Baltimore Ravens quarterback Cooper Rush was candid with the media after his team’s 44-10 loss to the Houston Texans in Week 5.
Rush believes the Ravens can still return to contention despite their fall to a 1-4 record with the loss of star quarterback Lamar Jackson to an injury, but they need to make some adjustments to do it.
“We're just looking to – we have to be more efficient, on first and second down, especially, and get more manageable third downs,” Rush said, according to the team’s website on Friday. “We were able to convert on a few kind of longer ones, but those are hard, those are rare. Just more efficiency, overall, to get us going.”
The Ravens were held to just 207 yards of total offense in their Week 5 loss to the Texans. That included only 44 yards on the ground despite having star running back Derrick Henry at their disposal.
Baltimore converted on just three out of the eight third downs it had in Week 5 against Houston. It made it to the red zone twice and came out with points on one of those two occasions.
On the Ravens’ lone drive that ended in a touchdown, Rush found wide receiver Zay Flowers for a 56-yard pass that brought Baltimore all the way down to Houston’s four-yard line. That set up a short-yardage situation for Henry to punch in the touchdown.
Other than that big play — to Rush’s point — all aspects of Baltimore’s offense were stifled in inconsistency throughout their clash with the Texans.
Rush himself was 14-for-20 through the air with 179 passing yards, no touchdowns, and three interceptions. The stat line is very telling — he was unable to get the ball down the field and was mostly efficient with his passes, but when he wasn’t, it resulted in a turnover.
Henry averaged just 2.2 yards per carry, rushing for just 33 yards and the game’s lone touchdown on 15 carries.
The Ravens will look to break their three-game losing skid against the Los Angeles Rams on Sunday.
