Baltimore Ravens vs. Miami Dolphins Preview & Prediction | PFF

Baltimore Ravens vs. Miami Dolphins Preview & Prediction | PFF

back. But hey, speaking of injuries, playing through some pain. That’s what we got on Thursday Night Football here, especially with Lamar Jackson coming back. We think, right, it’s not Thursday yet. Nothing’s happened yet, but we assume that Lamar Jackson is going to be playing in this game here for the Baltimore Ravens, who are coming off of a win. They’re taking on the Miami Dolphins in Miami. And Miami’s had some, you know, some ups and downs, but this past week was really good for them against the Atlanta Falcons. So, it’s two teams that are have struggled and disappointed against their own expectations throughout the first half of the season. No doubt about it. But two teams coming off of wins. How do we feel about this one? You want to start talking about Miami or do you want to talk about the Ravens side of things? I I’m really intrigued with the Ravens defense and they’ve been playing a bit better the last couple of weeks. And ever since they traded for Aloe Gilman, they’ve kind of messed around like they did last year with the alignment of their safeties. Now, last year when they went on a good defensive run in the second half of the year, they basically made Kyle Hamilton the single high free safety, the backbone of the secondary, and everything else was falling in line around that. This time around to make some adjustments, trading for Gilman, moving the rookie Malachi Starks into more of a free safety type role. You’ve got Kyle Hamilton down operating in the in the slot again as the nickel, as that kind of third linebacker that mixes in there with Rocoan Smith and Teddy Buchanan and Trenton Simpson, right? When you look at the last couple of games, and this is two games since the Alohi Gilman trade, okay, he has not played a single snap aligned as a free safety. He has been in the slot. He’s been at that extra linebacker, kind of that base third linebacker. He’s lined up off the edge a little bit when they want him to blitz. They’ve moved Kyle Hamilton into more of a down in the box role again, like, and he’s so used to it, right? That’s what makes him arguably the best safety in football is he can do anything and he’s got that flexibility the first five games of the year. A little more 50/50 when it came to being free or in the box. But what they’re doing right now, last year the issue was coverage. So we said, “All right, we’ll put Kyle back there free and we’ll fix the coverage. We’ll figure out the zone defenses here.” This year the issue is the run defense. They’ve been one of the worst run defense teams in the league. And they move Hamilton up in the box because aside from Rocoan Smith, they’re kind of struggling on that second level. So I I really think this is intriguing. uh you know knowing on a week-toeek basis where Kyle Hamilton is going to be lined up and really look centering your defense around your best players. They’ve got a rookie playing at linebacker and Teddy Buchanan needs some help there on the second level. Hamilton’s been great as he always is. But this time it’s from a more of a box alignment, a strong safety or a nickel alignment than it was last year, the second half of the year when he was basically their free safety and everything else worked around him. Yeah. Specifically, I was looking at the Ravens defense because Lamar changes everything for the offense in my opinion. If if if Lamar is even 80 90% healthy, whatever that looks like for him, I think the Ravens offense looks a whole of a hell lot better than it has over the last couple of weeks with him not there. And that’s no slight against New Pumpley who um Huntley, excuse me, who obviously the Ravens won the game last week and they scored 30 points while doing it. So, the offense was operating well enough. It only gets better when you put the multi-time MVP in Lamar Jackson back there at quarterback. So, for me, I just think that it’s going to be a lot closer to the version of the Ravens offense that we believed it was going to be throughout the entirety of the season. Really, what we saw at the beginning of the season, although I understand that they didn’t beat the Buffalo Bills at the beginning of the year, but that first game, man, it looked like they were firing on all cylinders, and it looked like the Ravens were going to be that Super Bowl contending team that we all believed they had the potential to be. But then you mentioned the defense, specifically the run defense was pretty bad for them to start the season. However, you know, to compound onto sort of what you said about how they’ve been turning around a little bit, two out of the last three weeks that they have played, they have had the lower lowest, I should say, team percentage of negatively graded run defense plays. So, all of that is a lot of words to basically just say they’ve been better against the run over the last couple of weeks. And against Miami specifically, we know that this is a team that they kind of have to stay balanced, especially without Tyreek Hill in this lineup if they want to not just move the ball down the field and score points, but more importantly, control the football, not turn it over. It’s always when they become very one-dimensional that teams then really start to key on exactly what this team wants to do, what Tua Tonga Aloa wants to do. And if they’re able to fool him at all post snap, we’ve seen that Tua can give you the football. So, when it comes to defending the Miami Dolphins, it’s mainly the run defense that I’m looking at here. And if the Ravens continue to play really well when it comes to those run defense plays, whether it’s Kyle Hamilton being at the second level, the defensive line playing a little bit better, whatever it looks like, if they’re able to neutralize Devon Achan, then I feel like the Ravens have a good chance to win this football game. So, I do have the Ravens winning. I I think that I have more faith in sort of where this team is going and how they’ve been over the last couple of weeks. Even with both of these teams coming off of a win, I’m going to say Ravens 27, Dolphins 17 is my final score here in this one. Yeah, I agree. I think even if Tyler Huntley is the quarterback in this game, they can find a way to win it because Huntley is more dynamic than Cooper Rush and it seemed like just a better fit in this offense this past week with them. If Lamar is back, then it’s just a matter of how long it takes them to find that rhythm. I think Devon Han still could have some success because he’s really good out in space. But I’m with you. I’ve got the Ravens 28 to 21. I think their offense is starting to get going. And I don’t think that Miami run defense last week doesn’t prove enough for them for me in run defense because of kind of the disrespect they had for the Falcons offense. and Kurt Cousins. If Miami’s run defense plays to that level in this game, then they’ve got a real shot to win it. But I’m going with the bigger sample of what we have in their earlier struggles. I think Derrick Henry could be in for a big

PFF’s Dalton Wasserman and Trevor Sikkema preview the matchup between The Baltimore Ravens and The Miami Dolphins.

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