The 2021 NFL season may barely be in the books, but Dave Richard is already getting a jump on his 2022 preparation by highlighting at least one key statistic to know for each NFL team that had a major bearing on their 2021 performance and could mean a great deal for their 2022 outlook. In this space, Dave dives into the Baltimore Ravens.
More Early Prep (AFC): BAL | BUF | CIN | CLE | DEN | TEN HOU | IND | JAC | KC | LAC | LV | MIA | NE | NYJ
More Early Prep (NFC): ARI | ATL | CAR | CHI | DAL | DET | GB | LAR | MIN | SEA | NYG | WAS | PHI | NO | TB | SF
The Ravens offense figures to look differently in 2022 after scraping by with an old-head run game all season and losing Lamar Jackson for effectively the final five games of the year.
Here are the offense's pass-run splits for each of the last three seasons:
- 2021 pass-run ratio: 63.1% pass, 36.9% run
- 2020 pass-run ratio: 49.4% pass, 50.6% run
- 2019 pass-run ratio: 47.8% pass, 52.2% run
Any shift back toward 2019-20 means a large decline in pass attempts, which obviously hurts Mark Andrews and Marquise Brown. Andrews was a Fantasy monster in 2021 but had 153 targets -- a career-high by 55 throws! Brown specifically could see a reduction if wideout Rashod Bateman earns more targets via any improvements in his game.
But Andrews could especially disappoint. He's always been good with Jackson, but he was somehow better without Jackson in 2021.
- 11 games with Jackson (excluding Week 14 when Jackson got hurt early): 14.4 PPR points per game, 11-plus PPR points in six
- Five games without Jackson (including Week 14): 22.3 PPR points per game, 14-plus PPR in all five
Kind of crazy that Jackson somehow hurt Andrews. There's always a chance the Ravens shift their passing game approach to focus more on Andrews, but it would come at a cost to the rest of the Ravens offense, and it seems unlikely they'd stick to their pass-heavy doctrine again if their run game was good.
That brings me to J.K. Dobbins, who will hopefully headline a renewed rushing attack for a team that prides itself on its ground game, but there's still reason for worry about how he will do. Even during his breakout stretch in the second half of 2020, Dobbins didn't just get under half of his team's total carries, he was just under half of his team's running back carries.
RB carry share, Week 8-17, 2020 (nine games):
- Dobbins 46.3%
- Gus Edwards 41.3%
- Mark Ingram and Justice Hill combined 12.3%
In case you were wondering, Dobbins had 29% of the Ravens' total carries in that span -- Jackson had 30.4%. And of the 118 PPR points Dobbins scored in the second half, 35.6% came on his seven rushing touchdowns. Dobbins averaged 12.9 touches per game.
Like everyone else, I love the talent Dobbins displayed in college and in his rookie year. But to draft him high means having faith in him being over his torn ACL and him seeing a bigger chunk of the Ravens entire offensive workload.
