Three Vital Trends To Monitor In Ravens Second Preseason Game Saturday

The Ravens are going out of their way not to tip their hand about the schematics they have in store with a new coaching staff.

But some things an unavoidable.

Try as they might to be as vanilla as possible, there are certain trends and tells and metrics from the preseason opener that we believe are a portal into the football soul of rookie head coach Jesse Minter and rookie offensive coordinator Declan Doyle. And even in trying to be as base and rote as they are, when they are relying on so many rookies, and trying to stylize a role for them in the regular season, certain principles are too important to not implement even when the results of the game don’t matter.

There are a few that I will be monitoring with particular interest Saturday afternoon in Minnesota:

Under Center Usage

It was the story from a foundational standpoint on offense in the first game, with the very young QBs (for the most part) going 13/15 passing from under center – which is mostly foreign to them – and the rookie backers averaging a nice 4.22 per rush when under center and the Ravens running the ball 30 times from under center and just six times in shotgun/pistol looks.

This is vastly different from anything we’ve seen before in the Lamar Jackson era here, but it’s what Doyle’s mentors firmly believe in and it’s here to stay in Baltimore. If you don’t believe me, hear it from Sean Payton himself, Doyle’s primary football influence. The ratio of under center work will only ramp up, we believe.

More Quarters Coverage? More Blitzing?

Minter uses it as much as anyone in the NFL. It’s a calling card of sorts and he certainly has the personnel to pull it off, even with so many veterans not playing. It’s not something he did much of last weekend but I wonder if that changes some here.

Minter also leaned into bringing numbers a little more in the opener than he did in two years running the Chargers defense. A slight uptick. Perhaps it was born of knowing he wasn’t going to get many snaps on that side of the ball with how dominant the Ravens were. I bet he takes a few more looks at slot blitzes with reserve safety Keondre Jackson.

Lane Over The Middle?

Everything rookie receiver Ja’Kobi Lane does is magnified at this point. He continues to shine and the third-round pick made splash plays this week against the Vikings defense in the joint practices. When he was in the slot Saturday this offense hit another gear – the numbers are pretty wild – and after 17 snaps outside and nine in the slot last week, does that change?

In-cutters and winning with that long frame on inside leverage seems natural. He ran crossers on five of his 17 routes last week, and now that he and un-drafted rookie quarterback Joe Fagnano have some chemistry I wonder if he throws up to him in the middle of the field even more Saturday.

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