After Thursday's Ravens practice, cornerbacks Brandon Stephens and Nate Wiggins remained on the field. They had some extra work to do.
As backup quarterback Devin Leary threw deep sideline bombs, Stephens and Wiggins ran with wide receiver Devontez Walker, working on looking back to locate the football and break up the pass.
The Ravens' defense ranks 31st against the pass, giving up 275.7 passing yards per game. For a team that's rolling on a four-game win streak, it remains the clear, and most surprising, weakness with no easy "fix" in sight.
Now the Ravens have a Monday night matchup against the Buccaneers' potent offense, which is coming off a 51-point output last week, has one of the NFL's best wide receiver duos (Mike Evans and Chris Godwin), and a gunslinging quarterback (Baker Mayfield) who leads the league in touchdown passes.
Is trouble brewing? Not necessarily.
The raw stats don't reflect how well the Ravens defense feels like it has covered this season, and how well it feels like it can perform Monday night.
According to Next Gen Stats, Baltimore's defense has forced the highest percentage of tight window throws (defined as less than one yard of separation at pass arrival) in the NFL (23%). Targeted wide receivers have been open just 40.5%, the second-lowest mark in the league behind the New York Jets (37.6%). Yet, somehow, the Ravens are giving up 8.1 passing yards per attempt, tied for the second-most in the league.
In other words, the Ravens are actually covering well. They're just giving up more completions than they should. Per NGS, Baltimore's defense leads the league with a 4.7% completion percentage over expected.
Asked this week if he takes forcing tight-window throws into account when evaluating how well the Ravens are playing, Pro Bowl safety Kyle Hamilton said yes and no.
"You don't want to give up a touchdown, no matter what manner it is – if they get lucky [or] if you get lucky," Hamilton said.
"But sometimes it just comes down to luck. Sometimes things will go your way, and I feel like last year, we had some stuff going our way, which helped us be first in points, sacks [and turnovers]. Sometimes they do; sometimes they don't. And I feel like it's up to us to kind of eliminate the luck factor and just make it [about] us doing our job."
One of the key plays in Sunday's game against the Commanders is a prime example. It was fourth down and Washington was trailing by 14 points in the fourth quarter. Top Commanders wide receiver Terry McLaurin was matched up one-on-one with Stephens outside. Stephens did a good job of cutting off his slant, so McLaurin changed course and Jayden Daniels threw a perfect back shoulder fade. Stephens dove to break up the pass, but McLaurin made a spectacular diving catch for the touchdown.
Stephens won most of the time against McLaurin. On 22 matchups and four targets, Stephens gave up just three catches for 21 yards. But Pro Football Focus put two touchdowns allowed in his ledger.
"I'm not going to let one play change up what I do. That's a great player," Stephens said. "But yeah, I mean, shoot, they're going to make plays. I just got to make sure I make more than them and make it as hard as possible.
Stephens has allowed less than a yard of separation on 50% of his targets as the nearest defender this season, tied for the highest rate in the NFL. Amidst social media grumbling from fans about Stephens this week, Hamilton went out of his way to give Stephens his flowers.
"I think he's one of the most underrated players in this league – not just corner. That's his job week in and week out; we ask him to do it a ton, and he does it," Hamilton said.
"If you know football and you watch it at a close level, you can appreciate what he does. He's really one of the most technical corners in the NFL that we have in our league. It's impressive to see how patient and how composed he is on a play-in, play-out basis. His technique never changes, and he's a one-play mentality kind of guy. It's fun to play with him."
Hamilton said the Ravens feel like they're in a better place as a secondary now with a couple of the pieces, safety Eddie Jackson and Wiggins, getting more time and reps under their belt. The Ravens also feel the gauntlet of quarterbacks they've faced so far – Patrick Mahomes, Dak Prescott, Josh Allen, Joe Burrow, Daniels – makes them stronger.
But the simple fact is they still want better results, advanced metrics aside. There have been too many 50/50 battles that they've lost.
"We need to start catching the ball, one, to get more picks and turnovers and stuff like that," Hamilton said.
After leading the league in takeaways last season, the Ravens only have three interceptions this year. Safety Ar'Darius Washington had one doink off his facemask against the Commanders and Wiggins dropped a couple too.
Wiggins has also been flagged too many times for pass interference, something that Hamilton coached him up on while on the sideline Sunday.
"That's something I've got my big focus on is getting my head around and looking for the ball," Wiggins said this week. "That's one of my biggest improvements I need."
The Ravens have to be at the top of their game Monday night to avoid a shootout. Head Coach John Harbaugh called Evans, who has produced 10 straight 1,000-yard seasons, and Godwin, who currently has the third-most receiving yards (511) in the league, "tremendous matchup problems" and "two of the best."
"I think, honestly, we were playing really good ball. Really good ball," Stephens said. "We do allow some explosives or whatnot, but I tell the DBs, we just got to keep doing what we're doing.
"If teams want to believe, they can believe the numbers that they want and they can think it's going to be a cakewalk. But at the same time, we've got to go out there and do what we do and make it as hard as possible on the quarterback and receivers."
