Transcript of The Ravens' Fourth Down Decisions Were the DIFFERENCE Against Chargers

32 seconds left in the half. The Ravens have all three of their timeouts. A flowers goes in motion. Lamar takes the snap, deep drop, steps up, going deep at the five at the goal line. Bateman is there.

He makes the catch. Touchdown, Rashad Bateman.

Oh, what a play.

What a play it was. And what a night for the Baltimore Ravens. 30 to 23, they go into SoFi Stadium and get the victory. That was Jerry Sandusky on WB AL and that 40 yard touchdown late in the second quarter was part of a Raven surge. Where you want to say this was a close game between two evenly matched teams, but it really wasn't. For the first quarter, it's all Chargers and for the most part, Nick Shook the rest of the game. The better team showed up and it didn't feel quite as close as the final score even indicated.

And the better team won it in a classic fashion, in a fashion that is very much on brand for the Baltimore Ravens in 2024, which is running the football, establishing ground dominance and riding Derrick Henry to victory 140 yards on 24 carries. He rumbles down the field, he powers a couple of scoring drives. Lamar Jackson is able to work out of the play action from there. And The Ravens dropped 30 points 30 to 6 after going down 10 nothing and prove their superiority over the upstart Chargers.

Yeah, they only ran about eight plays in the first 19 minutes of this game. It was perfect for the Chargers. They were controlling the clock, they were going on long drives. They get a 10 nothing lead. And after that, the Ravens scored five straight times. And they showed a stat on ESPN that the Chargers had stopped third and 10 or longer for 31 straight plays when they had a third and 10. And when Lamar Jackson found Zay Flowers, I believe it was on the sideline of that play. And they hit it. I'm just like, oh, the Ravens are winning this game. Like first you put that up. They haven't done it in 31 times. They go on to score a touchdown on that drive. And then they continue to score in the game, Nick, just on a broader level. And then I'll get into the nitty gritty. Really had echoes to me of some previous games that me and you have talked about. Number one, Ravens, Bengals, where the Ravens offense starts really slow. And this has happened a couple times for them. They're like an old car that just like takes a little while to get going and then once the second quarter hits, you can't stop them.

It had echoes of Bengals Chargers from a week ago where the Chargers start out so well, but what they're doing on offense, which in this case, you know, first drive, touchdown, they don't get a touchdown again until the end of the second half. And their defense, which had played so well initially, kind of caves in in the second half. And then it gave me echoes of the game just last night at SoFi, where ultimately the team that can run the Rock, as you said, just absolutely took over in the second half. The Ravens run for 212 in this game. The Chargers run for 83, which is crazy because they had more than that at halftime. I believe they had negative yards, at least late in the second half. It was like 112 to negative 6 in terms of rushing yards in the second half. Our friend J.K. dobbins leaves with a knee injury, so hope the best for him. But just a lot of feel of all these games that we've seen, and kind of the commonality in all of them is, as you said, that the team that can just grind it out gets it done in the end.

Yeah. First off, I like the car metaphor, but the Ravens are not a Ford Pinto. They are like a Lamborghini Countach. You know, like, let's go. They're an 80s, you know, exotic sports car that is, you know, been sitting in the garage for 20, 30 years. Needs a little bit of time to warm up, but once it gets warmed up, it's taken off. That's Baltimore in a nutshell. But again, it's true in any football game, and especially in a football game that has Derek Henry running the football and Lamar Jackson as a running threat. Oh, and Justice Hill popping one for a touchdown as well, is that if you can control the ground game, you could win the game. And especially if you can stop the ground game for the other team, then it really tilts in your favor, which is essentially the story in the second half for the Ravens. I mean, this is a game in which, you know, the Chargers go to halftime down by three points, they run the ball five times the rest of the game. They lose J.K. dobbins to a knee injury at halftime, he doesn't come back.

