These 4 Individuals Must Step Up Big For Ravens To Upset Falcons Sunday

It’s not just who you play, it’s when you play them.

The Ravens may be catching the Falcons at the wrong time, and the Falcons might be catching the Ravens at the right time from a health and personnel and match-up standpoint. That’s how it goes sometimes. Playing any game without Lamar Jackson – as people around the NFL anticipate the Ravens will be – is difficult enough and doing it with another cobbled-together offensive line dealing with injuries only compounds it.

Yes, the Ravens want you to believe that back-up Snoop Huntley has the goods … but this is the same guy they had seen enough of after the 2024 season and moved on from and who had no real market outside of Baltimore save for a few brief-and-cheap dalliances with the Browns and he couldn’t stick in Cleveland. Let’s be real about this situation.

This Sunday night game is going to require some individuals truly standing out, and making an indelible mark on the outcome, or the Ravens will be 3-2 going into Cleveland in Week 6 (which is perfectly fine). The more I study the Falcons and Ravens the more I believe these individuals will have to be truly special Sunday night, and, no, I’m not including the back-up QB in this list because if he tries to be special, and they concoct a game plan for him to attempt to be special it will reflect poorly on all of them.

Here are the four individuals who need to step up:

Kyle Hamilton

He’s had a very nice start to the season, but he hasn’t been taking games over and he hasn’t been as disruptive as, say, hybrid defensive back Derwin James at his peak in this system for the Chargers under Jesse Minter. You get the sense Minter has been holding back some with how creative he gets with this unicorn, and that his homecoming in Atlanta might be just the time to create a Hamilton-centric plan.

They need him to be a playmaker in run support with tackling but also maybe trying to punch another ball loose on a jump cut, with Falcons backs Bijan Robinson and Brian Robinson dominating the last two weeks. This is a game where he should be all over the line of scrimmage and I also wonder if, with Atlanta young QB Michael Penix still a little skittish coming back from a third ACL surgery, and with top pass rusher Trey Hendrickson not expected to play, if we see intense blitzing – run blitzing and on passing downs – from Hamilton.

“I think if we run and hit well, we will do what we need to do,” Hamilton said Wednesday. “And at the end of the day, that is what this game comes down to — a very fundamental approach to this game. I am excited to see what we do."

Hamilton is blitzing more this season (17% of opposing dropbacks as opposed to 10% last year), but has three pressures on 25 rushes, a 12% rate that is half his career total.

Roquan Smith

Another Ravens player who is returning to Georgia – Smith played high school ball a few hours from Atlanta and went to UGA – who will want to show out. If Minter does what we expect here and leans into heavy fronts, Smith should be freed to run around and make plays. Dare I say it, I expect to see some 8-man boxes on Sunday night; the Ravens have only played about 5 snaps of 4-3 looks all season.

Atlanta will run the outside zone all night long until or unless it’s stopped (Bijan averages 7.4/carry in the stretch play) and the linebackers will have a lot to say about it and this one carries the biggest cap hit of any inside linebacker in the NFL ($33M) and the second-highest salary among all veteran inside backers – and we all know that’s not to make plays on the ball in flight. He’s not getting sacks and passes defensed. He’s here to organize and set a tone and be connective tissue between all three levels of the defense and be a tackling machine.

“Lot of respect for (Bijan Robinson) as a runner, their offensive line, their receivers, with their willingness to block,” Smith said. “I think it is a great challenge for us. I look at this as a front-seven game.”

Some looks with four linemen and four linebackers – with Hamilton essentially serving as one – make a lot of sense to me.

Matthew Hibner

We are hesitant to include a rookie on this list but the personnel on the offense is what it is right now. Snoop hooking up with Zay Flowers deep is a silly ask and he has nine completions over 20 yards in his career. The receivers will be doing a lot of blocking, but the back-up QB did connect with the young tight end on some under-center, bootleg plays in the preseason and some quick catch-and-run plays for Hibner in the slot make a lot of sense.

He is a better athlete than highly-paid vet Mark Andrews, and with Durham Smythe now out for the season, and Nick Vannett not as well-rounded as Smythe, there is a runway for Hibner. No Ja’Kobi Lane – another big body who was doing slot work before his injury Week 1 - and a QB who is not going to be pushing it deep. Could see a lot of action underneath and the Ravens badly need YAC; Andrews ain’t that guy and Derrick Henry is somehow second to Flowers on the team in that key metric.

“(Smythe) is such an incredible player, an incredible person and teammate, and he's going to be sorely missed,” Andrews said. “But, we are going to do the best that we can in the tight end room to be ready. [Hibner and rookie Josh Cuevas] have been playing outstanding, just growing each and every game. So we have a lot of trust in them, and it's just going to be all hands-on-deck from us."

Declan Doyle

Aug 28, 2026; Baltimore, Maryland, USA; Baltimore Ravens quarterback Tyler Huntley (5) leads the huddle during the first quarter against the Washington Commanders at M&T Bank Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Mitch Stringer-Imagn Images | IMAGN IMAGES via Reuters Connect

I really hope he is playing word games with the Falcons and trying to sell them on a mode of operation that he wouldn’t exactly espouse. Hopefully, he is just gassing up Snoop and trying to send messages to the locker room.

Because if he actually calls this game like he would for Lamar, it will be over at halftime. He needs to lean heavily on run-game coordinator Dwayne Ledford, who coached Atlanta’s offensive line before coming over here, and get creative with perimeter runs and attacking the boundary with speed. Doyle has a minute body of work and is trying to fool the Falcons, surely, when he says the stuff he’s said this week. But just in case, he’s on notice.

He needs to be smart and calculated and conservative with his approach Sunday night.

“I do not think the mentality of how you want to run the offense changes at all,” Doyle said Thursday. “I think regardless of who is in there, you are trying to hunt explosives. I want us to be physical outside, whether that is our first receiver or our seventh receiver that came up from the practice squad. I think that the standard is still the standard regardless of who is in there, and that cannot change.”

Okay, rook.

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