BALTIMORE — Two hard truths apply to the Ravens in their embarrassing 44-10 loss to Houston that dropped them to 1-4 in a season that began with sky-high expectations.
Injuries have decimated this team the last couple weeks with Sunday’s inactive list including two-time NFL MVP Lamar Jackson as well as five other Pro Bowl players. That didn’t include two-time Pro Bowl defensive tackle Nnamdi Madubuike, who’s out for the rest of the season with a neck injury. “Next man up” is the rallying cry, but it only carries so much weight when you’re without the six highest-paid players on the roster.
The silver lining is Madubuike being the only season-ending injury and the Week 7 bye being right around the corner to help this team heal up for a softer schedule after facing 2024 playoff teams in five of the first six games. There’s a ton of football still to be played with next week’s opponent — the Los Angeles Rams — being an example of a team starting 1-4 and regrouping to make the playoffs, doing so only last year.
But the other truth was the utter lack of fight shown in a lopsided defeat to a Texans team that had also started 1-3 and scored just 64 points over its first four contests combined. It was inexcusable and alarming with both coaches and players needing to share in that criticism. Losing a game without many of your best players is one thing, but the Ravens “got beaten every way you can get beat” in the words of head coach John Harbaugh.
“Just a complete disappointment, and we’re going to have to find a way to turn it around and figure out who we are this next week and then into the bye,” said Harbaugh, who noted his opinion that the Ravens had a good week of practice leading into Sunday’s defeat. “And after the bye, we’re going to have more than half the season left, and we’re going to have to find ourselves.”
If you were fortunate enough to spend a beautiful fall afternoon doing anything more enjoyable than watching Sunday’s debacle, you missed the Texans not being forced to punt until midway through the fourth quarter. Despite Houston’s offensive line being regarded as one of the NFL’s worst, the Ravens again could neither stop the run nor pressure the quarterback as C.J. Stroud threw four touchdowns and completed 85% of his passes in a display more closely resembling a 7-on-7 drill.
To say this terrible defense is un-Raven-like is the kindest way one could describe coordinator Zach Orr’s group as calls for coaching changes are growing louder and louder despite Harbaugh saying he didn’t believe that’s the answer after Sunday’s loss. The defense was playing poorly even before the injuries to safety Kyle Hamilton, inside linebacker Roquan Smith, and cornerbacks Marlon Humphrey and Chidobe Awuzie with basic fundamentals such as tackling sorely lacking with the exception of the Week 2 win over Cleveland.
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Even acknowledging the impact of injuries and five rookies starting on defense, the many claims about this being the NFL’s best and deepest roster look plain silly right now. It wasn’t lost on at least one veteran Raven that an injury-ravaged San Francisco team found a way to upset the Los Angeles Rams on the road last Thursday night.
Scream about coaching all you want — it’s certainly valid — but the players on the field have to be accountable for this mess as well. The Ravens have looked neither tough nor physical over a three-game losing streak that’s threatening to derail their season before it hits the midway point.
“No excuses, man. No excuses,” outside linebacker Kyle Van Noy said. “I just watched the Niners have injuries and go out there and play football and [win]. No excuses for injuries. We’re professionals. You get paid to play. Gotta play better.”
Offensively, nobody predicted a peak performance against a tough Houston defense with Jackson and left tackle Ronnie Stanley sidelined with injuries, but the Ravens were again unable to run the ball as Derrick Henry managed 33 yards on 15 carries. The regression of this offensive line and the inability of offensive coordinator Todd Monken to find any play-calling answers after an opening-drive field goal did no favors for backup quarterback Cooper Rush, who threw three interceptions in his first start as a Raven.
Yes, it was as ugly as the defense and the opposite of the kind of complementary football in which the Ravens have taken pride playing when at their best. There were breakdowns in every phase of the game, which included penalties thwarting positive momentum on a few different occasions.
One of the biggest compliments you could pay Harbaugh over his 18-year run as head coach has been the resilient response so often exhibited at times when Baltimore has faced adversity and been counted out, which is why many weren’t dismissing the depleted Ravens’ chances entering Sunday. In recent years, one can recall the pesky effort in the infamous 2020 Pittsburgh game littered with COVID-19 absences or the one-point defeats to NFC powerhouses Green Bay and Los Angeles late in the 2021 season when Jackson and a slew of other significant players were out with injuries.
There wasn’t even a hint of circling the wagons in Sunday’s performance, which leads one to question the current state of leadership from Harbaugh and coaches to this team’s veteran players. While no one criticized the effort itself while speaking to reporters in the postgame locker room, Baltimore played like a team with very little belief in its ability to win Sunday. One can debate how much of that is coaching, talent, or an increasingly disconcerting psyche at this point.
8The Ravens should get healthier in the coming weeks, but a 1-4 start has already dug quite an early-season hole that threatens to deepen next week with the status of Jackson and others still in doubt for a clash with the 3-2 Rams. We’ve been calling it gut-check time for a couple weeks now, and the Ravens have only played worse and worse since the second half of the Week 3 loss to Detroit.
At some point, you are what your record says you are, regardless of preseason expectations and hype.
After this latest performance lacking any redeemable qualities, everything needs to be questioned about this football team — from the way it was constructed by general manager Eric DeCosta and the manner it’s coached by Harbaugh to the players themselves.
Where do the Ravens go from here?
One defeat is still only one defeat in the standings, of course, and injuries are indeed a huge factor, especially when it comes to regrouping in the short term. But the lack of fight on display Sunday was startling, especially in front of the home crowd
“Anytime there’s a loss, especially a loss like that, you look at guys and we all evaluate one another just like the coaches do,” Henry said. “If somebody needs to step up and say something, we’ll all do that.
“It’s just tough right now for us, but I know every guy in this locker room still believes in one another. We just have to go do it.”
We’re waiting.
