The juxtaposition of the way the Ravens and the Panthers are entering Week 8 is palpable.
The Panthers are coming off the largest fourth-quarter comeback in franchise history, rallying from three scores down in the final eleven minutes of the game to win a wild matchup against the defending Super Bowl champs in their own buidling – compare that to Baltimore, who is coming off a game in which they went toe-to-toe with the NFC South leading Saints, drove 81 yards for what appeared to be the game-tying touchdown with less than a minute on the clock only to see their franchise kicker, Justin Tucker, who hadn’t missed an extra point in his entire career push the kick wide right and send the Baltimore fans home unhappy.
Add to that a matchup of two teams that desperately need wins to keep pace with their division leaders – the Panthers remain a game behind the Saints and the Ravens are percentage points behind the Steelers in what may be the most competitive division in football – and Sunday’s game is incredibly important for both sides. Can the Panthers use their frantic comeback to propel them forward? Will the Ravens let an unlikely ending define their season?
Our in-depth preview is below:
Five Players To Watch
Greg Olsen, TE
27.7% of the receptions allowed by the Ravens have gone to tight ends – including a short touchdown to Benjamin Watson last week against the Saints – and if Olsen is going to get back to being his old self, it’s likely to be after he’s been back for a few weeks to get into the swing of things.
“I think he’s starting to build into it,” Ron Rivera said about his tight end that has caught just half of his 12 targets for only 53 yards since returning. “I thought last week he most certainly moved better than the previous week against the Redskins so it was good to see him, especially down the stretch out on the field. He did look spry – he looked like he still had some gas left, whereas some guys come in after a four or five week hiatus and they’re not as well conditioned as Greg is. He’s got to get his footing back under him and I think he’ll be fine.”
Olsen will likely see some of veteran safety Eric Weddle, but the Panthers will move him all over the line to get the matchup they want.
Lamar Jackson, QB
Photo Credit: Mitch Stringer/USA Today Sports
The way the Ravens have used Lamar Jackson has been interesting to say the least, giving their first-round pick that many expect to be the quarterback of the future in Baltimore 59 snaps thus far and having him use his legs on 20 of them – including the first touchdown of his career last week against the Saints. He’s certainly caught the eye of a certain quarterback in Carolina.
“He’s got a little bit more life in his legs than I do. A little bit more wiggle. I’ll be trying to take some notes out of his book,” Cam Newton said this week with a smile. “Very, very exceptional talent Lamar is. I’ve been watching him for a long time.”
While Jackson has made it clear that he’s hoping to swap jerseys with Newton, it will be up to the quarterback on the defense, Luke Kuechly, to keep an eye on Jackson every time he’s on the field – the Ravens line him up at multiple positions and move him around pre-snap to try and create confusion. And don’t forget about Joe Flacco when he’s lined up at wide receiver; one of these days he’s going to lull a cornerback to sleep and get behind him for the most elite touchdown you’ll ever see.
From Week 1 against the Bills: Ravens use Jackson on an end around, but Buffalo sniffs that out so he turns around and fires this pass too high for Willie Snead
Now, keep in mind the Ravens still managed to score a touchdown on this same drive. Zoinks, Buffalo! pic.twitter.com/bPlVk2teZd
— The Riot Report (@RRiotReport) October 25, 2018
Terrell Suggs, LB
Photo Credit: Patrick Smith/Getty Images
Terrell Suggs was drafted in 2003. He’s played 220 games. He has 131 career sacks and 37 forced fumbles over his incredible career. Suggs is 36 years old.
He’s also leading the Ravens in sacks this season with 5.5 after piling up 11 in 2017. Even though Suggs only plays about 66% of the snaps, he still manages to make an impact as a premier pass rusher and a handful for any offensive lineman that has to handle him – he stands up before the snap so he will move all around the defense; as Torrey Smith said today, “He looks like the same guy as when I was there as a rookie!”
Norv Turner thinks the same thing.
“He’s unbelievable,” said Turner. “To think what he’s doing, there’s a lot of guys who play into their thirties and all that, but when you’re playing at defensive end and you’ve taken the amount of contact he has, he’s really, really impressive. He picks his spots and he can change a game real fast.”
Christian McCaffrey, RB
Yes. We realize the Ravens are ranked #1 in total defense and have allowed 64 points in their last five games combined; we realize that McCaffrey has only 194 yards on 50 carries in the games other than his 184-yard masterful performance in Week 3 – but McCaffrey may be the key to the game even though the Ravens have allowed 3.45 yards per carry and 90 yards from scrimmage to opposing running backs. It was the Saints reliance on the run game – they ran the ball 39 times last week that both kept the Ravens offense off the field and allowed the Saints to win the time of possession battle while wearing down the Ravens defense; the Panthers won the time of possession battle the first four games but couldn’t manage even 25 minutes of possession the past two weeks.
