What’s the Ravens’ Biggest Issue to Fix?

Mink: Let’s not forget that this team has a whole lot more going for it than against it. Still, there’s no doubt that the Ravens need to get better if they’re going to reach their Super Bowl aspirations.

With that out the way, the biggest issue in my mind is the red-zone offense. The Ravens rank 24th in the league, scoring a touchdown on 51% of their trips this season. Obviously, it was a big problem the past two weeks, which allowed the Panthers and Jaguars to hang around longer than they should have. The Ravens will play more “should-win” games the rest of the regular season. If they’re going to avoid more surprise results, they need to capitalize more often in the red zone. And when they face high-powered offenses to come, they probably won’t be able to lean as heavily on their defense to get stops. They’ll need to score more points.

My first answer was that the passing offense needed to improve, as it’s currently ranked 26th in the league with 193.4 yards per game. But what’s interesting is the Ravens actually rank 7th in the league in passing DVOA (defense-adjusted value over average). So while the Ravens don’t put up a lot of yards through the air because of the heavy ground attack, they have been quite efficient throwing the ball – contrary to popular belief around Baltimore. They still need more big plays that have been lacking since Rashod Bateman left the lineup, and hopefully DeSean Jackson can provide more of that.