2020 AFC Divisional Round Game
Tennessee Titans (9-7, 5-3 Away) vs. Baltimore Ravens (14-2, 7-1 Home)
Date: Saturday, Jan. 11, 2019
Time: 8:15 p.m. EST
Venue: M&T Bank Stadium – Baltimore, MD
Coverage: CBS
Titans vs Ravens Spread and Odds
Moneyline: TEN: (+310) | BAL: (-430)
Spread: TEN: +9.5 (-105) | BAL: -9.5 (-115)
Total: 46.5 – Over: (-115) | Under: (-105)
Public (Spread) Betting Percentages via oddsFire: TEN: (46%) | BAL: (54%)
Odds to Win Super Bowl LIV: TEN: (+2200) | BAL: (+200)
What a Wild Card Weekend! It certainly was a memorable slate of games, with two overtime thrillers, two major upsets, three 40-year-old quarterbacks (all losing) and one unforgettable Josh Allen no-look backhand lateral while being tackled. It really was one of the great Wild Card slates in recent memory.
All that is in the past now, though, and we’re moving on to the Divisional Round for another excellent set of matchups, with each game featuring one well-deserving Wild Card team and one well-rested home favorite coming off a first-round bye. In the past decade, 30 of the 40 Divisional Round games have ended with the 1 or 2 seed moving on to their respective conference championship game, meaning the trends are certainly against these road underdogs.
In the second game on Saturday, the top-seeded Baltimore Ravens host the hot Tennessee Titans. Currently, the Ravens are the 9.5-point home favorites, according to MyBookie Sportsbook.
Let’s get down to business and analyze each team’s strengths and weaknesses as we await their approaching battle on the gridiron.
(1) Baltimore Ravens (14-2)
These Ravens haven’t lost since Week 4, at the hands of the Browns, which can now be acknowledged as a fluke, seeing as it is essentially the only disappointment Ravens fans have felt all season. Their only other loss was a week earlier in Week 3 to the Chiefs. Since then, the Ravens have flown into a frenzy, dispatching every team, including five playoff teams, on their way to the league’s best record and a league-leading +249(!!!) point differential, which is about as reliable of a metric as you can find when considering the league’s top teams. The Ravens led the next best team in that category by 54 points, although in fairness, that team was the Patriots, which didn’t appear to matter to the Titans. It’s clear that Baltimore has had the best team in football thus far.
What are they good at?
Surprisingly, quite a few things. Their quarterback? Lamar Jackson. He’s going to win league MVP after setting the all-time quarterback rushing record AND leading the NFL in passing touchdowns. With offensive coordinator Greg Roman running the same pistol formation he employed when he was Colin Kaepernick’s OC on the 49ers, Jackson has excelled as an equal threat to both run and pass.
He rushed for the sixth-most yards in the entire NFL, with more yards on the ground than two Pro Bowl running backs, including his own teammate Mark Ingram. Despite the sheer amount of time he had the ball in his hands, Jackson only threw six interceptions and lost two fumbles. He took fewer sacks than Marcus Mariota did this season and posted the third-highest passer rating in the NFL. The stats and records Jackson somehow managed in just one year are hard to believe, but the bottom line is that Jackson has been an unstoppable force and is unlike anything the league has ever seen. The season Jackson just had has to be considered among the finest we’ve ever seen out of a quarterback (I said the same thing about Patrick Mahomes last season, but it isn’t recency bias if it’s true).
The team as a whole led the next best team in the league (the 49ers, in this instance) in points scored, by over a field goal per game. I say “team” instead of “offense” because their defense tied for the league lead with six defensive touchdowns. The offense set the all-time record in rushing yards, with 3,296, breaking the 41-year-old mark that had been set by the 1978 Patriots. They just play a different style of football than any other team, because they are the only team that can actually do it. Besides Jackson, less heralded backfield mate Mark Ingram has turned into one of the vocal leaders of the team in his first season here and is the team’s other 1,000-yard rusher. Gus Edwards’ 711 rushing yards were a distant third on the team, but were more than any Falcon, Cardinal, Charger, Steeler, Chief, Dolphin or Lion.
Sorry for the statistics overload, but I’m just having a lot of fun finding different ways of saying how good this offense is. It’s good.
I think I’ve gotten my point across, so I’ll make it brief with the Ravens’ receiving options.
The team doesn’t have any household names in its receiving corps, but breakout tight end Mark Andrews has been a problem for opposing defenses all year and was voted to his first Pro Bowl. He led the team in yards and touchdowns and is going to be man the Titans need to stop in the passing game. Besides him, Hollywood “Marquise” Brown is the blazing fast first-round rookie, who has been hit-or-miss all season. He had an encouraging year however, and chances are, if there’s a big play downfield on Saturday night, he’ll be the one involved.
