The Ravens were going to need a heroic effort from Cooper Rush in order to score enough points against an elite Texans\u2019 defense. Unfortunately, Rush was far from that. The veteran had a nice set of throws on third down early in the first quarter but wound up throwing three interceptions with no touchdowns. He completed 14-of-20 passes in total for 179 yards. With the run game providing next-to-nothing in support, Rush stood little chance of finding consistent success in this game. His interceptions, while all came in the second half with the game out of reach, along with some other missed throws were disappointing.<\/p>\n
Baltimore\u2019s struggles to run the ball effectively continued in Week 5 and reached a new low point. With no Lamar Jackson under center, Derrick Henry was regularly running into loaded boxes with no room to be found. Henry did return to the end zone with a touchdown in the second half, but it made no impact in the grand scheme of the game. He finished with 33 rushing yards on 15 attempts, with a longest carry of just seven yards. Keaton Mitchell rushed for only eight yards in his season debut, while Justice Hill took one rushing attempt for three yards. The latter two each had one lone reception for minimal yardage.<\/p>\n
Zay Flowers had his fourth 70+ yard receiving output of the season, leading the team with five receptions for 72 yards. He caught all five of his targets with a highlight 56-yard snag that was just short of a touchdown. Deandre Hopkins was the only other wide receiver to record a catch. His 29-yard jump-ball catch in the first quarter was one of the team\u2019s only offensive highlights of the day. Rashod Bateman failed to bring in any of his three targets and no other wideout was targeted by Rush on the day. On Rush\u2019s third interception in the fourth quarter, Bateman appeared to slow up on a vertical route and made little attempt to fight for the ball.<\/p>\n
It was a minimal-impact day from the Ravens\u2019 tight end group. Isaiah Likely caught his first pass of the season for 12 yards but that was his only target. Similarly, Charlie Kolar caught his lone target on a nice sideline third-down conversion on the Ravens\u2019 opening drive. Mark Andrews had a costly mistake where he juggled a would-be catch into the arms of a Texans\u2019 defender, resulting in an interception. The throw was low, but Andrews still had both hands on the ball and could have reeled it in. This collective did very little to help the offensive line create push in run blocking, either.<\/p>\n
The Ravens had their best pass-protection performance of the season, at least in terms of sacks (one) and quarterback hits (two) allowed. It was surprising given the absence of Ronnie Stanley, who was replaced by Joseph Noteboom at left tackle, against a vaunted Texans\u2019 pass rushing group. Unfortunately, the offensive line was beaten regularly up front still in the running game. The Ravens were unable to generate any rush longer than seven yards on their 19 total attempts. Most of their running attempts went for little-to-no gain as there were very little space created up front.<\/p>\n
Travis Jones returned to the starting lineup and had three tackles with one tackle-for-loss. However, his return could not save the Ravens\u2019 defensive line from disaster. The front seven once again generated no consistent pass rush up the middle and C.J. Stroud had clean pockets to work with, en route to completing 23-of-27 throws with four touchdowns. Stroud also had 30 yards rushing on a scramble in the first half. That scramble accounted for 30 of the Texans\u2019 167 rushing yards on the day. They were less efficient if you remove it from the equation, but Nick Chubb still grinded out 61 yards on 11 carries with a touchdown.<\/p>\n
Like Jones, Kyle Van Noy\u2019s return from injury was a welcome sight. Van Noy was the lone Pro Bowl veteran left on the defensive side of the ball. He had a sack and tackle-for-loss, but again it made no difference. The Ravens\u2019 edge rusher group was quiet like they have been for most of the year thus far. Aside for a quarterback hit each from David Ojabo and Tavius Robinson, there was minimal production in the box score. The Ravens did little to bother Stroud and he was very comfortable in the pocket all afternoon.<\/p>\n
With no Roquan Smith in the lineup, the Ravens\u2019 linebacker room was headed by Teddye Buchanan and Trenton Simpson. This duo stuffed the stat sheet, combining for 25 tackles and two tackles-for-loss, while Simpson had a sack and quarterback hit. Their production was all fluff, though, and a lot of tackles were racked up in garbage time. The Ravens continued to allow completions over the middle of the field, and they suffered a number of apparent miscommunications across the defense.<\/p>\n
In place of Marlon Humphrey, the Ravens activated Jaire Alexander and gave extended snaps to Keyon Martin in the slot. T.J. Tampa drew the official start next to Nate Wiggins on the outside. Although no Texans\u2019 wide receiver had more 64 yards, their offense still had their way through the air against this group. Three Houston wideouts had four receptions and all four of the Texans\u2019 touchdowns were caught by wide receivers. The Ravens did not record a single pass breakup on the day.<\/p>\n
Without Kyle Hamilton in the lineup, the Ravens\u2019 safety group was going to be up against it. UDFA rookie Reuben Lowery was activated and surprisingly drew the start next to Malaki Starks over Sanoussi Kane, meaning the Ravens had a pair of first-year safeties manning the defensive backfield. Communication issues in the backend continued to be an issue as did coverage over the middle of the field.<\/p>\n
Tyler Loop\u2019s run of perfection came to an end, as the rookie kicker missed his first career attempt from 55 yards out just before halftime. Jordan Stout averaged 45.5 yards per punt on four tries. Rasheen Ali and Keaton Mitchell were busy in the kick return game, combining for eight total returns and an average of 23.3 yards.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Ravens were going to need a heroic effort from Cooper Rush in order to score enough points…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":438150,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2056],"tags":[56424,7,221,253,2368,6,222],"class_list":{"0":"post-438149","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-houston-texans","8":"tag-baltimore-ravens-scores-and-results","9":"tag-football","10":"tag-houston","11":"tag-houston-texans","12":"tag-houstontexans","13":"tag-nfl","14":"tag-texans"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/115356177827329133","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/438149","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=438149"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/438149\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/438150"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=438149"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=438149"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=438149"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}