Ravens Offense Still A 'Work in Progress'
The Baltimore Ravens' offseason was mostly focused on Todd Monken's new offensive scheme. With a host of weapons at Lamar Jackson's disposal, the change from a run-heavy offense, to a more vertical one was thought to be a good move.
But things take time, and Sunday's 25-9 win over the Houston Texans was evidence of that. While the Ravens managed to get the win, offensively, it was a little clunky.
Given it was the first game, that is expected and coordinator Todd Monken gave his thoughts on the offense's performance.
"It was just off," Monken said. "I would just say that it's a work in progress. The best thing we have is another opportunity to correct it [and] fix the things that are controllable. What's controllable? The things we do every day in practice. The things we design that give our players a chance, so we don't have the drag. There was too much drag."
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It was the fans' first chance to see Odell Beckham Jr. and Zay Flowers in Monken's offense and while Flowers (9 rec, 78 yards) had himself a day, the same couldn't be said for Beckham Jr. as he only caught two balls for 37 yards.
But it was a bigger day for Odell than most think. It was his first game since his ACL injury and was also playing in a new offensive scheme.
So what did he think about the offense's performance?
"I feel like we had a good first, sloppy game, and you still put up 25 points," Beckham Jr. said. "So, the bad thing is there were a lot of mistakes, a lot of miscommunications, a lot of those things; the good news is there is room for improvement."
It is only one game under Monken's watch, so there shouldn't be any hard-hitting questions as of yet. Things take time and while there were some good things to come out of Sunday's win, and as Odell stated, some bad as well.
Up next for Baltimore is a divisional round clash against Joe Burrow and the Cincinnati Bengals as we will get to see how Monken's offense improves from last week.
