Baltimore Ravens have grown a lot since their last battle with Chiefs
The Baltimore Ravens team that took one of their two losses to the Kansas City Chiefs in 2019 is not the same team the Chiefs will play on Monday Night Football:
The biggest difference for the Baltimore Ravens third crack at stopping the Chiefs is the amount of turnover they have had on the defensive side of the ball. The last time Baltimore played Kansas City they didn’t have Marcus Peters and Jimmy Smith was out of action. Having both of those defensive backs could make a real impact against an MVP quarterback. The Ravens didn’t have Patrick Queen, Calais Campbell, Derek Wolfe or Malik Harrison either. The Chiefs may have put up 33 points on the Ravens, yet they did that against a completely different defense.
Think about how different that defense really was. The leading tacklers in that game were Kenny Young, Tony Jefferson and Patrick Onwuasor. The Ravens had Brandon Carr and Maurice Canady in the secondary. No wonder Patrick Mahomes had three touchdowns in the game. Earl Thomas was the starting free safety. Chris Wormley, who the Ravens willingly traded to the Pittsburgh Steelers of all teams was starting at defensive end.
There are two things that are important to remember about last season. First, the Chiefs got the Ravens at the right time. They saw the Ravens before they traded for Peters, which was one of the most impacting trades in franchise history. They saw the Ravens before Don Martindale figured out what he needed to do and before Baltimore had sufficiently patched up their defensive issues.
Look what happened the next week against the Browns, the purple and black may have gone 14-2 yet at that point in the season they just weren’t right. The second thing you have to remember is that this is a brand new match up.
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The offense is mostly the same with a change here or there, but the offense has grown. Jackson has grown as a quarterback and Greg Roman has learned about the potential pitfalls of getting off of the Ravens style of play. We have to remember that despite Jackson being the MVP of the 2019 season in the third week of the year it was still at the experiment stage.
Marquise Brown looks like a different player this year and that makes him even more of a big play threat. Miles Boykin has seven receptions for 75 yards in the first two contests of the 2020 season. It may not be overly impressive in the box score, yet he’s playing at a level he wasn’t at a year ago. Jackson now knows that he can trust Boykin to make the play when it comes his way.
The bottom line:
The past meetings of the Ravens and the Chiefs are oddly irrelevant to this Monday Night Football game. The Chiefs will be playing essentially a completely different defense. They also get Jackson at the wrong time in this game, right when he’s reaching a new peak of performance and after a lot of growth as a player.
Next. Ravens vs. Chiefs: Who has the edge at each position. dark
The Ravens and Chiefs have developed a bit of a rivalry. These teams know what this game means, but these are not the same two teams that met last season. This is a brand new match up with some familiar faces. The course of this rivalry can be rewritten in the Ravens’ favor on Monday night.