Redskins vs. Ravens: Postgame Grades, Notes and Quotes for Baltimore
The Baltimore Ravens were back at home this week for a date with the Washington Redskins in their third preseason game.
Week 3 of the preseason is often used as a dress rehearsal by NFL teams, so a team's performance in this game is often a good indicator of how good or bad it may be at that time.
For the Ravens, this game was exactly the kind of bounce-back performance they needed after last week's 40-17 loss to the Philadelphia Eagles. That game saw Joe Flacco throw two interceptions on Baltimore's two offensive possessions.
Against Washington, Flacco opened the game on fire by throwing a 63-yard touchdown to Steve Smith Sr. to give the Ravens a quick 7-0 lead. This came after the offense didn't get on the board versus the Eagles last week until the fourth quarter.
As for the defense, Baltimore also opened the game strong by forcing Kirk Cousins into an interception on Washington's first offensive possession. Terrell Suggs picked off an errant pass to give the Ravens the ball back after scoring on their opening possession.
However, Baltimore would settle for a field goal after the offense stalled on the ensuing drive starting at the Washington 30-yard line.
Justin Tucker came on and hit a 31-yard field goal to give Baltimore an early 10-0 lead. The defense would respond with another big drive as it stopped Washington on 4th-and-1 after the Redskins drove to Baltimore's 40-yard line.
Flacco would guide the offense right back down the field before Tucker hit a 48-yard field goal to give the Ravens a 13-0 lead in the second quarter. After the defense got another stop, Baltimore's offense again was on the move as Flacco continued to pick apart the Redskins defense.
However, the game would begin to get out of hand for the Ravens after a fight broke out. It led to Smith Sr. being ejected after he had caught four passes for 95 yards to that point in the first half.
Once the game resumed, Baltimore would continue to drive into Redskins territory but ended up settling for a 46-yard field-goal attempt, which Tucker missed.
That left Baltimore leading 13-0, but everything continued to go downhill from there. The Ravens slowly put their backups and third-stringers into the game as Washington's offense began to come alive.
Washington would score 31 unanswered points over the rest of the game before ultimately winning 31-13. This is a deceiving final score, though, as Baltimore was dominating when the starters were in the game.
Still, seeing the backups get crushed the rest of the way was not an encouraging sight. It shows just how thin Baltimore is at some positions.
Regardless, the Ravens are now 1-2 in the preseason heading into next week's finale against the Atlanta Falcons. Here's a look at our grades and notes from Saturday's game.
Position Grades for Ravens
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| Position | Grade |
| QB | B+ |
| RB | D |
| WR/TE | C+ |
| OL | B |
| DL | A- |
| LB | B+ |
| DB | C |
| Special Teams | B+ |
| Coaching | B+ |
For the most part, all of the Ravens' units had better performances against the Redskins than they had last week against the Eagles. Joe Flacco looked like a different quarterback this week while completing eight of his 13 passes for 137 yards and a 63-yard passing score in just less than two quarters of work.
Flacco had a great game despite getting almost nothing from the ground attack. Baltimore running backs finished the night with a mere 56 yards on 24 carries and no scores. It was a horrendous showing against a Washington defense that is above-average at best.
To be fair, the offensive line wasn't doing much to open up running lanes for the backs to work with. The line did well in pass protection when Flacco was in the game but melted down once the backups came on the field.
The line allowed backup quarterback Matt Schaub to be sacked three times in about two quarters. That isn't going to cut it.
As for the defense, it's pretty much the same story. The starters were outstanding in shutting down the Redskins offense, and a lot of it was because of the front seven.
The starting defensive line and linebackers rarely allowed the Redskins to gain anything on the ground. As the backups rotated in, Washington's ground game came alive as it begin ripping off big runs.
Linebacker Terrell Suggs did make a nice interception that led to a Ravens' field goal early in the game. That would be the only turnover Baltimore forced.
As nose tackle Brandon Williams told Jeff Zrebiec of the Baltimore Sun, it was good to see the starting defense play so well when they were in.
