Baltimore Ravens fall to Kansas City Chiefs: Take-home points
By Darin McCann
A loss we can learn from:
• The Ravens run defense got bashed today, but I’m not going to sweat this too much after this game. They were obviously keyed in on Mahomes, and Reid is great at knowing when to take advantage of teams that sell out to stop one phase of his offense. You know what else he is great at? The screen game, and that killed the Ravens all game. Mahomes is going to get his deep hits. Defenses can’t allow the Chiefs to pick up free first downs on screen passes.
• Judon is so consistently active to this point of the season — rushing the passer, setting the edge, even dropping back. Penalties aside, he is an ascending player and apparently popular in the locker room. I’d love for the Ravens to extend Judon and Ronnie Stanley. And soon.
• There is no shame in losing to Kansas City, particularly when the team didn’t play that well. If the Ravens see the Chiefs in the playoffs, they don’t go into that game scared, regardless of where it was. A good performance by the Ravens today could have won that game. They aren’t the Chiefs yet, but they aren’t far behind them.
• I was surprised the Ravens didn’t appear to try more short passes to Marquise Brown after the success they had last week taking advantage of his short-area quickness and sure hands. Of course, you can’t see everything that the defense is doing on the broadcast, either, so that could have been taken away.
Next. Inexcusable play-calling leads to Baltimore Ravens loss vs. KC. dark
• If the Ravens beat the Browns next week they will be 3-1, with the lead in the AFC North. All is good. But it will be nice to get Jimmy Smith back, and, you know, any other reinforcements who might be coming.
• Nick Boyle might be my favorite Raven. He blocks with both technique and ferocity, is a better receiver than he is credited as being and never misses a chance to try to hurdle somebody. He plays with a joy for the game. And malice. Lots of malice.