Ja’Marr Chase Owns the Ravens as Bengals Hold Several Key Advantages

The 3-2 Cincinnati Bengals travel to Baltimore to take on the 4-2 Ravens in their first daytime clash in B’More since 2021.

Yes, that's weird. 

The biggest story leading into the game is the health of Ravens quarterback Lamar Jackson. The former MVP missed the last two games including a loss to the Cleveland Browns last weekend. 

This rivalry has already been robbed too many times when it comes to these two quarterbacks facing off, so let's hope Jackson plays.

I don't want to hear any excuses afterwards.

The real star in this AFC North rivalry has been Ja'Marr Chase. His average of 120 yards per game vs Baltimore is the most receiving yards per game by any player vs a single opponent in NFL history. 

I never thought we'd have ANOTHER “Ravens Killer” after A.J. Green left, but of course Chase found a way to surpass Green.

Per Next Gen Stats, Chase and Marlon Humphrey have matched up on 83 snaps since he entered the league. Nobody has covered Chase more since 2021 and he's seen 21 targets, catching 14 balls for 318 yards against Humphrey. 

For the non-mathematicians, that's 15.1 yards per catch for Chase, the most that any receiver averages against ANY defender during that span. 

It sounds like Humphrey would like to cover Chase a little less in this one and he's been lining up almost exclusively on the boundary this season (95.7% of snaps) where he has allowed 69% of the passes targeted in his direction to be caught. 

Joe Burrow is tasked with feeding his receivers in an effort to outduel Jackson on Sunday. 

Burrow is still getting the ball out as quickly as anyone. This season, he's releasing the ball under 2.5 seconds on a league-high 57.1% of his throws.

That doesn't mean he's throwing short. Burrow has thrown downfield on 18.5% of his quick-throws and has completed 15 of 20 of these passes for 265 yards and 5 touchdowns.

Baltimore's defense has allowed an 81.8% completion percentage on quick-throws that go downfield this season.

And we're not just talking about deep passes. The Bengals and Joe Burrow are peppering the intermediate area (10-19 yards) with precision. Burrow is completing a league-high 73.2% of his passes and has averaged 12.0 yards per attempt, the third-most. The Bengals average a league-leading +0.95 EPA per pass into the intermediate part of the field. 

The Ravens defense has allowed 69.8% of passes into the intermediate area to be completed, the second-highest rate in the NFL and those passes have gone for the third-most 617 yards. Their +0.62 EPA allowed per throw into the intermediate area ranks 24th in the league. 

Baltimore is a heavy 2-high defense with 81.9% of all of their defensive plays featuring two safeties in deep coverage. That's the second-highest rate in the league and the Bengals have averaged +0.27 EPA per play against that coverage, third-best in the NFL.

What About the Defense?

If the Bengals offense can keep pace, it'll be up to the Cincinnati defense to answer the call and make a few plays like they did in that Thanksgiving Day win in Baltimore last season. 

It starts with slowing down Derrick Henry and he might just be slowing down on his own already. 

The guy is a machine, no doubt, but eventually time comes for us all. 

Henry is averaging 2.4 yards AFTER contact per carry this season. His lowest average since 2018.

He's also being stopped for zero or negative yardage on 54% of his carries this season. That's his highest rate since 2018.

Henry has run outside zone on 44.2% of his runs this season. That's 57 carries for 302 yards and four touchdowns.

The Bengals have the highest Run Stuff Rate on outside runs in the league at 34.5%.

I bet that run stuff rate surprised you, too.

The biggest weapon for Baltimore's offense is receiver Zay Flowers. He's dicing up defenses from the slot this season and leading the league in separation as they keep finding creative ways to get Flowers open. 

Last season, DJ Turner shadowed Flowers and did a great job. 

Turner matched up with Flowers 21 times across two games last season and allowed one catch for 14 yards on four targets.

Baltimore has had some issues on their offensive line and traded for Cam Jurgens from the Eagles. He's healthy now after recovering from a concussion and should assume the starting center job for the Ravens.

I'm sure they're happy to get some stability inside, but Jurgens hasn't been good this season. Out of 85 interior offensive linemen, Cam Jurgens ranks 85th in PFF’s Pass blocking grade and that's largely because his 95.4% Pass Block Efficiency also ranks 85th and his 13.0 grade in True Pass Sets is 10 points lower than the 84th ranked interior offensive lineman. 

Sounds like Dexter Lawrence gets another game to leave his mark and make the Bengals decision to trade for him look even better.

Speaking of offseason decisions, can we take a second to appreciate the decision the Bengals made when they had to replace Trey Hendrickson and landed Boye Mafe as the guy to do the job? 

To this point, Mafe has been EVERYTHING the Bengals could've hoped for and it's just the cherry on top that he's outperforming Trey Hendrickson in every statistical category.

Trey Hendrickson says he forgives the Bengals and that this game isn't about him.

I say run the ball right at him. I just want to see something.

For more on the matchup, watch the video below: