The Baltimore Ravens don’t look like their old teams, at least not on defense. And they struggle to stop long drives in the national spotlight. Furthermore, the Ravens' shambolic defense threatens to ruin another masterful season from quarterback Lamar Jackson.
Monday night’s 38-30 loss to the Packers played things out for all to see. The Ravens couldn’t stop anything the Lions had to offer. And there’s trouble brewing for a team many expected to be a Super Bowl contender.
It started ugly in Week 1 against the Bills and appeared to get worse against the Lions.
“The biggest problem is we didn’t play good defense,” Harbaugh said. “There’s nobody in that locker room that thinks that’s good enough.”
Do Ravens have a silver lining to defensive woes?
Part of the issue has been the schedule. The Ravens did OK in Week 2 against the Browns. But they faced the Bills in Week 1 and the Lions in Week 3. An argument can be made that those are the top two offenses in the NFL.
So has the biggest problem been the schedule? Not really. The Ravens' defense should at least be good enough to give the high-powered offense a chance to win. Instead, the defense allowed the Bills and Lions to do whatever they wanted. And the team is 1-2 on the season.
Cornerback Marlon Humphrey said the Ravens haven’t shown up on the defensive side of the ball, according to The Athletic.
“We’re just not very good,” Humphrey said in a quiet locker room late Monday night. “They did whatever they wanted to do all night.”
The Ravens didn’t have defensive lineman Nnamdi Madubuike against the Lions. Perhaps that can partially explain Detroit rushing 38 times for 224 yards. They gashed the Ravens throughout the game. Harbaugh said the run defense was not acceptable.
“That’s bad run defense, and that’s not who we are,” Harbaugh said. “It cannot be who we are. It’s not going to be acceptable, and it has to be better.”
Ravens safety Kyle Hamilton says defense has a long way to go
“No excuses can be made at this point,” Hamilton said. “If it’s not one thing, it’s another. We just have to patch everything up right now. Our run defense, it’s been pretty good the whole time I’ve been here, but when a team runs the ball like that, it just demoralizes you more than passing the ball. They’re challenging you mentally (and) physically, so it’s on us as a defense just to put that fire out ASAP, and we didn’t do that.”
The Ravens have enough talent to fix things. It wouldn’t hurt if cornerback Jaire Alexander decided to suit up this season. Also, rookie Mike Green needs to make some kind of impact on the pass rush. There’s still hope, but things are trending the wrong way.
Harbaugh said the team will try to figure things out before the tough matchup against the Chiefs in Week, according to baltimoreravens.com.
“We’ve got some things we need to get better at,” Harbaugh said. “We’ve got things we’re going to be disappointed in when we watch that tape. We need to play better than we did.”
