Baltimore is 3-1 and may be without Lamar Jackson for a week or two, and our model has doubled the Ravens' title odds to 12.5 percent anyway
Updated
Baltimore beat Tennessee 24-18 at home and lost Lamar Jackson to an ankle injury in the process, and the model's reaction to that combination tells you how it sees this roster. When we ran the rest of the season the Ravens came out at 11-5 with a 90 percent playoff chance and a 12.5 percent title chance, up from 11 wins, 83.5 and 6.5 percent after Week 3, and a long way from the 8.8 wins and zero title odds the summer sim had for them. Jackson is expected to miss a week or two, with an outside chance of starting in Atlanta on Sunday. The model has priced the absence as short, and the title odds doubled because the AFC around Baltimore kept losing.
The quarterback was playing the best football in the conference before the injury. Jackson is 68 of 96 for 967 yards with six touchdowns and one interception, a passer rating of 120 through four games, and our model projects him for 3,716 passing yards, 23 touchdowns and six interceptions behind a 109 rating, plus 437 yards and five scores on the ground. The rating projection has climbed nine points in a week. Derrick Henry has 374 rushing yards and seven touchdowns and projects for 1,246 and 14. Zay Flowers has 18 catches for 352 yards in three games and projects for 80 catches and 1,261 yards, up from 74 and 1,158. Mark Andrews projects for 49 catches. The offense projects for 384 points, twelfth in the league, and that number assumes Tyler Huntley starting at least one game.
The defense is the reason the title odds are real. Baltimore projects to allow 297 points, fourth in the league, and the second-fewest yards in football. Roquan Smith projects for 103 tackles and over three interceptions. Kyle Hamilton projects for 93 stops. The pass rush has been reshuffled by injury. Trey Hendrickson is out after a finger procedure, Tavius Robinson's projection has dropped from nine and a half sacks to under six, and the slack has gone to Nnamdi Madubuike, up to seven, and Trenton Simpson, whose line has jumped from under one sack to six and a half as the linebacker has been used as a rusher. The team projects for under 35 sacks, 27th in the league, which is the one weak number on a sheet full of strong ones, and the second-ranked yardage defense says the coverage is doing the work the rush is not.
The division is Baltimore's to lose. Cleveland is 3-1 after beating Pittsburgh and projects for seven wins, which is the model telling you it does not believe the Browns' record. Cincinnati is 2-2 and projects for ten. Pittsburgh is 2-2 and projects for nine and a half. The Ravens have the best roster, the best record and the best point differential in the AFC North, and when we ran the rest of the season they won the division in a clear majority of simulated years. Jackson's ankle is the only thing that changes that, and only if it runs longer than the team expects.
The next month is the test, with or without the quarterback. A trip to Atlanta at 54 percent against a Falcons team that just scored 45, a trip to Cleveland at 82, Cincinnati at home at 64, a trip to Buffalo at 72, and Jacksonville at home at 46. When we ran that stretch Baltimore went 3-2 more often than anything else, and 4-1 often enough that the eleven-win projection has room to grow. The Jacksonville game in Week 9 is the one the model treats as a true toss-up between the two best rosters in the conference outside of Kansas City.
The player lines are about one quarterback and one injury. Jackson's rating projection went from 99.3 to 108.6 in a week, the biggest single-week rating move of any starter, with his touchdown projection up from 19 to 23 and his interception line down from eight to six. The model has not yet priced the ankle beyond a game or two. Huntley's projection rose from 115 yards to 179, which is the model's way of saying it expects him to play. Henry's rushing projection dropped from 1,472 to 1,246 and his touchdown line from 16 to 14, a sign the model expects the offense to be less run-heavy for the rest of the year rather than a doubt about Henry. Flowers' projection climbed from 74 catches to 80. On defense, Madubuike's sack line went from five to seven, Simpson's from under one to over six, and Robinson's from 9.6 to 5.8. Hamilton's tackle projection held at 93. The number to watch is Jackson's availability. The eleven-win projection assumes he misses one game. Two or three would cost a half-win each.
The matchup record has been slightly better than the projections. We gave Baltimore 30 percent in Indianapolis and the Ravens won by 18. We gave them 70 against New Orleans and they lost. We gave them 66 in Dallas and they won by three, and 84 against Tennessee and they won by six. Three wins from two and a half expected is a modest overperformance, and the one loss was the game the model was most confident about. The market opened Baltimore at ten and a half wins. Our model sat nearly two under it in July, which was the lean that aged worst on the board, and now sits a win over it. The read has flipped completely. The Ravens are a top-three roster in the conference with a top-three quarterback, and the next two weeks will show whether the depth behind him holds.