Then they just forget that they also have a couple more running backs, one being Gus Edwards, and just go past heavy. They also lose the time of possession battle, which they led by 7 minutes and 20 seconds, and halftime, they end up losing it overall in the game. They couldn't sustain drives. And a lot of that, I think, had to do with the unbalanced approach. And it's really funny. It's it's almost too perfect. It's poetic. Greg Roman being the OC for the Chargers, losing the balance of his offense against his former team which now has Todd Mon and is able to balance out their offense and, and put a ton of points on the board to win the game.

Well, the only thing I would push back is when they tried to run it with Gus Edwards, it was not effective. Nine carries for 11 yards and they weren't good on early downs running. He had a couple short yardage runs, so he did have some successful runs but they didn't stick with it, which is absolutely fair to point out and you flip it over to the Ravens and that first touchdown drive that they had, that which you know finished at the, in the second quarter, Derek Henry was making the right reads and picking up 7, 8 yards and the reason they didn't move the ball in the first quarter was really just Lamar Jackson was off and it ended drives. He missed a couple throws, had a, had a bad read on one of them and they were three and out and then five and out. But to me, the story of this game, and I'm going to go through a couple of plays here, Nick, so bear with me are the short yardage plays. You know where I'm starting, right?

Yep, yep, yep.

Fourth down, the Mark Andrews fourth and one call with about two minutes to go in the second quarter. You come back after they try to pull them off sides after the two minute warning, you think they're going to punt and they actually line up to go for it at their own 16 and everyone that would have been blaming John Harbaugh if it didn't work better be pointing out that that decision and their fourth down decisions were one of the big reasons they won this game. Now the reason you make that call, especially with two minutes to go, the situation is they're losing that game. They don't want to give the Chargers a chance to get the ball again and score before halftime. So at worst we trust our offensive line. This is what we do. Well, we can pick up it wasn't even a full yard three feet and get three feet and at the very least keep them off the scoreboard. A handful of plays later after they hand the ball to Mark Andrews who gets it with a tush push like play. It's a little ballsy to make that your call on 4th and 1.

That's when you hear that Bateman throw to finish out the scoring. Next fourth and one, third quarter on their own 39 yard line. They give it to Derek Henry 27 yard run later that drive, they have a fourth and one where they're in pretty close field goal range. Again, you give it to Henry, he gets two yards, they convert it. They later score a touchdown instead of a field goal. And then finally in the fourth quarter, you have some short yardage situations. I can think of two, but one really stands out. The third and one to Derek Henry where they're just trying to possess the ball. It's not a fourth down play, but he gets to the outside. You have the perfect defense called. Two different defenders are there and Derrick Henry just stiff arms day on Henley into like the atmosphere and he gets it and there's just no answer. When you're that good in short yardage, you win games. And let's wrap up this short yardage montage with a third and three from Justice Hill, which, yes, ultimately put the game out of reach.

On third and three, they give it to Justice Hill. Swooping left side, crosses midfield. He's to the 40.

Charger 30. Leg race 20, Justice Hill 10. He's in. Touchdown, Ravens. Justice Hill goes 51 yards and the.

Ravens extend their lead.

That's what, seven minutes left in the game. And Derek Henry needed a blow there shook. And that's what happens sometimes in these short yarded situations. Everyone's up there trying to stop him and they pop some big ones.

Yeah, that, that third down that you mentioned with, with Derek Henry stiff arming, he stiff arms two guys to win the edge on that run to get the first down. Like there are only a few running backs in the NFL that can do that, which is why he's the perfect fit for this offense. They even spoke about on the broadcast how there's. He wouldn't be performing like this in another place. But, but because he's in Baltimore, he's having a great year. And it speaks to the threat of the Baltimore offense in that if you get them to fourth down. Because that third, that fourth and one sequence that you mentioned just before halftime, Chargers defense is celebrating like we just got a big stop. We're going to get an opportunity to put points in the board. Crowd is going pretty wild for them, relatively speaking, for a Chargers.

