Baltimore Ravens beat Giants: Good, bad and the ugly

The Bad:

The Ravens could have won this game by a wider margin. Some things were frustrating in this game. For example, the secondary got worked a little more than you would have liked to see, even with them being shorthanded. Sterling Shepard had nine catches for 77 yards and the Giants’ lone touchdown. Evan Engram had seven grabs for 65 yards. The Giants were able to exploit the thin secondary with their matchups of choice. It was their one path of moving the football.

The Ravens held the Giants to a 1 out of 10 third-down conversion success rate. That sounds like a good thing, right? Well, the Giants had 24 first downs. An interesting thing to note is that the Ravens efficient offense got them 25 first downs in this battle. The Giants got too many first downs in this game from penalties called on the Ravens and from big plays in the air.

The Ravens had 10 penalties in the game, which is double the amount applied to the Giants by the officials. Patrick Mekari got hurt in the game and it forced Matt Skura to resume his duties at the center position. Skura had a few bad snaps. None of these stats were as damaging or as drastic as they were against the New England Patriots game, yet it wasn’t pretty. This was the one problem the offensive line had against the Giants. It creates some pause if the Ravens have to rely on Skura at the center position.

The Ravens had a compelling win but it wasn’t overly sharp. It was far from perfect and the mistakes they made kept this from being an absolute beatdown of the Giants. This should have been another 40 point performance by the Ravens. In the end, it was a win but any one of these things could have been a problem against a better team. That’s something to take seriously as the playoffs are almost here (presuming the Ravens can beat the Bengals next week.