Ravens HC John Harbaugh appeared to put his coaching staff on notice Tuesday, repeatedly chiding decisions during his press conference. Repeatedly throughout his media availability, he pointed to coaching decisions on offense that raise some eyebrows. The pattern of comments perhaps puts OC Todd Monken under the spotlight—meanwhile, it’s DC Zach Orr who is under pressure from the outside.
This isn’t just a Steelers blog’s perspective, I should make abundantly clear. It was former Ravens.com editor Sarah Ellison who portrayed Harbaugh’s comments in that light, using the word “blasted” multiple times. And she brought the receipts, highlighting numerous comments critical of the offense.
On an interception Lamar Jackson threw, Harbaugh criticized the play call. “It wasn’t a play where we put our guys in the right position in that situation. I’m not happy with it at all”, he said. He also took shots at a fourth-down play call. “You go for it, and you don’t have a good plan. You just don’t. You don’t have a good plan. We didn’t do a good job at all, and we all know it”, he added. “It’s all bad”.
Mind you, Harbaugh didn’t name any specific coaches, including Ravens OC Todd Monken. But the buck stops at the coordinator, after all. The question is, why was he so critical of the offensive coaching when the defense is so bad? They’ve allowed 37 points or more in three of their four games this year, which seems like a bigger issue.
Harbaugh also had choice words for several other concerns about the Ravens’ offense. When asked about FB Patrick Ricard’s usage relative to how much they ran the ball, he said that had nothing to do with it. Instead, he said, “we should’ve been running the ball on a number of those, or have some more creative passes than just drop-back passes in those situations”. And he called out the predictability of the offense when RB Derrick Henry is on the field.
The Ravens did have their worst day on offense on Sunday against the Chiefs; that much is true. They scored just 20 points, losing by 17, having scored at least 30 in each of their first three games. While they still put up 360 yards, it didn’t amount to much.
Of course, you don’t go 1-3 to start the season without some issues, but the Ravens’ problems seem to be more on defense than what John Harbaugh’s critical comments on Tuesday might suggest. After all, they are now 1-3 while scoring 20 points in every game. They are 1-2 when they score 30-plus points, their only win coming against a team that hasn’t scored more than 17. And that team, the Browns, scored 17 against them.
So, yeah. Things seem to be going well in Baltimore right now.
