The Baltimore Ravens entered Week 10, allowing the most passing yards in the league, and things only got worse against the Cincinnati Bengals. Quarterback Joe Burrow threw for 428 yards and four touchdowns, with wide receiver Ja’Marr Chase catching 11 passes for 264 yards and three touchdowns against the Ravens’ secondary.
Luckily for Baltimore, the offense led by MVP frontrunner Lamar Jackson has been good enough to overcome the poor play of the defense in most games this season, but that does not mean that these issues are not a threat to keep the team from reaching their ultimate goal of a Super Bowl.
Ravens cornerback Marlon Humphrey did not mince words about the secondary’s performance following the thrilling 35-34 victory over the Bengals.
“These wins are getting harder to enjoy based off of what we’re doing in the pass defense,” Humphrey said. “It’s not cool to win a game, and you look up and a team has 300 passing [yards on you] every week. It’d be different if we didn’t have [any] guys that could play. I haven’t once heard anybody say, ‘We don’t have the guys; we don’t have the players; we don’t have the skill.’ We’re not doing it in practice. It’s clear that it’s something from … When we do that last preparation to the game, what is happening in that span? We’ve got to figure it out. It’s pretty simple.”
It is hard to imagine Baltimore’s defense becoming a top unit this far into the season, but as Humphrey said, they have the players to be a much better unit than they have been over the first 10 weeks. Rookie defensive coordinator Zach Orr has been heavily scrutinized in his first season, taking the reigns from now-Seattle Seahawks head coach Mike Macdonald, who was the mastermind of one of the best defenses in franchise history last season with most of the same players. With several extra days before their next game against the Pittsburgh Steelers, Orr and the rest of the coaching staff need to hammer down the basics to hopefully begin turning things around on defense.
