattle had no idea how to control let alone slow down. 116 yards rushing between RBs David Montgomery and Jahmyr Gibbs with three touchdowns on the ground. Yes, QB Jared Goff completed all 18 of his pass attempts, but he’s at his best when the running game has been established. Play-action is his strength and Detroit is using that better than the Rams did and they went to a Super Bowl with Goff. And when Goff catches a ‘Philly Special’ style touchdown pass inside the 10-yard line, you know that everything is clicking on all cylinders. Going into their bye week they’ll have two consecutive road contests against Dallas and Minnesota. That could make or break the rest of their season depending on the results of those two games.

What The Hell Was That?

There’s a reason why I watch the Redzone channel for all of the Sunday games. That reason is the Denver Broncos vs. New York Jets game for Week 4. That was the only game I could watch on the inflight entertainment for the airplane I was on. Suffice it to say that was dreadful. I’d much rather have watched a flag football contest between middle school kids. It would have been far more worth my time than the three and half quarters that I witnessed. Weather aside, this was a perfect summation of everything that is wrong with the NFL today. Even with far superior defensive play from both teams, the offense’s for both teams looked like they were still in training camp. Broncos QB Bo Nix had negative passing yards at halftime. Jets QB Aaron Rodgers saw that the offensive line couldn’t get the running game going at large stretches of the game and he was trying to force throws that he normally wouldn’t attempt. Even with all of that, the Jets actually allowed the only touchdown of the game thrown by Bo Nix to WR Courtland Sutton late in the 3rd quarter. New York could only muster three field goals of 23, 35 and 40 yards. And yet, the Broncos converted a 47-yard field goal with the Jets missing a potential game winning 50-yard field goal with less than a minute remaining. All of this ineptitude and the Jets couldn’t get the basics right. Denver now has two wins on the season. It ain’t over yet for the Jets, but good grief this was a bad sign going forward.