Four Numbers The Ravens Must Reverse On Offense To Soar In 2026

Certain numbers will tell the story of a season.

Obviously, win total is first and paramount, but so many other metrics go into that macro total and determining good teams from bad teams and dictating who exceeds expectations and which teams fall short. This Baltimore Ravens squad will have new coaches and new tendencies and new points of emphasis than ever before on both sides of the ball.

On offense, there is no blueprint for what Declan Doyle, 30, will do as a first-time playcaller. But we know who he is most influenced by and who his mentors are, and we know explicitly what they believe in most heavily from what months of studies on their tendencies and film and numbers tell us, and, frankly, from what they tell as well (with Broncos coach Sean Payton, Doyle’s primary mentor, and Rams coach Sean McVay, generally considered the best play caller in the NFL, both speaking at length with us about what they think Doyle will conjure up when they joined us on “The Daily Flock Show”).

You can isolate certain numbers from last year’s failed offense that standout in desperate need of attention and care in Doyle’s initial offering, no matter how he goes about getting there. These resonate deeply:

789 Receiving Yards

This is the margin between what Zay Flowers did catching the football last season, and everyone else on the roster. That’s ridiculous and cannot happen again. The margin between these two totals is almost double what that second-leading receiver (Mark Andrews – 422 yards) managed to produce the entire season.

I don’t believe there is a true No. 2 WR on this roster and I am more open to believing that entity emerges in the form of Devontez Walker or a rookie than I’m buying any of the forced rhetoric about a Rashod Bateman turnaround. Just because they keep a guy around longer than they should and keep paying him doesn’t mean it’s smart. This front office has a fetish for such.

There has to be more balance and unpredictability in this offense, especially if in fact Andrews is washed, and the rest of the league thinks that’s more likely than not, which is what the Ravens couldn’t get anything of note for him after the 2024 season.

63.7% of Snaps

The Ravens have been getting away from being almost exclusively in pistol or gun looks as they were under Greg Roman early in Lamar Jackson’s career. But the Ravens were still in the gun nearly 64% last season. It’s been a trend, but they were just 12th in under center usage a year ago; Doyle’s mentors are under center more frequently than Lamar was even in the gun last year; it’s a total flip of what’s normal and the main thing and what’s not.

It’s absolutely central to what Payton wants to accomplish on offense, “marrying the pass game to the run game” as he explained to us, and it’s at the core of what McVay does, as he explained too. NFL analyst Doug Farrar pointed out to us how much Jackson’s EPA/play (expected points added) soars when he gets under center. And we believe this will be one of the overwhelming trends in the NFL this season.

30.6 Seconds

This is how much time of possession per play the Ravens absorbed last season. Like some other measures, it is not as extremely monotonous as it was under Roman, but it was still far from the norm. Baltimore ranked tied for third in most time per play in the NFL last season, but Dyle is already on record about wanting to vary the pace and cadence of this offense, and we expect to see him want to dictate personnel more to the defense.

Moving at a more rapid pace is one obvious way to force that issue. Payton is good for being in the top 10 on TOP/play in general and last year Doyle was part of a Bears offense that operated at 28.6 seconds, fifth-fastest in the NFL. With a QB as agile and multi-faceted as Jackson it's silly not to pick up the pace.

68.4 Rating

This was, somehow, Jackson’s passer rating in the redzone last season after being a wizard in this part of the field most of his career and especially in his two MVP seasons. It’s impossible that he would have the worst rating here of any qualified passer in the NFL, completing 41.5% of his passes.

Of course, this indicator is more about general manager Eric DeCosta’s roster failures, with no one except Flowers showing up at all in the passing game, and as we have chronicled, Flowers’s size prevents him from showing up in the redzone or endzone with any regularity.

Will this bevvy of rookie pass catchers solve the problem? Do we think Doyle will simply be a marvel at it even though he comes from a family tree that has struggled mightily to call plays? Are they a proven pass catcher short (Darren Waller, is a goal-to-go baller)?

Their inability to run the football in short-yardage and goal-to-go situations also played a role in this failure.

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