The Ugly:
Outside of the first drive of the game, the first half was horrible. The four other first half drives included a fumble-six and three punts. The Ravens repeated a frustrating pattern. They dominated in the second half, but set up a tough fight with a bad first half. The Ravens offense ran smoothly in the second half. For the third straight week the Ravens beat a team they should beat, but they made it more interesting than they should have. The Ravens had a scary moment in the game when Jackson had to be evaluated for a concussion. Jackson was cleared to go into the game. While Jackson’s running is exciting this was a tease at the risk he takes.
The Ravens defense gave up a late touchdown that put the Falcons within 10 points. That was frustrating. Baltimore’s offense took care of it, but it could have been a more convincing victory. Overall it was a great victory. There just was a lot of things that need to be worked on. Lamar Jackson is 3-0 as a starter, but there will be plenty of debate about who should start next week. This was Jackson’s big chance to shut the conversation down, and I doubt that he did that this week.
The ugliest part of this game for the Ravens wasn’t even their fault. Marlon Humphrey got penalized for lowering his head to make a hit, and it was a horrible call. Humphrey’s shoulder is what made contact to Julio Jones. It was an obvious mistake by the officials. There were several frustrating penalties that were the Ravens’ fault, including a couple of offsides penalties.