2022 Week 11 Game Recap: Ravens 13, Panthers 3 (By Ross Jacobs)
I feel like every week I keep hitting a new low with these game recaps. I keep thinking “it can't possibly get any worse than this game” and yet every week I am surprised again at the awful level of play. It's not out of the ordinary for Carolina, but I didn't expect Baltimore to look so terrible...
The final score looks bad but honestly it was even worse than that. This game was 6-3 Ravens until the last 8 minutes of the game when Carolina finally collapsed completely. Carolina fumbled after a short catch and the Ravens punched in the final score shortly after. Ball game. Until that point Baltimore wasn't doing anything offensively either.
Baltimore is a decent team but don't look like real contenders to me. They are a game up on Cincy but have a much easier remaining schedule, so they should win the North with little trouble. I'm guessing they'll finish with around 12 wins which might be enough to contend for the #1 seed in the AFC. A first round bye and home field advantage throughout the playoffs would tremendously help their Super Bowl aspirations, but I still think this team is just a little too weak to expect a deep run. Both sides of the ball are solid but unspectacular and they could struggle to keep up with some of the better offenses like KC, Miami, Buf (assuming they right the ship) and even Cincy.
The one real strength of the Ravens now is their run defense. Since they traded for Roquan Smith they haven't even given up 50 yards rushing in a single game. If you have Etienne this week it's something to think about.
Carolina is obviously a dead team walking. They'll be picking either first or second in the 2023 draft and it will 100% be a QB. Unfortunately, right now it appears (to RC and I, not the mainstream) as though none of the rookie QBs will be worth that pick, and they certainly aren't walking into Carolina and fixing this disaster of a roster. That's not entirely fair, they do have the core of a strong defense, but the offense is a complete joke and a QB isn't going to magically fix those issues. Add in the fact that they will likely have to settle for some retread defensive failure of a head coach and this team likely is headed for a very dark time.
One thing to note about Carolina though...the defense isn't bad, not at all, especially now that Frankie Luvu is back. They can still be run on but strangely the pass defense is much tougher when he plays, I assume because he is very good in coverage. It's a tough thing to identify because the sign of good pass defense is that the QB does not throw the ball to an area so there's no “event” to study. I'd need to go back and see if offenses attacked the middle of the field while he was out, but regardless, the numbers back it up. When Luvu plays 80% of the snaps this year the defense is allowing 18.8 ppg and 199 pass ypg. When he plays less than that they average 28.6 ppg and 246.2 pass ypg. Don't be surprised if Carolina upsets Denver this week on the back of their defense.
Fantasy Player Notes:
– Weeks 1-3 Lamar Jackson had 10 TD passes and 2 rushing TDs. He went over 200 passing yards all three games including a 300 yard game and he went over 100 yards rushing twice. From weeks 4-11, Lamar has thrown 6 passing TDs, rushed for only 1 TD, has thrown for over 200 yards only three times and never gone over even 250, and hasn't rushed for 100 yards even once.
This has happened every single year since that magical 2019 season. Lamar has 2-3-4 amazing games a year and then a bunch of ok ones, and yet the mainstream continues to latch onto him as some amazing weapon of destruction in both real life and fantasy. They ignore all his mediocre games and love to jump up and down screaming whenever he has an outlier game. “See! I TOLD you Lamar was elite!!” He is a good player as I discuss every single time I do a Baltimore recap, but the reality, the on-field metrics say that the popular perception of him is much greater than what he's actually doing. Of course, if they were to get him some actual wide receivers to throw to, like what Miami did for Tua, I would jump on board again. That version of Lamar I could get behind. But in his current state he's just ok.
– Demarcus Robinson has surpassed Devin Duvernay as the #1 option among the WRs, but I can't get excited about it. We've seen over and over again that the top receiver here just can't reliably put up numbers and Robinson is by far worse than some of the other guys they've had like Marquise. Robinson wasn't doing anything special here I can promise you. He just happened to be open a few times, a couple of times because his defender slipped, and Lamar found him. Don't expect him to come close to these numbers every week. The only option you want from this passing game is Mark Andrews now that he's healthy again.
– Ditto the RBs. There's just nowhere to run, Lamar eats up half the rushing total, and they don't get many checkdowns. When/if Gus Edwards comes back he'll be the only game in town and should be a nice RB2. Dobbins might be ready by the playoffs but probably not before. They'll try to get him healthy and not rush him back.
– I hope I don't have to say it again but I will anyways...don't start any Carolina receivers. We might see a tick up for DJ Moore because Darnold is starting and loves to throw those 5 yard out routes to him, but it's not suddenly going to make Moore a WR1 or anything. Moore might be flex worthy now though.
– I'm legitimately surprised the Panthers haven't cut Shi Smith by now. He's been doing his best Melvin Gordon impression and fumbling away half his touches. He has been without a doubt the single worst WR I've had to watch this year and I knew it the first time I saw him. I don't know what happened to him since college but he looks like a totally different player and not in a good way. Maybe he just needs a new home to reset his career.
– The masses already didn't trust D'Onta Foreman before this game and this will scare them off for sure. But I highly recommend trying to trade for him cheaply coming off this down game. It's not a Foreman issue. He looks fine, still baby Derrick Henry. What held him down here was the suddenly very salty Baltimore run defense anchored by Roquan Smith. Carolina simply abandoned the run midway through the game because they weren't getting anything, and Hubbard is the passing downs back. Foreman has a very favorable remaining schedule of run defenses to face and he is definitely “the guy.” Don't overpay but try to steal him for RB3 prices. He's an RB1 hopeful the rest of the year.
– RIP Baker Mayfield. I truly believe this is the last time we see him start. It's sad really. He really isn't as bad as the mainstream thinks. That first year in Cleveland wasn't a fluke. But unfortunately sometimes this happens in the NFL when a QB isn't given any support. You try quarterbacking for Cleveland and Carolina with no offensive line or decent receivers. Either way, I doubt Baker will stick around as a 10 year backup. I know he loves the game but he's prideful and will want to be starting. With no market this next off-season he'll sign a 1-year deal somewhere and ride it out then fade off into the sunset as he realizes he hates holding a clipboard.
IDP Notes:
– My boy Frankie Luvu is finally fully healthy again and starting to heat up. 22 total tackles his last two games and not coincidentally the entire defense is playing much better in that time frame as well, allowing just 14 ppg. This is a different defense with him on the field and not one to be taken likely.
Snap Counts of Interest:
64 = Andrews
22 = Likely
58 = Duvernay
54 = Robinson
35 = Drake
28 = Hill
56 = Moore
53 = Marshall
34 = Shi
31 = Thomas
21 = Tremble
23 = Hubbard
22 = Foreman
