Baltimore Ravens 2020 season: The good, bad and the ugly

The ugly:

Penalties were a huge problem for the purple and black. The Ravens had 104 penalties for 964 total yards. That’s a big hit. Rest assured a shocking number of those penalties were on illegal formations. Having 15 players on the field against the Browns still strikes me as one of the worst penalties. This was an undisciplined team.

Jackson only had 2,757 yards through the air, which isn’t a great number. Jackson pressed as a passer early in the season. Forced throws were more of a problem this year than they were in his MVP campaign. Jackson’s pick-six against the Bills in the playoffs was the epitome of a forced throw.

When the Ravens needed the passing game to work for them against the Buffalo Bills it didn’t. It was a problem all year long though. Marquise Brown and Mark Andrews tied for the lead in receptions with 58. Willie Snead had 33.

Duvernay had 20. Mike Boykin had 19. Boykin, who was supposed to have a break out year, had five more receptions than Nick Boyle. Boyle is a blocking tight end who went down nine games into the season. The Ravens don’t have enough talent in the passing game. It’s not all on their quarterback, yet he needs to improve moving forward. A lot of Ravens have to do better. Before you ask, yes Greg Roman’s passing concepts go in the ugly category, it’s one big mess.

The Ravens lost a playoff game the same way for three years in a row. The offense sputtered, things got ugly and the team underperformed. There’s no getting around that. The playoff game against the Bills was so ugly there isn’t a proper adjective to describe it. Profoundly putrid is as close as it gets, I guess.

The Ravens lost a playoff game putting up three points. It speaks for itself.

Let’s move on to the defense. Matt Judon didn’t have the career year Baltimore was awaiting. He didn’t have a bad year, though he’s probably not earning that mega-deal from the Ravens. The pass rush was the main concern for this team all year long. It wasn’t good enough. Even after trading for Yannick Ngakoue, Judon led the team with six sacks. The Ravens need a pass rusher.

The ugly section can’t be complete without talking about the regular season contest against the Titans. The Ravens crumbled. The defense carried A.J. Brown into the endzone as if they wanted him to score a touchdown. Derrick Henry had a long touchdown run in overtime and the defense folded like a square of Ledo’s pizza. The pizza is delicious that game was unappetizing though.

There you have it. This is just a brief look at the good, bad, and the ugly. I could have said more in each spot, the point was to properly summarize the season’s strengths and weaknesses.