Oh, they were good. Give the Chargers fan some credit.

These last two, they were louder than usual. Yeah, Rams.

I got to say, Ramsay ownership might be seeing this and be like, wow, they kind of got, they got something going there with the, with the Chargers crowd. Sorry, go on.

No, you're right, though. I mean, all the vibes are good for them. They're like, yeah, we're having a great first half. The defense that has been their calling card all year, they're playing tip physical, they're playing tough. They get a stop and then they surrender. They surrender because Mark Andrews is the one who forces them to surrender by getting the first down and that leads them down the field to score. And that's when the momentum flipped. And like you said, that's when the Ravens really won this game. It wasn't even the second half and their relative dominance in that game. It was that sequence right there. But that's who the Ravens can be. You can get them in fourth and short and you can't guarantee that you're still going to get off the field against them. That's the mark of a true contender. And it's, it really illustrates what we learned about the Chargers, which is that even though they have a very physical defense, they played above expectation throughout this year. They are still figuring out how to be winners, how to convert in key situations like that. And I think that this, in their first true Test of the 2024 season, all the people that were a little skeptical about him, I think they got good.

The haters are, the haters are going to come out. You know, I've got this gentleman's or gentle woman's wager with Mina Kimes. Just nothing on the line here but that they wouldn't finish in the top 20 of defensive DVOA. And you know, she asked me the question tonight, like, have they really played anyone good defensively? I'm like, they played the Chiefs, who have a pretty good running attack when they had Pacheco back then and they played the Cardinals. So let's, let's calm down about them not having played anyone, but it seems they've beat. To be fair, Scott Van Pelt pointed this out, had a 26 and 52 record. And so the teams that they've beat have not been great teams. Their best win was in Denver, which was a nice win. They are at Atlanta. Then they're at Kansas City, home for the Broncos and the Bucks in a row. Those are four challenging games. I think they can win some of those. But the offenses for the most part, that are efficient. In fact, three out of those four offenses are in the top eight of DV away. And so we'll see what the defensive ranking is after that stretch of games.

You need to find some wins. It would have been nice. You come out, you get out to a 10 nothing lead here. You're a little disappointed you didn't come Away with this one.

Yeah. And my concern with the Chargers going forward, this may be a preview of a late season slide for them. And it's not the defense, really. Yeah, they got run through by Derek Henry and Lamar Jackson and Justin Justice Hill tonight. It's the offense. It's the fact that I don't think this team is built to come from behind. And if you're not able to get an advantage, which they did by the way, 10 nothing early in this game and hang on to that advantage into the second half, you're in a tough spot. Because if the running game is not working as it wasn't in the second half, your passing game, despite how well Justin Herbert has played especially in the last six weeks, is still very limited by the guys catching passes from him. Lad McConkey is the only guy I trust to make a play in this receiving core right now. They took like four deep shots to Josh Palmer. None of them had a chance of being completed at one time. I think the broadcast talked about how you got to put it on him. Herbert puts a perfect ball just inside the sideline red line throw.

Palmer has no idea where it is. No idea where it is. They keep trying to go to him deep because Johnston doesn't make plays. He drops the pass on the drag route in a key situation, down a score on third down. It would have been a huge gain if he held onto the football, gets in his head, drops two more. They're limited offensively when they have to throw. And that's why I think as we get into December, we're going to come to realize who these Chargers really are. And I hate to say it for Chargers fans, but I think they're going to get a real dose of harsh reality here in the next few weeks.

Okay, let's calm down.

I look now, I'm telling you, I see the tracks.

I, I hear you. But I do think they're a well coached team.

They are.

