Hopefully, two-time MVP quarterback Lamar Jackson is back for the Ravens next week to continue his pursuit of a third such award and his first Lombardi Trophy. In the meantime, its up to veteran backup Snoop Huntley to try to manage the team to another win, this time at Cleveland.
The assignment isn’t all that different from a week ago. The Browns, like the Falcons, are getting elite pressure rates without blitzing but Cleveland has superior cover corners and more individual talent overall on defense. And unlike the Falcons, the Browns can’t stop the run at all, and even though Atlanta entered last week leading the NFL in that regard the Ravens still rolled up 200 yards on the ground against them.
Thankfully, the Ravens are not overcomplicating things by trying to force recent trade acquisition Cam Jurgens – a desperate trade by a desperate general manager – into this game as he comes back from a concussion and Huntley gets to work with the same center as a week ago. That would be surging rookie Vega Ioane (one of their five best players thus far) and the same offensive line, likely, for that matter, pending final decisions on the injury report regarding guard Andrew Vorhees (might as well stick with Emery Jones).
The Ravens are just 4-4 in their last eight trips to Cleveland and weird things tend to happen there and new Browns coach Todd Monken is the Ravens former offensive coordinator and will have them fired up for this game. It won’t be easy but rookie offensive coordinator Declan Doyle, who might be on a head coach fast track if he keeps this up, had a great approach to managing Huntley through the road assignment last week and much of that will apply here, too.
Horizontal Attack
No surprise the first play of the game last week was an end around for Zay Flowers, and the Ravens will hunt explosives with YAC horizontally again with Huntley wise not to break with who he is and try to force the ball downfield against these corners. He is best when the ball comes out quickly and the Browns have a legit rush – top four in pressure rate and only 20th in blitz rate.
The ball needs to come out quickly and thee could be more tackle eligible plays with the Ravens further compromised at tight end this week. Exploiting the flats and designing a few more screens for Derrick Henry, like his TD scamper last week, are in order as he is second on the team in YAC.
If Huntley starts patting the ball and holding the ball, problems will rise. Here are his career splits when under duress; he has a 27% sack rate when pressured and Jared Verse and Mason Graham (questionable) will wreck him. We could see reserve RB Justice Hill seeing his highest target rate of the season and catching 3-5 passes.
Huntley when Pressured: 48% comp, 4.9 yds/att, 62.7 rtg
Huntley When Not Pressured: 74% comp, 6.3/att, 91.6 rtg
Volume On Ground
Henry has already run 113 times – more than any age 32 running back through five weeks since the 1970 AFL/NFL merger. At some point they will need to dial it back (he is on pace for an outrageous number of carries). But not this week.
The Browns are holding teams below 60% completions and tamping down the pass game but are 30th in Expected Points Added and Success Rate vs the run. And they have had their share of injuries to the front seven and missed practices. Now’s not to the time to get too cute. Multiplicity in the run game was everything last week and should be again Sunday.
Henry is averaging 22.6 rushes/game and we suspect he touches the ball upwards of 25 times.
Beat Man Coverage With Arm And Legs
The Browns are playing man coverage 44.4% of the time, far and away most in the NFL. The Bears are second at 31.5% and the league average is 18%. Perhaps they change their spots but they have multiple man corners they love. Problem is, they are a blow average team in QB rating and completion percentage when in man, and Huntley has incredibly tilted splits in this regard for his career.
Huntley vs. Man: 63% comp, 8 TD – 2 INT, 8.3 Air Yd/att, 97.1 rtg
Huntley vs Zone: 70% comp, 3 TD – 8 INT, 7.1 AY/att, 79.1 rtg
Hmm.
Playing all that man means defenders have their back to the play quite a bit and that helps quarterbacks get extra yards on the ground. Huntley can still move pretty well, we expect his legs to be a bigger part of the plan here and the Browns are 24th in EPA vs QB runs and haven’t been tested much. We think that’s about to change. Huntley for a run of 15 yards or more and over 30 rushing yards feels about right to us.
Subscribe To "The Daily Flock" On YouTube For Urgent Ravens Content And Converstions:
Add us as a preferred source on Google