Ravens: 6 takeaways from Baltimore’s ugly loss to the Bengals in Week 7

The Ravens defense continues to miss tackles

One of our favorite phrases that reporter Jonas Shaffer uses to describe the Ravens’ defense is “tackling optional.” It’s almost as if the Ravens just completely lost their marbles in the tackling department this game.

Baltimore had the 26th-best tackling grade according to PFF heading into the game with the third-most missed tackles in the league. That showed in the Ravens’ floundering performance against a Cincinnati offense that scored a season-high 41 points in Week 7.

Including the C.J. Uzomah touchdown above, a particularly shameful segment of missed Baltimore tackles came in the third quarter, when rookie Ja’Marr Chase ran for an 82-yard touchdown.

Chase is agile and speedy in his own right, but the Ravens had at least three chances to take him down at midfield, but missed their tackles.

That score put the Bengals up 27-17 and started to change the momentum of the game. Anytime your defense starts swiping and tackling the air, it’s never a good sign.

The Ravens offensive line could not stop Cincinnati’s pass rush

Bengals’ edge-rushers sacked Jackson a total of five times with three different players getting on the sack stat sheet.

Clearly, Lamar Jackson is not used to getting sacked that often, and in Week 7, Baltimore’s offensive linemen simply didn’t do a good job keeping him on his feet. The Ravens’ offensive line has fluctuated in recent years, ranked by PFF third best overall in 2019 but 23rd in 2020.

It looks like the offensive line will continue to be as inconsistent as ever.