Defensively, the Ravens were the fourth-best total defense and the third-best scoring defense. They held up their end of the bargain with the offense, and they’re much to thank for the team’s outrageous scoring differential. Their primary strength lies in their defense against the pass, with the star-studded secondary they have defending it.
Marlon Humphrey has been the rare shutdown corner that every team craves but few have. He’ll be out there for every snap and will likely see a lot of AJ Brown, which is bad news for Brown, who was held to just one catch for four yards last week against another shutdown corner in Stephon Gilmore. Teams with just one major receiving weapon face a huge disadvantage against teams like the Patriots and Ravens, which is a category the Titans fall into. Corey Davis and Co. may need to produce big against the likes of Marcus Peters (Pro Bowler), Earl Thomas (Pro Bowler), Brandon Carr and Jimmy Smith. Ryan Tannehill could be in for a long day back there.
The Baltimore pass rush isn’t exceptional, but linebacker Matt Judon has developed into one of the league’s best pass rushers and provides the pressure that no one else on this team really can. He led the league in QB hits and had 9.5 sacks with four forced fumbles, while also being asked to drop into coverage.
Justin Tucker has probably been the best kicker of the past decade, and is as reliable and accurate as they come, with unlimited range.
What are they bad at?
Besides what they get from Judon, the Ravens can’t really bring that much pressure without blitzing. They do blitz more than any team in the league, which generally works out very well for them with the secondary they have, but against the Titans, their lack of natural pass rushers may prove a vital weakness. Tannehill possesses the highest passer rating in football this season and isn’t liable to fold against the blitz or turn the ball over even against pressure if there are holes in coverage. If Tannehill can consistently manage to find open men like Dion Lewis, Adam Humphries or Jonnu Smith on short passes, the Ravens’ usually passable weakness could become a serious issue.
The Ravens are also only mediocre at stopping the run. While they rank towards the top of the league in rushing yards allowed per game, they have their superb offense to thank for that stat, as they spent more time against desperate quarterbacks playing catch up than any other team. What’s most important is the 4.4 yards the team allows per carry, which is 12th-worst in football. That wouldn’t be a major problem if it wasn’t for the team the Ravens are facing off against. I suppose it’s time we got to them…
(6) Tennessee Titans (10-7)
These Titans deserve to be here. They have an excellent football team and made an incredibly gutsy playoff push against enormous odds. They don’t have the MVP or the 12 Pro Bowlers or the Super Bowl-winning coach, but they’ve earned the right not to be counted out of any game based on the way they battled back from a 2-4 start to the season with a castoff quarterback taking the helm.
They traveled to the hardest venue to win in, took on the defending champions and controlled the game from start to finish. This team isn’t afraid of anybody and has shown they have the talent and the will to beat anybody. Their statement win in Week 11 against the Chiefs (my personal pick for game of the year) showcased every reason why the Titans can go into M&T Bank Stadium and beat the Ravens. They won’t kill themselves with mistakes, they’ll run the ball down your throat, and they’ll never give up. Make no mistake, the Titans can contend in both this game and for the AFC in general.
What are they good at?
Considering we left the Ravens on a bit of a cliffhanger, I’ll waste no more time in addressing the Titans running game. I suppose it isn’t the same as the Ravens historic running game, but the Titans can content themselves with the league’s leading rusher. Derrick Henry, who finally broke into the superstar echelon of backs in his fourth season, took 303 handoffs for 1,540 yards (5.1 YPC) and another league-leading 16 touchdowns. He doesn’t have the versatility of a Christian McCaffrey type, but he was the best pure runner in the league this year.
If the Titans are to beat the Ravens, Henry will need to be able to find some running room against a gameplan designed to stop him. But of all the matchups in this game, this is the one that most favors the Titans. That was the truth in their Wild Card game against New England too and head coach Mike Vrabel knew it. Henry took 35 touches for over 200 yards in a game where Tannehill wasn’t able to get much going and it likely saved the season. The story could be very much the same here, just as long as the Titans can manage to keep themselves close.
I know I spent some time laying out how the Ravens are positioned to do a great job stopping Ryan Tannehill, but I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention how well he has played in his renaissance year. He ranks right towards the top in passing accuracy, completing over 70% of his passes, and is head and shoulders above the field in yards per attempt at 9.6, which, the argument could be made, is a good combination to have.