They showed that at the end of the second quarter when they managed the clock very well. They don't beat themselves too much with penalties. And Herbert is the man. He played really well tonight. I thought for the most part, not nothing out of this world, but you're right. If his receivers make more plays for him down the field, if they get that pass interference call that they change their mind on, on, on the Josh Palmer play, it was him and Brandon Stevens late in the game, they at least would have been set up to make it more of a one score game. I mean, they're trying to drive down 2316 in the fourth quarter. It was a competitive game when Johnston starts dropping all these passes. So I'm just thinking about the Johnson fantasy owners out there, but, like, the guys that, like, needed two points tonight in fantasy or whatever, four points and like the ball just keeps coming back to him and he just keeps dropping it over and over or not making contested catches. You're right. There was a couple of times where Palmer, who had eight targets caught three for 38, just didn't turn the right way.

The fact that Jalen Rager is heavily involved as a actually a decent role player for them and been a little more reliable just shows where they're at. I agree with you offensively that they're limited because one disagreement I had with Troy Aikman during the night was how they're a more balanced team and they're running the ball a lot and they're not a good running team. They've popped a few runs late in games, but they're not a consistent running team. They have one of the worst success rates in the league and they're actually not a heavy run team either. Since the bye week, they are one of the past heaviest teams in neutral situations in the league. They have put it all on Justin Herbert's arm because that's what they do best. And it didn't work tonight. And I think a little credit has to go to the Raven secondary. I'm hesitant to give them too much credit, but at the end of the day, the chargers ended up with 202 net passing yards. 285 overall. And that includes a lot of that garbage time yards. I would have killed them if they looked like they did in the first quarter the rest of the game, but they settled down and that's two good enough performances where guys like Tradavius White and Stevens.

Nate Wiggins made some play. They survived without Roquan Smith. I thought that would be a big issue. They survived. They just need to be okay to support the best offense in the league right now.

Yeah, Wiggins actually made a physical play, which I was surprised because he's just a slight guy. Like, he's. He's long, but he's. He's pretty thin. He made a really nice physical pass breakup on third and short that forced a punt and I was like, oh, look at Wiggins. You know, lower the boom a little bit. Okay, that's good. That's good promise and progress from a rookie corner who's obviously very gifted athletically. And I think that it's also A good demonstration of Zach or kind of figuring out how to adjust in the flow of the game. Cause they've. There's been times where they have just not had an answer in. In some of these games. That's how you kind of got to 7 and 4 overall is because they just haven't been consistent on that side of the ball. But to go back to that Chargers point one more time, the reason that they are where they are right now is because that defense has played well enough, they've played tough and physical enough to win games against lesser opponents. And now you describe that stretch that they're about to face. That's where my lack of, you know, where I expect them to actually produce, like, that's where my uncertainty lies in, is the fact that, okay, well, if that defense doesn't show up week by week, I don't know if you have the greatest shot to keep up with some of these teams.

So that's why I said this game, this week's game against Atlanta is really big for two teams that to me are our borderline playoff teams. But, yeah, are candidates to sink a little in the second half. And they play each other. They had a couple of injuries before tonight on the defense. One of their starting corners, Hart, Kim Hart was out and Denzel Pearman was out. So they hope to get him back. Joey Bose is killing them. This has really been on my radar that he is in 100%, this contract that he's had for them. If you go through it, he hasn't played more than 550 snaps since 2021. He's only played more than 550 snaps three times in his career. This could have been a Hall of Fame type player. He's now, I believe, playing through a hip injury and he's just not making any impact on these games. And they have a pretty good defensive line anyways, but it didn't make much of an impact tonight. They did a good job protecting and they certainly did a good job running and, you know, blocking for Derek Henry and Lamar Jackson, who I think ultimately improves his MVP cases.

We got a long way to go. To me right now, it's. It's Saquon, Josh Allen and Lamar Jackson as the three main contenders. And it's going to take someone else going a little nuts to get in there. Like if Herbert had thrown five touchdowns tonight and they won, then like maybe he starts getting into the mix. We got a lot of roadblocks from the outside.

Yeah.

