Week 1 was all over the place, but it was amazing to have football back, no matter how sloppy most of it ultimately was. There are a lot of takeaways to dig through from the first week of the season from the supernova experience of Anthony Richardson, to competing theories on running back value. This week’s Four Verts column starts in Baltimore, where no one should be hitting the panic button just yet.
Ravens defense will be just fine
Someone has to lose, even when two elite teams take the stage. The Ravens are currently 0-1 after losing a heartbreaker to the Chiefs at Arrowhead on opening night, but sometimes that happens against the team that’s won back-to-back Super Bowls. Baltimore has undergone a lot of change this offseason, with one of their biggest losses coming when defensive coordinator Mike Macdonald was hired to oversee the Seattle Seahawks as their head coach. Linebackers coach Zach Orr was promoted to defensive coordinator and was immediately tasked with slowing down the best quarterback in football. It didn’t quite go as planned, but there isn’t any reason to panic about this defense yet.
First: The Ravens defense still has a ton of good football players. Roquan Smith, Kyle Hamilton, Marlon Humphrey, Nnamdi Madubuike and Marcus Williams are five legitimate cornerstone players on that side of the ball. Then there’s still the young contributors they would like to continue developing like Nate Wiggins, David Ojabo, Travis Jones, Odafe Oweh, Trenton Simpson and others. They have enough depth to pair with the star power to make sure that they can endure the rigors of an NFL season, even if some of their younger players are still figuring out life in the NFL.
That talent is incredibly important as they integrate a new defensive coordinator in the midst of trying to finally cash in on regular-season success and win the Super Bowl. The Ravens will always have a high floor on defense as long as these players are healthy. That’s talent that can buoy the ramp-up period for a new coach stepping into a big time role. This isn’t to say that Orr isn’t capable on his own merits, just that it really helps to have players like Roquan Smith on the roster — a very bold statement.
In a weird way, the Ravens should feel OK about how they gave up two of their touchdowns. Both touchdowns scored by Chiefs’ rookie Xavier Worthy are at least fixable mistakes moving forward. The first one was an end-around where they were caught in poor position, out-leveraged and just not fast enough to catch Worthy in space. The good thing is that that’s a rarer play and it’s not likely that the Ravens will see the fastest player in the NFL on a frequent basis on an infrequent play call. The second touchdown was just a flat-out miscommunication that can be patched up quickly. Remember, the Ravens struggled with that early in Macdonald’s first year, particularly against the Dolphins, but they ironed things out quickly. A busted coverage is something that should be able to be fixed, especially for a secondary as talented as the Ravens.
Outside of those two plays, Baltimore should feel fine about how they played. It’s impossible to hold down the Chiefs forever, but they were competitive outside of shooting themselves in the foot on a broken coverage and getting beat on a somewhat-trick play. The end result is fairly disappointing, but at least the Ravens can confidently say they don’t have a personnel problem, which would be nearly impossible to fix at this point of year.
This defense, and team in general, has too many good players to be down for long. That was a matchup between arguably the top two teams in the AFC and there just might be another rematch in the playoffs down the line if each team fulfills their potential.
Eagles-Packers confirmed everyone’s priors about running backs
Josh Jacobs, Saquon Barkley. Congratulations. You made it. After a few years of playing in rough circumstances, two of the best running backs in the league have finally been inserted into environments that are actually conducive for effective running back play. Saquon Barkley left a broken offense with the Giants to go to Philadelphia and play in an offense littered with Pro Bowlers. Josh Jacobs spent last season running into brick walls as a member of the Raiders and is now a focal point for one of the hottest offenses in the NFL. As debates about the value of running back value continue to dominate social media, one thing is true about what Jacobs and Barkley put together: It has everyone feeling like their priors on running back value have been confirmed.
Let me explain. There are essentially two schools of thoughts on running back value. One, that running backs are incredibly replaceable and there isn’t much of a reason to make big investments there because of the low barrier of entry for productive play. Think about how many late-round picks or undrafted running backs have been great players in the NFL — the Shanahan empire is built on it! It’s an easy, defensible stance to take in terms of roster efficiency. This philosophy generally believes that running backs are just beneficiaries to the players around them and have a limited amount of influence over their own success.
There’s also the group that believes talented running backs should be treated like other positions — worth paying. A great running back, in theory, can elevate the floor of any offense to the point where it becomes a bit easier to run an offense that can do a bit of everything. Sure, they may be a bit reliant on their teammates to make something happen, but that can be true of any position and it’s inherently difficult to assign value in a game with so many moving pieces.
