Opener Recap: Chiefs hold off Ravens

We were treated to some opening fireworks between Xavier Worthy’s astonishingly fast reverse (the downfield blocking was exquisite) and Derrick Henry’s first touchdown as a Raven, and that gave way to a standard Chiefs-Ravens battle of the wits where somehow the defense grabbed the upper hand at exactly the right time over and over again and depressed the scoreboard, as it did in the AFC Championship Game.

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It was genuinely impressive football. There were delayed screens over robbers. There were the obligatory Patrick Mahomes-buys-time-against-an-unblocked-rusher-and-hits-someone-downfield targets. There were good defensive reads against good screens. There were some extremely physical hits that Lamar Jackson took. There was, surprisingly for a team that crowed about how Worthy would open up their downfield passing game, not a lot of downfield passing.

And then the Chiefs leaned on the Ravens, it felt over … and Jackson answered out of structure with his own huge touchdown to Isaiah Likely to cut the lead to three early in the fourth quarter. The Ravens had a couple of chances, but between a missed field goal early and a couple of key Kansas City stops, they didn’t make the most of them. Oh, also the part where Worthy was left wide-ass-open for a touchdown. That wasn’t good either.

And yet … there they were with the ball after the two-minute warning after Trenton Simpson tipped a Mahomes pass, and there the Ravens were driving. And there Lamar Jackson was, with an apparent disagreement with Zay Flowers where he looked very open on where he should settle down:

In fairness to Jackson, this was a tough throw with his body drifting away from the target, throwing across his body. But also: This is the kind of throw you’re sort of expected to make when you win the MVP award. Is it a lofty standard? It sure is. Anyway he came back on the next play and made a game-tying throw after some pocket-circling that I’d call unique to Lamar Jackson. The only problem is that Likely, who had a breakout game, did not get the last inch of his toe inbounds:

Always wear white cleats, kids.

Sneakily important play of the game: The fourth down go for Ravens in the second quarter, down three. They tried to use Nelson Agholor to run a clear-out route to get Zay Flowers the ball on the outside:

The only problem is that Chiefs corner Trent McDuffie (circled via Colinsworth) did not honor Agholor’s clear-out, probably on the thinking that a) he didn’t think Nelson Agholor was a fourth-down target anybody would try and b) even Nelson Agholor did not think he was worth targeting on fourth down.

Baltimore surrendered another field goal on the resulting drive, and Kansas City never trailed from there.

Most important Rashod Bateman target: I wrote this category at halftime to be snarky, but Bateman did actually have a huge 38-yard catch to set the Ravens up for this final sequence of plays when Jackson scrambled with 43 seconds left in the game and delivered a strike to Bateman on the sideline in zone coverage. (I will grant you that it was exactly when Chris Jones was on the sideline, but it still counts.)

It is true that Bateman continued to underperform certain ideals of what “a top receiver in the league” looks like. It is also true that the Chiefs simply didn’t mind blitzing the hell out of a Ravens offensive line that hasn’t gelled yet, and Jackson mostly was using those opportunities to scramble for yardage. And to be clear on that — I don’t think the Ravens are planning to have Lamar Jackson scramble at that rate throughout the season. I think it was a confluence of him wanting his revenge on the Chiefs and the line situaton.

It is also true that Bateman was more involved than Mark Andrews, though. That is the beauty of Week 1. Personally? I’d already been left with the bag enough on Bateman and didn’t draft him in any fantasy leagues this year. I am a little concerned about my shares of Zay Flowers with what Likely did and how poor the offensive line played, but most defenses the Ravens face are not going to be as good as the Chiefs.

What did we learn about the Chiefs?: It didn’t feel like it because Mahomes’ stats looked rather ordinary, but the speed Worthy showed definitely makes me believe this team could spend more of the fall going deep than not, especially when they get Hollywood Brown back from his shoulder ding.

In the end, Mahomes only threw one pass all game that went 30 yards beyond the line of scrimmage, and it was the busted coverage play to Worthy. Now, part of that is probably because the Ravens decided to “live with” the Chiefs targeting Rashee Rice against linebackers over the middle, a decision which led to this drawing:

Simpson did tip two passes targeting Rice, and I think overall the Ravens probably feel just fine about their defensive game plan. But this is the peril you face when even the audience can see the same play is being ran over and over again — suddenly Zach Orr is the world’s biggest dope and why is he letting linebackers cover Rice? Perhaps Roquan Smith telling reporters that the plan was to stop the run first should have been treated as revealing rather than an attack on Mahomes, because other than the Worthy reverse that’s exactly what happened.

Rice was the beneficiary of this game plan and for the most part paid it off. The elements for more explosive production? (Well, downfield, Worthy already had explosive production.) They look like they’re there.

What did we learn about the Ravens?: Well we already knew their offensive line was in some level of disarray against one of the best units in the NFL, so let’s not double-count the lesson. They’ll have 16 more games to grow and find their best combinations. We also already knew the Ravens would not be able to do their Derrick Henry beatdown game script without a lead and they never had the ball with a lead.

I was a little disappointed by how one-note the passing game looked until catch-up mode hit. Perhaps some of that is because Andrews didn’t get full clearance to practice after his car accident until later in training camp. Perhaps with the amount of pressure the right side of that line allowed, they never had a chance to find the non-screen answers.

But if I were a Ravens fan, I’d be concerned about how this offense plays when their receivers get pressed. Bateman obviously disappeared for most of the game. Flowers did not deliver much but a midfield post and had trouble getting the ball versus press. They still looked one receiver short, even if Likely’s breakout is real and they play as much 12-personnel as they can. The Chiefs are a high bar to measure against, to be sure, but they could have really used a one-on-one winner for a lot of this game and it just never happened.

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