But at this point, that obviously didn't happen. That Far from happened. It's going to be Lamar and those two guys. And I thought Lamar made some bad decisions tonight on like when to throw and when not to run. Got away with the through a few passes, had some incompletions where he could have picked it up with his legs but ultimately when he needed it like on third down he was money. That throw to Bateman was awesome. And then maybe the biggest play in the game other than that to me was the third and goal. It's the fourth quarter, it's a one point game, they're at about the eighth yard line and that's a tough touchdown to complete. Third and goal from the eight and if they don't hit that you have Justin Tucker kicking to go up four. But they did hit it and it gives us an excuse to listen to our guy. Kevin Harlan, third and goal for the.

Ravens deep in Charger territory. Shotgun snap, dropping back five. Line drive, throw caught, leaping catch, back to the end zone. The tight end Andrews, a beautiful spread like line drive, touchdown pass. Lamar Jackson with a strike of 6 yards.

That that tandem is awesome. Great catch, great throw, great call by Kevin Harlan. What a freaking pro. On Westwood One because there was officiating nonsense for two minutes after that trying to decide if it was a touchdown or not. But Kevin Harlan knew it was a touchdown and he just called it a touchdown. That alone should make it one of the calls of the year. Although I'll have to remember that at the end of the year. Put it on the list but I.

Really liked was the description a beautiful thread like line drive pass cause that's exactly what it was and delivering it perfectly in rhythm. That's Kevin Harlan to a T and that was Mark Andrews to a T. No, there are few guys in the league that you could trust more than Mark Andrews in the red zone in situations like that. Go throw one up there, let the big man go up there and snag it in the back of the end zone. What a great play.

Yeah, all the good Ravens offensive players made plays which kind of love to see they are deeper than they used to be. Justice Hill has been a nice role play for them. He obviously had a touch on Derrick Henry. Zay Flowers, that catch and run that he had. After the fourth down it was on a third. Another third down to Zay Flowers where he feels where the defender is behind him and makes a big yards after the catch to help set up that Bateman touchdown. Just a few plays later all the guys really stepped up and were in the mix and it's just. It's a tough offense because you feel like, was that really even that great of a Lamar Jackson game? And then you think, well, yeah, he averaged, you know, over eight yards per attempt, a couple touchdowns, had a touchdown, running the ball as well. He now has 22 touchdowns and no interceptions on Monday Night Football in his career, which is just a preposterous. I feel like half of those touchdowns. I'm sorry, Nick. Came against your Cleveland Browns. So at least tonight it was someone else.

Well, I mean, the Browns won that game, but yeah, it's true. They.

There's always a couple. You're right, though. I'm remembering the.

He's one of the best players in the NFL. I mean, he's. He's still my front runner for mvp. Saquon's going to make it interesting. It's funny because we're like, oh, kind of a quiet night. Two touchdown passes, rushing, touchdown. It's because Derek Henry kind of led the way, you know, with the visual impression, you know, on the audience and everybody watching is just like, oh, look at Derek Henry running through the defense again. Look at that stiff arm. But, oh, by the way, Lamar also accounted for three touchdowns in this game. Just classic. Typical Lamar. Typical Ravens. And this is how they win football games. This is their brand.

It might work against Lamar when it comes to voting time. I think it will. It. It's a narrative award sometimes. And having a player like Derrick Henry.

Yeah.

Who tonight, I do think picked up his teammate Lamar, and the running game picked up Lamar. Now, Lamar is obviously impacting that running game, but Henry did pick him up after a slow start, and I think it's like he might cancel out the votes. I think people would be more excited if it's close to vote for Josh Allen because he's never won it before.

Do you think Henry would pull some votes?

Yes, I do. Or just even if it's mental like you now vote for five MVP candidates. And by the way, I got an update from the Associated Press who listens to this very podcast, that they will be voting on all the awards with a top five. Yes.

