Watching the incredible arms race unfold in the AFC to begin the new league year, it’s understandable to ask if the Ravens are doing enough to keep up.
While handing out contracts to three outside free agents worth up to $101.5 million is about as aggressive as we’ve seen this organization be over the opening days of free agency, the arrivals of 25-year-old safety Marcus Williams and 31-year-old right tackle Morgan Moses as well as the return of 29-year-old nose tackle Michael Pierce won’t garner near the same attention or praise as the acquisition of Pro Bowl quarterbacks, star wide receivers, and All-Pro edge rushers we’re seeing elsewhere in the conference. Yes, general manager Eric DeCosta must still address the pass rush, offensive line, cornerback, and inside linebacker to varying degrees, but much of that work figures to be done in next month’s draft with Baltimore holding four selections in the first 100 picks and nine choices over the first four rounds.
It’s easy to get caught up in what’s happened so far this offseason and conclude the Ravens are falling further behind — the verdict on that won’t come until the fall, of course — but that’s when it’s important to look back and remember the team that lost six straight games to conclude the 2021 season wasn’t an accurate representation of the true talent level. Consider the Ravens players with the four largest salary cap numbers for the 2022 season — former league MVP quarterback Lamar Jackson, 2019 All-Pro left tackle Ronnie Stanley, and multi-time Pro Bowl cornerbacks Marlon Humphrey and Marcus Peters — combined to play 25 games last year and one over the final five weeks. That only scratches the surface for the total number of missing as 19 players finished 2021 on injured reserve with more than half of them projected to play meaningful roles.
As I often say, “Next Man Up” becomes nothing more than a T-shirt slogan upon reaching a certain point of attrition, and that occurred last season when Humphrey and Jackson were lost in consecutive weeks in early December.
Looking through a historic lens, just how injured were the Ravens last season?
You’ll always see the number of players on IR cited for comparisons from team to team, but that doesn’t offer much meaningful insight or context. How many injuries were to star players and starters compared to backups or training camp types who never had a reasonable chance of making the team? How many went to IR early in the season as opposed to late December? And how do you account for teams with individuals trying to play through injuries compared to squads with cleaner health reports most weeks?
Football Outsiders uses a metric called adjusted games lost to try to quantify the degree to which teams were stricken with injuries. Instead of simply counting the number of games lost for each player on IR, the metric weighs the projected role for each injured player — starter, key reserve, bench-warmer, etc. — and also factors those listed on weekly injury reports who ended up playing at less than 100 percent. In other words, the metric doesn’t treat the absence of an All-Pro talent or reliable starter the same as a developmental player who was stashed on IR and also accounts for those playing through injuries that could impact their performance.
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According to the football analytics publication, not only did the Ravens lead the NFL in adjusted games lost by a wide margin in 2021, but their 191.2 marked the highest total in the 21 seasons the metric has been tracked. And yes, Baltimore remained the highest when prorating that total for the previous 16-game regular season.
You’ll always have a couple outliers — San Francisco squeezed into the playoffs in Week 18 and advanced to the NFC Championship game despite finishing with the fourth-most adjusted games lost (119.5) — but the overall correlation with success is difficult to ignore with the Super Bowl champion Los Angeles Rams finishing with the fifth-fewest adjusted games lost (54.3), AFC champion Cincinnati finishing with the seventh fewest (63.2), and AFC powerhouses Kansas City and Buffalo finishing first (38.6) and second (42.8) respectively. Ten of the 14 playoff teams finished in the more favorable half of the league in adjusted games lost while eight of the 10 teams with the most adjusted games lost missed the 2021 postseason — the 49ers and Las Vegas being the exceptions.
Of course, none of this means the Ravens deserve a pat on the back or will be a sure bet to return to prosperity in 2022. There are no guarantees that players coming back from significant injuries will return to their previous form, especially when considering veterans who are arguably past their prime or individuals who’ve experienced hiccups during the rehabilitation process. For now, there’s only so much the Ravens can do beyond hope the likes of Stanley, Peters, defensive end Derek Wolfe, and running backs J.K. Dobbins and Gus Edwards look like their old selves come next season.
In the meantime, Baltimore vowed to reassess its strength and training programs this offseason as it did following an injury-plagued 2015 campaign, the only other losing season of the John Harbaugh era.
“You can say it’s bad luck. You can say it’s fluke. I get that, but I don’t feel like we have the luxury to live there,” Harbaugh said during his season-ending press conference. “That’s not something that we can say that that’s it. We have to turn over every stone. We have to look at every possible avenue to do the best we can to make sure this doesn’t happen again. That’s what we plan on doing.
“I had a meeting two weeks ago with our performance people. We sat in there for four hours and went over every aspect of what we’re doing and what we can do on the football side to try to improve that. From practice schedules, from training camp schedules, from [organized team activities], from how we train, from how we condition, … all of our modeling in terms of loads and things like that in our team periods and in our individual periods.”
8The Ravens certainly hope the hiring of new head athletic trainer Adrian Dixon has a positive impact on injured players returning to action in a more timely fashion, but their extraordinary run of injuries in 2021 did follow a stretch of four out of five favorable seasons on the health front when current strength and conditioning coach Steve Saunders arrived in 2016. And while there are always ways to improve training methods, we’re still talking about a brutal game requiring extraordinary physical performance from human beings who — contrary to popular belief — aren’t machines at the end of the day.
The numbers overwhelmingly support just how unfortunate the Ravens were on the health front last season, a factor that shouldn’t be dismissed in assessing where they currently stand — even under the bright free-agent lights of March. No matter who else may be added between now and September, how players return from last year’s injuries remains one of the biggest factors determining whether they’re more like the AFC contender that went 25-7 and led the NFL in point differential from 2019-20 or little more than a fringe playoff team moving in the wrong direction in a loaded AFC in 2022.
Below is a look at where the Ravens have finished in Football Outsiders’ adjusted games lost metric in recent years:
2021 — 191.2 (most in NFL)
2020 — 59.6 (eighth fewest in NFL)
2019 — 68.7 (16th fewest in NFL)
2018 — 29.7 (fewest in NFL)
2017 — 101.6 (sixth most in NFL)
2016 — 62.0 (11th fewest in NFL)
2015 — 96.1 (third most in NFL)
2014 — 52.6 (seventh fewest in NFL)
2013 — 49.8 (ninth fewest in NFL)
2012 — 57.4 (13th fewest in NFL)
2011 — 18.8 (fewest in NFL)
2010 — 50.9 (15th fewest in NFL)
2009 — 28.8 (seventh fewest in NFL)
2008 — 95.0 (third most in NFL)