Each side has credible, easy to make arguments. Each side also likely saw their point being played out in real time on Friday night in Brazil. Jacobs and Barkley are widely recognized as two of the best running backs of this era of football. It’s been a tough go for them the past few years, but obviously, they still have the juice to be major playmakers on offense. One could say it wasn’t worth it for the Giants or Raiders to pay up for their former running backs due to positional value and there’s merit for that — those offenses were bad even with them on the roster. You could also easily say that they were just hampered by excruciating circumstances, but that shouldn’t completely nuke their value moving forward.
Neither side is really right or wrong, but it might be better to at least think about not just shunning these guys over a certain amount of carries or clowning teams for spending top-100 picks on running backs. A good one is still a great foundation for a team, even if it can be hard to spot greatness in the midst of struggle. Luckily, the Eagles and Packers appear to have seen the light, which is a blessing for NFL fans.
Atlanta’s season is already in serious danger
Ah, the Falcons. The pesky, pesky Falcons. No matter how things may change, everything seems to revert back to the same performance. There was a ton of excitement within the Falcons organization this summer as they prepared to enter the season with Kirk Cousins as the starting quarterback, but all the enthusiasm came to a screeching halt after losing the season opener to the Steelers 18-10. Losing is one thing, but the manner in which they lost was foreboding for the immediate future. Kirk Cousins doesn’t appear to be healthy, putting a hard ceiling on what the Falcons want to accomplish this season.
It’s been out there at this point, but the Falcons’ offense was remarkably stationary during their game against the Steelers. They ran no play action and spent the vast majority of their plays in pistol or shotgun formations to reduce the amount of moving Cousins would have to do. It resulted in an incredibly neutered offense that the Steelers were able to tee off on as the game went on. T.J. Watt looked like a superhero once the Steelers’ defense moved into a positive passing script and Cousins was a sitting target for an elite pass rusher. Bad formula that only resulted in 10 points.
Cousins being hurt and playing hurt is one discussion that can’t really be solved right now. What’s far more important is what’s coming down the schedule. Atlanta has two prime time games over the next two weeks against the Eagles and the Chiefs. Unless there’s rapid improvement in their ability to score, the Falcons are likely staring 0-3 right in the face with how limited this passing game currently is.
Only one team that’s started 0-3 has ever won a playoff game, the 1992 San Diego Chargers. The last team to make it to the playoff after starting 0-3 was the Texans in 2018. Only four teams have made the playoffs ever after starting 0-3, which makes sense. If you start 0-3, you probably aren’t good. Even if you are, you have to be damn near perfect the rest of the way to make the playoffs. A three-game deficit isn’t really anything the Falcons can afford if they wish to play January football this year.
That would be the disaster scenario for Atlanta, but they’re already on the doorsteps of it. Cousins isn’t healthy, just got paid $100 million guaranteed and they can’t put in the backup because he’s a top-10 pick who would immediately cause a real controversy. Win one of these two games, or the season is functionally over. Great times in Atlanta.
Caring about Anthony Richardson’s completion percentage is the wrong way to view him
Anthony Richardson is very, very cool. He’s the rare player that physically resembles the freaks of nature that people create on video games like Madden and College Football 25. Six-foot-4, 244 pounds, skill player speed and a 99 throw power rating. He is breathtaking on the field, shining as a truly elite athlete amongst some of the most athletic people this world has to offer. Richardson returned this weekend from a season-ending injury and just made dazzling play after dazzling play in close loss to the division-rival Texans.
Now, his game wasn’t perfect. His 19 passing attempts went for 212 yards, two touchdowns and an interception, but he only completed nine passes, causing some people to point to his completion percentage as reasons to cool the hype train. Those people are just wrong. In an era where the measurements on the individual effects of each play have been refined, it’s a bit silly to come back and point at completion percentage after seeing a performance like that.
According to NFL Next Gen Stats, Richardson generated 0.13 expected points per dropback, which ranked ninth in the NFL for the first week among all qualifying passers. Even though he completed less than 50% of his passes, the value he provided on those dropbacks ultimately was a strong contribution for the Colts’ offense. Those dropbacks also include scrambles, which he did three times for 32 yards and a touchdown. These are the plays that start to offset what we previously knew and believed about quarterback data. All outcomes can’t be treated the same, especially when those outcomes include one of the craziest throws that any NFL fan has seen.
Every fan needs to take the time to deprogram their mind from their preconceived notions of quarterback efficiency. Even despite Richardson’s misses and an interception, the Colts still scored 27 points and he was a driving force in them scoring those points. In fact, the idea that he can still be a positive presence despite some inconsistencies sets an extremely high floor for the rest of his career. There’s a reason why some teams chase imperfect players at quarterback — can’t teach being able to throw a 65-yard missile under pressure. That’s a gift from the otherworld, and a gift that Richardson absolutely has.
Nothing about Richardson’s game is conventional, which means people should be thinking a bit outside of the box when it comes to his evaluation. This is the floor. Buckle up.
