Ravens Looking for Measure of Revenge Vs. Dolphins

BALTIMORE — The Ravens still have a bad taste in their mouth about a loss to the Miami Dolphins last season.

They were rolling headed into that Week 10 matchup when Miami helped derail the season.

Quarterback Lamar Jackson and the rest of the offense hit a wall trying to adapt to Miami's Cover 0 defensive scheme.

The Ravens lost 22-10 and never seemed to recover from that game. Baltimore lost six of its next eight games down the stretch and the offense never seemed to get back on track.

Now, they'll have a chance to get a measure of revenge in Week 2.

“They just caught us off guard, really," Jackson said. "We hadn’t really gone over defenses doing all-up zero against us – like, just all-up flat-out zero. But I feel like we’ll have an answer for it this year. We watched the film – watched a lot of film on those guys – because we don’t want it to happen again.”

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Teams tried to emulate the Dolphins' game plan against the Ravens.

Miami played man-to-man coverage against the Ravens' receivers while the rest of the players blitzed Jackson. It's a strategy that is often used sparingly, but former Dolphins coach Brian Flores, who has since been fired, stayed in that formation because it was working.

Jackson completed 26 of 43 pass attempts for 238 yards with a touchdown and interception. He was sacked four times.'

Jackson had a 37.5 passer rating on passes of 10 or more yards.

The Dolphins had their defensive backs keeping the pressure on Jackson with safeties Jevon Holland blitzing 21 times and Brandon Jones attacking the quarterback 17 times.

The biggest issue is the Ravens were not able to make any adjustments by using quick passes, crossing routes, bunch formations, and deep shots downfield.

This time, they will be more prepared if Miami uses the Cover 0 scheme

“We would have been negligent if we hadn’t worked on it," coach John Harbaugh said. "It was something we needed to get a lot better at, and we studied it the whole offseason. We’ll have a plan for it and hope it works because these guys are probably the best in the league at doing it right now. They do it more than anybody, they do it better than anybody and it’s just something they’re committed to. I have all the respect in the world for what they’re doing defensively."