Expect a heavy dose of McCaffrey – this may even be the week where the Panthers use CJ Anderson to keep that clock running.
Curtis Samuel, WR
Five touches, two touchdowns.
That’s what Samuel has managed to do in the three weeks he’s been healthy, and we may see even more of both Samuel and rookie DJ Moore with Torrey Smith not practicing all week; the Panthers have six wide receivers on the roster for just a situation like this, and we’d expect we’ll see more of Samuel, Moore, Jarius Wright and even Damiere Byrd.
“It’s kind of the way we’ve been doing it,” said Norv Turner about the plan if Smith is out. “[If] he’s out of the rotation, I think it’s going to give Curtis more chances and DJ more chances – we’ve played all of those guys, all six of them caught balls last game, I’d expect all five of them that are healthy [to] play.”
Ron Rivera thinks the team won’t be as reliant on Samuel, they’ll be looking for help from their entire receiving corps.
“All of them,” said Rivera when asked who he thought would step up. “It’s not really about one guy and I’d like to believe that that’s true because last week, all six receivers caught passes; I believe that all five of them, if Torrey can’t play, will step up and make plays.”
Four Matchups That Matter
John Brown vs. Donte Jackson
Only four wideouts in the NFL have over 500 yards, four touchdowns and are averaging over 15 yards per catch – AJ Green, Deandre Hopkins, Tyreek Hill….and John Brown. After battling injuries in Arizona, Brown has broken out thus far this season and the #1 wideout for the Ravens will be a tough cover for James Bradberry, who will likely be tasked with eliminating Brown for most of the game – but it will be the plays where he is lined up against Jackson that will be much more fun to watch, simply because of the pure speed the two share.
“He’s the kind of guy that you’ve got to address,” said Ron Rivera. “The things that I worry about moreso than anything else are when he gets up over the top of people – that’s the thing that’s more impressive. A lot of guys make catches over the middle but guys that go vertical and get up over the top and makes those kinds of catches, that’s what you worry about as a guy that calls plays because you want to be able to keep that ball in front of you so you can line up again.”
Luke Kuechly had a a more interesting description for Brown: “He’s got different speed.”
Jackson’s got ‘different’ speed too, and it might behoove the Panthers to let the rookie line up against Brown if he proves too quick for Bradberry.
John Harbaugh vs. Ron Rivera
The past two weeks, the Panthers have come out flat, falling down 17 points to both the Redskins and the Eagles; if they do that again, they’ll have a real issue scoring late against the Ravens, who hadn’t allowed a touchdown in the second half before allowing two last week to the Saints. Harbaugh and Rivera go way back after spending time together on Andy Reid’s staff in Philadelphia from 1999-2003 and are now two of the longest tenured coaches in the NFL.
Julius Peppers vs. Orlando Brown, Jr.
Two consecutive games with strip-sacks for Peppers may be a sign that the man with the fourth-highest sack total in NFL history is finally getting his legs under him after not participating in training camp or the preseason; with right tackle James Hurst likely out for a second straight week, it will be up to the rookie Brown to handle Peppers, Efe Obada, and perhaps even Wes Horton. The Ravens rank in the top ten in terms of both sacks allowed and quarterback pressures and didn’t allow a sack or commit a penalty in last week’s loss to the Saints – if the Panthers aren’t able to get pressure on Flacco, he’ll be able to pick them apart. The Ravens have lost three games – they’ve allowed double digits pressures in each of those losses.
Joe Flacco vs. Luke Kuechly
Joe Flacco is on pace to have the most yards of his career in 2018 and the reason might be volume – he’s third in the league from an attempt standpoint with 43.3 attempts per game; Flacco has been especially excellent on third down, where he has 470 yards and five touchdowns on his way to converting 46.3% of third downs. While the Panthers may not have dominated on defense, their ability to get off the field – they only allow 32.8% conversion rate on third down – has been fourth best in the NFL. The way Kuechly moves the defense around pre-snap and adjust to the offense’s formation will always make a difference, but it might be a key this weekend against the Ravens.
“The good quarterbacks can figure out the coverage before the ball is snapped and so if you can confuse him, you can get away with a couple of blitzes and hopefully a couple of interceptions,” said Eric Reid.
Kuechly is the key to that confusion.
Up Next: Will CJ Anderson Get On The Field? And Much More!
