Baltimore Beatdown Staff Reactions to the Ravens’ victory over the Tampa Bay Buccaneers
The Baltimore Ravens rattled off their fifth straight win after defeating the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, 41-31. Below are the reactions from the Beatdown staff.
In 24 games against NFC opponents, Lamar Jackson now has a 23-1 record. It’s unbridled what he does against the opposing conference. And for him to obliterate the Buccaneers’ defense to the tune of five passing touchdowns, from short, wise tosses to players in space to a rainbow ball to Rashod Bateman, it’s impeccable.
Speaking of Bateman, we’re finally seeing his emergence. His route-running, which made him a first-round pick, has been on full display and Jackson’s capitalizing on connecting with him. It’s arrived. The deep ball connection has sprouted. NFL defenses, beware.
Derrick Henry did his usual thing of mocking defenses who think they have the advantage when the Ravens are backed up inside their 20-yard line. He’s now up to 873 rushing yards in seven games, the best pace he’s ever been on in his career. He’s 98 yards ahead of his 2021 season where he rushed for 2,000-yards. He’s four yards ahead of his incredible 2021 season start before injury.
Aaaand, now for the not-so-fun talk. The Ravens defense is their fatal flaw. Mayfield threw for 370 yards. Outside of Humphrey, they can’t contain a darn thing. Incompletions feel like significant wins. Third down stops are utter relief. Defensive Coordinator Zach Orr has to solve how to put his players in the right spots to make plays, and then they have to execute. If not, it could derail what may be one of the best NFL offenses of this era. — Kyle Phoenix
Lamar Jackson is playing the best football in the NFL right now, full stop. Outside of a sloppy screen to Zay Flowers that almost turned into a touchdown for the defense, the two-time MVP was lights-out after some early adjustments to the Bucs’ aggressive blitzing. Whether it was RPOs, the screen game, or calling his own number on the ground or through the air, Jackson was seeing the whole field and never looked uncomfortable or uncertain in the pocket. If Mark Andrews was ever gone, he’s certainly back now, and Rashod Bateman has finally hit his stride as a deadly weapon in his own right. The offensive line improved as the game went on, and Derrick Henry continued to work his second-half magic with a huge run in the third quarter to keep the Bucs at bay. Defensively, it was a mixed bag as Marlon Humphrey’s two first-half interceptions erased solid drives from Tampa Bay. The defense stiffened up in the second and third quarters before getting far too conservative in the fourth and allowing the Buccaneers to sneak back within two possessions. As expected, there are still plenty of things to clean up on pass defense, but they were more competitive at the catch point than previous weeks. Losing another onside kick is also not ideal. Still, it’s tough to complain about 41 points on the road in primetime against a sneaky-good football team for Baltimore’s fifth win a row. — Nikhil Mehta
The Ravens got punched in the mouth and utterly dominated in the first quarter, wiped the blood from their collective mouths, got up from the canvas and responded with haymakers of their own in the form of big plays on both sides of the ball on their way to a fifth straight victory. They found a way to get stops on defense and got into a rhythm on offense to the point where they were humming as they scored 34 unanswered points to pull ahead for good. Reigning MVP and right front-runner, Lamar Jackson, continued to be surgical against the blitz and carved up the Buccaneers’ defense intermediate and deep on his way to finishing with as many incompletions as touchdowns with five of each and a passer rating of 158.1 to go along with 52 rushing yards to give himself over 300 yards of total offense. If it weren’t for a backward pass resulting in a fumble and failed onside kick recovery, the final score of his game would properly reflect just how much of a good old-fashioned whooping the Ravens put on the Buccaneers but such is life. They still won by double digits and the defense still has some work to do to be truly championship caliber as blown coverages led to easy big plays in both halves. The offense is gangbusters and the defense struggles to play a full four quarters but this is still the most dangerous team in the league and arguably the best with still so much more room to improve which makes their potential even scarier. — Joshua Reed
This should have been a ho-hum win. The offense was fantastic after a bad opening drive. Lamar Jackson had a classic Jackson Five night with five touchdowns and near perfect passer game. Rashod Bateman had a massive game. Justice Hill was a menace in the screen game. Derrick Henry broke off two massive runs. Mark Andrews caught two touchdowns.
Unfortunately, the defense will be a bigger story. To start the game, the Ravens defense was the definition of Swiss cheese. They couldn’t stop the Buccaneers defense at all. Once wide receiver Mike Evans left with injury, the defense stood firm for nearly two and half quarters. But after 34 unanswered points, the Ravens let up a late touchdown in the fourth quarter, which shouldn’t have been a big deal. But then the Buccaneers proceeded to score 21 points in the 4th quarter. While the game was never really close, as the great Ed Reed put it during his time on the Manningcast for tonight’s game as the Ravens let up their third fourth-quarter touchdown, “Game over right now in [Raven’s defense mind]. They don’t understand the other side of finishing and being championship team”.
It’s a great offensive performance that should leave peopling riding a high. Instead, its undercut by the nagging thought on the continuous problems on defense. Something needs to changed and get fixed. Whether that’s scheme, play calling, execution, or adding talent, the defense needs something. Now. — Zach Canter
The Ravens offense looks like they’re playing a different game right now. After a sluggish start to the game, Lamar Jackson and the Baltimore offense kicked it back into gear by scoring 34 unanswered points. Don’t be fooled by the final score, the Ravens won this game handily, en route to 41 points and over 500 yards of offense. If it weren’t for penalties and self inflicted mistakes, they might have scored 50. As great as the Ravens offense has been over their now five game win streak, the defense has been almost just as concerning. In fact, the team was somewhat lucky the game didn’t get away from them early. Late in the first quarter, Bucs QB Baker Mayfield gifted Ravens CB Marlon Humphrey an easy INT on a possession Tampa Bay could have gone up 17-0 on. Shortly after, Humphrey came up with his second INT of the night, and the team didn’t look back. The Ravens offense is good enough to win them most games right now. However, this defense looks like a sad shell of their record breaking 2023 unit. — Stephen Bopst