Ravens Must Prioritize Pass Protection, Live With Struggling Run Game For Now

Finding the best group of five pass protectors to form the offensive line as injuries strike every part of the offense is coach Jesse Minter's top job

Oct 4, 2026; Baltimore, Maryland, USA; Baltimore Ravens quarterback Lamar Jackson (8) drops back to pass during the first half against the Tennessee Titans at M&T Bank Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Tommy Gilligan-Imagn Images | IMAGN IMAGES via Reuters Connect

The NFL is a league of tradeoffs and constant adjustments.

No other sport demands more from a physical standpoint and injuries are a weekly factor and personnel problem-solving is never-ending. The best front offices find a way to prioritize the overarching principles that foster winning to thrive under roster duress and understand risk/reward. They know when to tempt the football gods and when to back off of certain goals in order to live to fight another day.

Nowhere is this juggling act more critical than when the quarterback position becomes involved, and for a franchise that boasts one as uniquely historic as Lamar Jackson, striking the right balance and being willing to accept certain inefficiencies and problems in other areas in order to prioritize the health of the QB is paramount. The Ravens find themselves at one of these forks in road, again, in Week 5.

Jackson, who somehow doesn’t have a real contract beyond this season in a way that peers like Patrick Mahomes and Josh Allen always do, being asked to play behind an experimental offensive line, needs to feel a certain way about his ability to explode and escape and be the best athlete on the field in order to operate at a genius level. Dealing with an ankle injury that kept him out of the second half of Sunday’s 24-18 win and required an MRI on Monday, is immediately problematic.

And given Baltimore’s current issues with the run game, and sorting out that offensive line, and finding dependable downfield weapons outside of Zay Flowers (playing out of his mind right now), it would not be surprising to see the Ravens be cautious with this situation so early in the season. They have already played the long game in handling early-season injuries to Flowers and left tackle Ronnie Stanley and top pass rusher Trey Hendrickson, and I suspect they do the same with Jackson this week.

This organization is also going to reinforce, throughout the coaching rooms and in game-planning sessions and with the decisions about how personnel is deployed on game day, that protecting Jackson and finding ways to keep the pass game humming, even at the expense of sagging efficiencies on the ground, is a new way of life as they sort through the litany of injuries on offense.

As odd as it seems for running back Derrick Henry to be this bogged down at or behind the line of scrimmage after tearing up the league his first two seasons in Baltimore, protecting the A Gap from penetrating linemen and linebackers is Job No. 1; allowing rookie coordinator Declan Doyle’s scheme to exploit defenses for explosive plays has become a primary hallmark, The Ravens may have to live with an inability to run the ball between the tackles at all in order to maintain a modicum of pass protection required to keep Jackson and Flowers dominating when they do get to play together.

Running Backwards

The Ravens are not used to being a below-average team moving the ball on the ground with running backs, but that’s where they are. And it may be where they are stuck as ever-shifting five-man units figure things out at the line of scrimmage and with potent blocking tight end Durham Smythe now injured, too.

Here’s where the Ravens stand entering Week 5 in running back production:

                                    2026                2024-25

Yds/Carry:                   4.2 (11th)         5.4 (1st)

Yds B4 Contact:         1.17 (17th)       1.86 (2nd)

3rd Down Conv:         25% (24th)        61% (4th)

The problem is truly acute trying to advance the ball up the gut. There is nowhere for Henry to go. Here’s how the last three weeks of RB runs up the middle compared to Henry’s first two seasons here:

                                    2026                2024-25

Yds/Carry:                   5.1 (4th)           3.4 (18th)        

Yds B4 Contact:        1.52 (10th)       0.85 (22nd)

As this OL has fluctuated at center and guard, the under-center rushing game has dried up  (50 rushes from RBs for just 180 yards the last three weeks at 3.6/carry). But shotgun runs have continued to provide some burst and opportunities to the perimeter, running behind the tackles, and pitch plays to Henry offered some relief against the Titans, and leaning into more of that makes sense.

Using some of the under-center stuff as a play-action decoy, absolutely. But the Ravens can’t be slaves to some of their preseason aspirational goals, evolution is everything, and there are many, many ways to get multiple with run looks. There are no easy solutions, however, when an offensive line is negating the possibility of pushing the ball downfield. And back-up Snoop Huntley is nothing close to Jackson.

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