Tonight’s NFL opener thrilled us to the very end of the game. A mere toe prevented the game from heading into overtime. Or did it? A few seconds earlier, Lamar Jackson missed a wide-open Zay Flowers for a touchdown. If they were on the same page, perhaps the story of this game ends differently.
Football games are often won in the trenches. The Baltimore Ravens are breaking in three new offensive linemen to their team. Their subpar play aided to the eventual demise of their game. Steve Spagnuolo was able to scheme of a variety of pressure packages to take advantage of the Ravens inexperienced offensive line. It’s never good when the Chiefs middle linebacker, Leo Chenal, can beat your tackle on a basic pass rush. Chenal flat out embarrassed the Ravens offensive line on multiple occasions.
Football tends to be a symbiotic sport. If all the parts work together, then the team will usually be successful. The Raven’s receivers struggled to get open early in the game. Many of Jackson’s passes were very short or behind the line of scrimmage. Even if the receivers did get open, Lamar Jackson lacked time to read the field and deliver the ball because his offensive line play was so abysmal. Eventually he started pulling the ball down and running. In fact, most of his rushing yards came from scrambles after the pass protection broke down.
Patrick Mahomes started the game on fire. In five short plays he led his squad down the field for a touchdown. His first play of the game was a laser to Rashee Rice who was running a slant. In fact, most of the receptions Rice collected tonight were off slants. Mahomes connected with Rice on two slants the opening drive. Finally, rookie Xavier Worthy took a reverse, and ran it up the middle of the field for a 21-yard touchdown. It looked like a really nice start of the game, however the Chiefs failed to score another touchdown until the third quarter.
Both the Chiefs and the Ravens are well coached. Both squads were comfortable running multiple tight end sets. The Ravens and the Chiefs ran two tight ends on the field for over 60 percent of the game. However, the Ravens seemed to do the best when their full back was on the field. Baltimore lined Patrick Ricard up everywhere in the backfield. Ricard would be up back in the I formation. Sometimes he was in the wing and on several plays he lined up as an inline tight end. If you knew where Ricard was, you could predict where the play was going. Mysteriously they pulled Ricard as the game went on, and Lamar Jackson was forced to endure withering Chiefs pressure.
Lamar Jackson magic was on full display at the beginning of the fourth quarter. The Ravens opened the quarter on second down with seventeen yards to go. The Ravens opted to go with a two tight-end formation, however Isaiah Likely was lined up as the boundary receiver. Mark Andrews lined up in the slot. At the snap of the ball, Likely executed an outside release and ran a deep curl. As Likely ran his route, Leo Chenal and George Karlaftis beat their tackles flushing Lamar Jackson up and out of the pocket. Lamar connected with Likely at the stem of his route. Likely juked his defender, ran up the sideline, stopped as another defender sped by him into the sidelines and then he walked the ball into the end-zone. Unfortunately, magic isn’t consistent, and Lamar’s ran out at the end of the game.
The Chiefs X factor literally is Xavier Worthy. Early in the fourth quarter the Chiefs were on the Ravens 35-yard line. The Chiefs rolled out with one running back and Travis Kelce in the slot. Worthy was the outside receiver lined up to Mahomes right. Marlon Humphries was in man-to-man coverage on Worthy. Mahomes recognized pre-snap that the Ravens had rolled their safeties to Kelce’s side of the field. At the snap of the ball, Xavier beat Humphries on an outside release and was wide open for Mahomes to unleash a quick dart allowing Xavier to run it in for a touchdown.
The Chiefs are aiming to win the Super Bowl for the third year in a row. They seem to be well on their way as they defeated at tough well coached Ravens squad. The scary thing for the rest of the NFL is Hollywood Brown wasn’t even on the field. Even scarier is the fact that the Chiefs speedy rookie, Xavier Worthy, scored two of their three touchdowns. It looks like the Chiefs finally found their replacement for Tyreek Hill.
