The Ravens’ default in Derrick Henry’s first two seasons in Baltimore, when times got tough, were simply to ride the workhorse back to stabilize the offense and keep the defense off the field.
And perhaps, once Lamar Jackson returns from an ankle injury that rookie head coach Jesse Minter insisted on calling “day-to-day,” the combination of those two in the backfield will reignite a staggering run game. But there is also serious reason for concern that this 2027 offensive line will be general manager Eric DeCosta’s biggest failure of them all, and that a desperate trade for Cam Jurgens won’t be a panacea, and that Father Time is creeping in on Henry unlike at any time prior in his career.
What has been bread-and-butter – gutting teams with outside zone, winning in short-yardage, and the expected surge from a renewed emphasis on under-center runs – is now more like a moldy croissant – Henry is starting to look like a 32-year-old running back (historically when careers expire at that position as 55 years of data pointed to). And at a time when the Ravens let All-Pro fullback Pat Ricard leave as part of their talent exodus, and with powerful blocking tight end Durham Smythe lost for the season and with this line struggling and their best lineman Vega Ioane, looking a potential absence due to injury, Jackson is likely going to have to boost this thing with legs more than anything else.
Henry’s body language looks different, during and after Sunday's debacle.
He seems to know holes are going to close before they open and he almost sounds defeated. Whether or not his football mortality is peering back at him remains to be seen, but rookie coordinator Declan Doyle is riding him hard – 147 carries leads the NFL and are second in NFL history through seven weeks for a 32-year-old back since the 1970 merger – and now feels like a good time to scheme up some stuff for his understudies. Doyle threatened to run Henry 300 times or more – would be first time in Henry’s career he’s done that three years in a row – but perhaps they need a rethink.
“Got to be better,” Henry said after averaging 2.9 yards/carry Sunday. “It's not good enough. Terrible. I'm looking at myself. I think every man can look in the mirror, but as far as myself, I can speak on me.
“It's not good enough at all. We got to figure it out. Everybody evaluates themselves, coaches are going to evaluate and we can go from there. It's just not good enough at all for us to be able to win games and be able to string drives together [and] have an impact on the game as far as the running game."
Henry needs help at this stage of his career and he’s not getting it. Baltimore’s 1.33 yards before contact are the team’s lowest since 2010, their 4.7 yards/carry as a team is the lowest since 2018, before Jackson was the full-season QB. Defenses are picking up keys and tells and shutting down inside runs and the pitch plays. Minter seems to think Doyle needs to find solutions.
“Any time you look at specifically the run game, to me, it's - what are you asking the guys to do,” Minter said Monday. “Can they do what you're asking them to do when you go to the line, to the tight ends, to the wide receivers?
“Obviously, we lost one of our key blocking tight ends a few weeks back, and so it's like, what are we asking some of these younger guys to do? Can they do it? Can we be good at the things that we're asking them to do? So, I think it's just a constant search for the schemes, the plays, what you're asking the guys to do.”
Henry is averaging 3.9/carry – 26th in the NFL and his lowest through seven games since 2019. These three areas beg major questions:
Outside Zone
This was a cheatcode for Henry his first two years here. And maybe when Jackson comes back it will be again. But left tackle Ronnie Stanley isn’t special anymore, and the interior offensive line, sans Ioane, has a chance to be one of the worst in the NFL.
The Ravens averaged 5.9 yards/carry running outside zone in 2024-20425, which had a lot do with Henry winning a quadruple crown in that span – most carries (632), most rushing yards (3516, nearly 300 more than anyone else) with 32 rushing TDs and 5.6 yards/carry. That run will not continue this season.
Henry's 3.9 yards/carry is the average for all 32-year-old backs since 1970, and Baltimore is at 4.9 yards/carry on outside zone. The last three weeks Henry has 94 yards on 27 carries on outside zone (3.5/carry). They have faced bad perimeter rushing defenses in recent weeks and bad defenses against outside zone, and been stymied, anyway.
“We (have) to search for those better answers on how people are playing us,” Doyle said after Sunday’s’ game when the offense failed to score again in the second half.
Under Center
Henry ran more under center than anyone in the NFL in Tennessee before joining the top shotgun offense in the NFL, in terms of usage, in Baltimore. Doyle made getting under center a major emphasis this offseason, but DeCosta let an All-Pro center leave in free agency and replaced him with cheap journeymen who got hurt and now they have no under-center run game.
We’ll see how much Jurgens helps. Baltimore averaged a season-low 0.30 yards before contact Sunday. The last four weeks he is averaging 3.7/carry on under-center runs, 27th in the NFL.
Short Yardage
Third-and-1 has been a disaster around here since around the middle of last season. Turns out firing Todd Monken as offensive coordinator – he is a front-runner for NFL Coach of the Year in Cleveland nearing the midpoint – wasn’t a solution there. This is now worse than ever.
The Wild Cat stuff works every once in a while, but I suspect Jackson on bootlegs and keepers will be a calling card when he comes back. The Ravens third-down run conversion rate (40.9) is their lowest since 2003 – yeah, 2003 – and they rank 29th in the NFL in third-and-one and fourth-and-one rushing this season.
A bad offensive line undermined this offense a year ago. It could do so on a much grander scale this year.
Subscribe To "The Daily Flock" For Elite Ravens Content And Conversations:
Add us as a preferred source on Google