"It feels good to start fast like that and execute," Williams said. "Now, we just need to continue that as we keep working forward. Tonight gives us a boost. It's good to see that the 'ones' are out there fighting and starting fast. We'll be ready to go into the first week, and we'll be ready to execute."
As for the secondary, it looked shaky even when the starters were in, and it only got worse as the game wore on. The defensive backs allowed big play after big play as Washington quarterbacks completed 30 of their 39 passes for 285 yards and three scores.
The special teams performed adequately in this one, highlighted by kicker Justin Tucker hitting two of his three field-goal attempts.
Asa Jackson looked good as a kickoff returner after taking one of his attempts 103 yards down to the Washington 1-yard line. However, backup running back Buck Allen fumbled the ball away at the goal line to kill the scoring opportunity.
Important Note No. 1: Steve Smith Still Has It
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Baltimore's pass-catchers will look significantly different when the 2015 season opens than they did in 2014.
That's because Baltimore lost its No. 1 wide receiver (Torrey Smith) in free agency this offseason. The Ravens replaced him with UCF receiver Breshad Perriman with their first-round pick in this year's NFL draft.
However, Perriman has missed the entire preseason with a knee injury, which left other Baltimore receivers to step up in his absence. On this night, it was the veteran Steve Smith Sr. who answered the call while showing he still has blazing speed at 36 years of age.
On Baltimore's first possession, he caught a 20-yard pass and then picked up another 40 yards as he blazed past multiple Redskins defenders on his way to the end zone for a 63-yard score.
Smith's fire on and off the field was evident in this game. When he wasn't speeding by Washington defenders, he was fighting with cornerback Chris Culliver.
That led to Smith getting ejected midway through the second quarter. He finished with four catches for 95 yards in about one-and-a-half quarters of work.
That's not too shabby for the veteran, who doesn't appear to have lost a step since leading the Ravens in catches (79) and receiving yards (1,065) in 2014.
This is exactly what Baltimore needed from him with its receiving unit being so thin.
Important Note No. 2: Joe Flacco
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Joe Flacco had a putrid performance against the Philadelphia Eagles last week that he needed to rebound from this week.
Last week, Flacco finished the game with 3-of-7 passing for 37 yards and two interceptions while failing to lead the offense on a scoring drive. With Baltimore's pass-catchers looking so different this year, it brought about concern that maybe he's not jelling with this new group.
He and the rest of the offense dispelled that notion this week as Flacco looked great in just less than two quarters of work against Washington. He finished the night having completed eight of his 13 attempts for 137 yards and a score.
In classic Flacco fashion, he was more willing to pump up his teammates after the game than talk about himself, according to Jeff Zrebiec of the Baltimore Sun.
"I was really happy with the way the guys stepped up and really happy with the way the receivers played,” Flacco said. “We need to clean some things up, but overall, it's something to feel pretty good about. There is something to build off of, going into the first week of the season."
He also didn't take a sack and had several nice scrambles to get out of danger before hitting an open receiver. He guided the offense on four scoring opportunities in the four drives he was a part of.
Those resulted in a touchdown, two field goals and one missed field goal. Flacco also did this while getting almost nothing from the running game.
Baltimore's offense is going to rely heavily on his arm at times in 2015, and he reminded everyone in this game that he's still capable of answering that call.
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Important Note No. 3: Penalties
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One of the biggest issues Baltimore needed to clean up this week was the large number of penalties the team was committing.
Penalties were a huge issue for Baltimore last year when it finished with the ninth-most penalties in the 2014 season, according to NFLPenalties.com. The Ravens committed a ridiculous 17 in last week's 40-17 loss to the Philadelphia Eagles.
They needed to fix that against Washington this week, and they did a good job of doing so. Baltimore finished the game with just six penalties for 50 yards.
That's still not ideal; considering the team committed 7.5 penalties for an average of 59 yards per game last year, it's still right at that number still. Whatever is causing the Ravens to commit so many penalties, the coaching staff needs to figure it out and correct it fast.
This team is too good to let penalties be its downfall, and the Ravens are going to lose close games because of these dumb mistakes if they keep it up.
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