He’s been a brilliant passer, leading the lead in passer rating, but he’s also rushing more often and more effectively than he ever has in his career. On top of the 22 touchdown passes that he threw, Tannehill pushed his way into the end zone four times on rushes and picked up 16 first downs with his legs in just 10 games. Keep those scoring numbers going over a 16-game season, and Tannehill was on a pace to pick up 41 total touchdowns. Only Jackson scored more than that.
The receiving options profile more as a weakness, but rookie AJ Brown is an explosive threat who put up a surprise 1,051-yard season on just 52 receptions. His 20.2 YPR ranks third in the league among players with at least 26 catches. Tannehill and Brown both helped each other immensely this season, as Brown surpassed 100 yards five times in ten games with Tannehill as quarterback. Their connection grew as the season went on; four of those games came in the last six weeks of the regular season. When Brown doesn’t perform, however, there isn’t much there to bail him out, but I’ll leave that for the weaknesses section.
Defensively, the team is rather average. They allowed the 21st-most yards per game but held teams to just the 12th most points. Neither is particularly in the same realm as the Ravens unit, but there are some facets of this Tennessee defense to fear. The run defense will slow you down most of the time, although I’m not so sure they’ve seen as versatile a running game as the Ravens. The Titans have limited less able running quarterbacks this season, slowing down Josh Allen and Deshaun Watson, and faltering just once against Jameis Winston, who took it himself eight times for 53 yards. The Titans should consider themselves lucky if that’s all Jackson gives them.
The pressure will be on solid linebackers Rashaan Evans and Jayon Brown to stop all the ways the Ravens can bring the run. Evans, who single-handedly led the Titans goal line stand last week, may especially need to be called upon, with Brown getting banged up last week.
Kevin Byard is a star at safety. He excels in coverage and can be a bit of a ball hawk as well. He’ll likely be assigned most of the time to Mark Andrews and may be called upon to help stop Jackson from breaking containment. If he can do his job well in these aspects, the Ravens offense becomes a lot less scary, but very few have actually succeeded in these tasks. Nonetheless, Byard will be a key player in this game. Other notable names in coverage are corners Logan Ryan and Adoree’ Jackson. Both had very solid seasons, especially Ryan who defended 18 passes.
What are they bad at?
AJ Brown is the Titans one card at receiver, and Marlon Humphrey is the Ravens’ trump card. This is a huge, HUGE problem for the Titans, who can’t afford to have Tannehill held to just 72 yards again in a game where they’ll need to score more points.
Logan Ryan and Adoree’ Jackson have been good, but the team lacks a shutdown corner like Humphrey. Defensive Coordinator Dean Pees does a pretty good job of disguising blitzes and confusing quarterbacks by moving around the safeties, but Lamar Jackson isn’t often confused and should be able to beat this defense most of the time. Hollywood Brown could be a back breaker in this game, especially if Jackson starts giving the defense fits and Byard and safety Kenny Vaccaro need to start creeping in.
Like the Ravens’ Matt Judon, the Titans get the majority of their pressure from just one player in Harold Landry (nine sacks). Unfortunately, the Ravens have several Pro Bowlers on their line, including tackle Ronnie Stanley, who won’t get beat often, The Titans do get a solid push on the interior line from Jurrell Casey and DaQuan Jones, but their job is primarily in run stoppage.
The Titans have made a hot mess at the kicker position. Greg Joseph is their fourth kicker of the year, and although he has yet to miss an extra point through three games, he hasn’t even ATTEMPTED a field goal. Through three games! The Titans clearly do not want him out there, so this could have a serious in-game impact. It’s possible the Titans go for it on fourth down whenever they can in this game. Maybe that’s not such a bad thing, given that the Ravens and their league-best offense go for it on fourth down more than anyone. But if he has to go out there in a big situation, this is something to keep in the back of your mind.
Predictions
The Ravens have just about every tactical advantage in this game. They’re rested, they have home field, and they have the MVP, who the Titans aren’t much better positioned to stop than anyone else, if we’re being honest. The Titans are a well-coached team that makes few mistakes and lead the league in guts, but they can be beat and the Ravens have the tools to exploit their weaknesses. If the Titans can keep this game similar to the way they played in their Wild Card game, by beating down the Ravens with Derrick Henry and always having short yardage to go on second or third down, then there’s no reason why they shouldn’t be able to stay in this game. But if Henry can’t dominate to the level he did last game, Tannehill will have to beat Lamar Jackson on his own with limited weapons against an elite secondary. He can hold his own, but that’s not likely to end well.
Final Score: Ravens 31, Titans 21
Disagree? I’d love to be talked into the Titans, because they’ve been one of my favorite teams since Tannehill took over. I just don’t see it, but let me know on Twitter how you see this game shaking out.
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