Way to go apart. Way to bring clarity to the matter. Thank you.

Be the change.

Yes. That you.

I don't really think I was the one that made that happen, but I was informed it is happening. So I'm just going to take credit either way. Let's. Let's just enjoy that. That is happening. So the coach of the year, defensive player of the year, it'll be all be top five. And so I Actually do think Derek Henry right now would probably be in my top five or in some people's top five. And yes, I do think just mentally, even if you didn't have him there, you might put Lamar down a little bit. Plus, he's already won it twice. So I think Josh Allen and Saquon, who knows? There's so much time to go that I think we don't need to be ranking these each and every week. But it is.

I am curious. I want to know who that fifth guy is in your top five. Cause we just listed four of them. This could be debatable here. I kind of want to hear it.

Okay, tell me yours if you've got it off.

I would.

I didn't think it through as of.

About a week prior. I probably would have thrown Burrow as the fifth.

I don't love that. I know winds are not a QB stat. He wouldn't be a bad fifth spot. He'd be in my mix. I hate that they've lost so many games with the offense having the ball at the end. I would think about Penn Sewell, which is why I think having five spots is. It's like you represent something that's like what. What you can do with your fist spot. I would think if he has a huge rest of the year, people will kill me for this. Actually, no. I take it back. I'm not even going to say it. Not even going to say it.

Be still. By beating hard. He picked a lineman.

Yeah. Let's go. Let's go. Penisul, it's taken this long. We haven't mentioned that two brothers coached against each other in this game. I'm going to ask you a question. Are you continually surprised when you hear them say how John Harbaugh is the older brother? Does Jim seem like the older brother?

And I had that thought tonight. And the only thing I could think of was God. All those years in college football in the NFL must have really taken a toll on him. He's also like more intense. So he's aging a little.

He's also looks great for his age. It's just John Harbaugh's never aged. He's in his 60s.

John's on the Clooney track.

Right, Right. It's nothing against Jim. It's not just the looks, though. It's just he just seems like he would be the older brother. But then occasionally you hear Jim say, all I ever wanted to be was like my older brother John. And it might be because no one had ever heard of John Harbaugh. Except, you know, if you were big Ravens fans or Eagles fan, because he was a special teams coach until the moment he was the head coach of the Ravens. I remember I was at Rota World NBC at the time, and it's like, who are they hiring for? Oh, they're hiring their special teams coach. Okay. That's a little random for such a good franchise. Just, you know, won the super bowl not too long ago, and now here he is all this time later, and he is the big brother. He beats his little brother each time. Three and O. And he's just, you know, in the biggest of spots. And in prime time tonight, 3, 0.

Yeah. I mean, good for him. I would love to say. Oh, I'd love to see him meet back up in like the AFC championship, but I think that's a little premature.

I would take it in the wild card. Wild card round.

That would be fun. Although we would all get tired of that narrative.

It's fine. The coaches, whatever. I think it's cool. It is cool that two brothers are coaching against each other and they're such. Jim is such a value add to any scenario that he's fun, but it's more just Justin Herbert versus Lamar Jackson. I'd like to see. All right, Herbert, maybe in a playoff setting, can you unleash a little more, Get a little more aggressive? I don't know how much more aggressive he really could have been. I don't put this on him.

No, it's not on him. He's. He's playing. He's playing well and he's taking shots and he's. And he's throwing accurate passes. It's just the other end of the pass is not being held up.

All right, and good job by Justin Tucker hitting a field goal.

Yeah, off the side, baby.

I hate that we're at the point where we're just like, hey, hit a 47 yard field goal. But maybe that's technique, him turning it around. And I'm glad you also mentioned that Chargers crowd when they booed the hell out of Quentin Johnston, I was like, okay, okay. Charges like. Yeah, it's pretty spicy. Like, Ravens travel well. But it was still. Still a very heavy Chargers crowd tonight, so good job, Chargers fan.