OWINGS MILLS, Md. — Ravens coaches and players are surely going over game tape with a fine-toothed comb at the Ravens team facility Friday after what can be called destruction by Dolphin Thursday evening in South Florida.
"When you lose like this, you know, it's... the first thing you have to do is look in the mirror and figure out what I can do to help the team win the football game," said defensive end Calais Campbell.
They won’t like what’s looking back at them.
It was as ugly a game as we’ve seen in the Lamar Jackson era. A 22-10 loss, to a now three-win Miami team, that was way worse than that 12-point margin of defeat. On offense it was another slow start from which they never recovered.
"We’ve been slow each and every week and it's ridiculous," said quarterback Lamar Jackson. "I don't understand it either. We just got to do a better job at that. You know, hit the ground running, like we’re supposed to."
Held to only three points until about four minutes left in the game, what gave Lamar and the offense fits was the Dolphins' blitz. All night there was constant pressure.
"[They were in] cover zero the majority of the whole game. They just had a guy hot each and every time. I was dropping back, just couldn't do anything about that," said Jackson.
'Cover zero' is when the defense brings heavy pressure on the quarterback. They play man coverage on the outside with no safety help deep. The Ravens expected that going in and still couldn’t figure it out.
"We worked on it all week. We didn’t have a good enough plan for it as a group and we didn’t execute the plan that we had," said head coach John Harbaugh.
On defense the big plays continued to haunt the Ravens
"I guess you are what you put on film in the game, and that's kind of been our Achilles heel, you know? Even when we play good, good, good – a slip up here – good, good, good – a slip up there, a slip up, bad quarter. We’ve got to communicate better through the secondary and then throughout the whole defense as a whole," said cornerback Marlon Humphrey.
Humphrey added this game should be 'a wake-up call' for the Ravens. They have some extra time to think about it. Their next game comes on Sunday, Nov. 21, in Chicago.
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