When you beat a team as good as the Buffalo Bills, 35-10, the film is going to look good.
Ravens Defensive Coordinator Zach Orr and Offensive Coordinator Todd Monken were in their bags and the players executed at a high level. When it comes together like that, with all the talent the Ravens have on the roster, they can blow any team out.
"I thought both coordinators were really on point – had been on point – but it really showed up in this game, and on the defense, it really showed up," Head Coach John Harbaugh said Monday.
Here's a look at how Baltimore beat the Bills:
How the Ravens defense stymied Josh Allen.
The Ravens secondary entered the game ranked last in the league in pass defense, allowing 291.7 yards per game. Going against strong-armed gunslinger Josh Allen seemed like a recipe for disaster.
But Baltimore's secondary rose to the occasion, holding the Bills' signal-caller to just 180 passing yards. He completed just 16 of 29 passes.
Allen recorded his second-lowest dropback success rate (23.5%) in a game in his career, with just eight of 34 dropbacks resulting in a successful play, per NextGen Stats. Allen had a league-high 61.9% dropback success rate through the first three weeks this season.
The Ravens secondary did it with a healthy mix of coverages (including strong man coverage), some creative post-snap adjustments that clouded the picture for Allen and made him scramble, and good old-fashioned plastering of receivers. When married with a strong pass rush, it turned out to be a killer for the Bills offense.
The Bills played man coverage on 18% of their snaps. The Ravens played it on a third of theirs, even though Buffalo had been highly effective against man coverage so far this season. That's not a much higher rate than earlier this season, but Baltimore played it much better after crossing routes hurt them, particularly in Kansas City.
"[The Bills] were really hurting people with the crossing routes. Josh is so accurate throwing those things in there," Harbaugh said. "Our guys were on them. There were a couple of contested catches. Everything was contested, really, except the scramble play late. … It's good to feel like you can have confidence in playing man coverage."
Orr did a nice job mixing coverages and pressures. The Ravens played Cover 1 and Cover 3 the most (30% each), but also ran Cover 6 (20%), Cover 1 (11%), Cover 2, and Cover 0 (got a sack from it).
Rookie cornerback Nate Wiggins played all but three snaps and had a superb game that would've been even better had he caught two interceptions that were thrown to him.
Wiggins had a particularly strong play breaking up a heave to the end zone by Allen that was intended for fellow rookie Keon Coleman, who excels at making such contested jump-ball catches.
What happened on Derrick Henry's opening touchdown run and why the run game is flourishing.
The Ravens couldn't have started any hotter on offense than an 87-yard touchdown run by Derrick Henry. It was a play that Baltimore had scripted hoping to take advantage of the Bills' aggressive defensive front that likes to shoot gaps.
With defensive tackle Ed Oliver lined up between right tackle Roger Rosengarten and right guard Daniel Faalele, they let him pass between them freely, then trapped Oliver inside with fullback Patrick Ricard.
That allowed Faalele to crash down and pin the Bills' other defensive tackle and center Tyler Linderbaum to immediately climb to the second level. Rosengarten walled off Bills defensive end Greg Rousseau well and Henry ran off his hip. Mark Andrews made a great second-level block on safety Taylor Rapp. Henry was untouched and off to the races.
Henry reached a top speed of 21.29 mph, which is tied for the fourth-fastest mark of any ball-carrier this season and only 0.17 mph slower than Chiefs rookie wide receiver Xavier Worthy had on his 54-yard touchdown on Sunday. Worthy, who ran the Combine's fastest 40-yard dash ever, weighs 165 pounds. Henry weighs 247.
Monken did an excellent job of keeping the Bills off-balance with his called runs, using misdirection, motions, and fakes, along with schemed runs for Lamar Jackson.
The Jackson-Henry combo, paired with the speed of Justice Hill, blocking of fullback Patrick Ricard, and the perimeter blocking of the Ravens' tight ends, is making Baltimore's rushing game extremely difficult to stop.
The good news is it can be even better. Henry averaged 13.3 yards per carry outside the tackles (13 carries, 173 yards), but just 2.4 yards per carry between the tackles (11 carries, 26 yards). The Ravens used Jackson on just as many runs inside (three) as outside but would prefer not to put their quarterback in traffic.
Rosengarten's emergence may reshuffle the Ravens' offensive line.
Rosengarten got his first career start and played 100% of the snaps. The rookie finished as the offense's fifth-highest graded player (75.9) by Pro Football Focus.
Rosengarten matched the speed of future Hall of Famer Von Miller and Rousseau, while also anchoring nicely in some of his pass rush reps against Oliver. In pass protection, he did a good job of working in tandem with Faalele to pick up twists/stunts and showed strong awareness.
In run blocking, Rosengarten teamed up with Faalele to overpower the Bills' defensive linemen on multiple occasions.
The Ravens rode the hot hand in Dallas, sticking with Patrick Mekari at right tackle for the entire game while Rosengarten stayed on the bench. With Andrew Vorhees dealing with an ankle injury, Baltimore could do the same now and keep Rosengarten at right tackle and Mekari at left guard.
"As we go forward, we'll see how Andrew's ankle is and all that, but Patrick can continue to do it, and he's only going to get better if he gets more reps there," Harbaugh said.
"Obviously, Roger is a guy that's been coming on. He's a high draft pick; he's a guy that we have a lot of expectations for, and he didn't do anything in that game to dampen that down at all."
Numerous Ravens players sent a message with their physicality.
It's not often that a team admits that it got beaten physically. Bills Head Coach Sean McDermott said his squad needs to "physically do a better job" and linebacker Baylon Spector was even more frank.
"They had our numbers tonight, and they came out and out-physicalled us and dominated on the line of scrimmage," Spector said. "And that is one of our goals each and every week – to come out and be physical, and they came out and got on us."
There are numerous examples on both sides of the ball. Here's a sampling on offense from Ricard, Linderbaum, and Andrews:
And here's some on defense:
Ravens' screen game is coming alive.
Screens were a sore spot for Baltimore's offense last season (and beyond). Despite having some great candidates as receivers, such as Zay Flowers, Hill, and Keaton Mitchell, Baltimore had trouble with the timing of the blocks.
This year, Monken and his offense have ironed out some of the issues. After having several successful screens in Dallas, the Ravens hit a couple more against the Bills.
With such a run-heavy script the past two weeks, the screen game is another way that Monken can keep defenses honest and off-balance.
"We're executing it better. We have a better understanding of it, [and] timing has been better. Just across the board, we're just executing the play at a much higher level than we ever have before. I'm excited about it," Harbaugh said.
"There are different types of screens in there, so [there are] some nuances here and there that guys are doing a really good job with. I'm proud of the guys. I think the coaches have done a really good job of coaching it, and it's nice to see, because it's a valuable thing. It's really helping us."
