Declan Doyle has spent much of his rookie season surviving the job and, by that standard, he has usually done more than enough. Sunday was different. Without Lamar Jackson, with a shaky offensive line and facing a Browns defense that aggressively attacked the Ravens’ run game, Doyle’s offense never found a second gear in a 13-10 loss.
Baltimore got an early lift from the script. Rookie receiver Ja’Kobi Lane was involved right away and productive in the slot in his first full NFL game, and Doyle also pulled off one clever switch when he moved out of a Wild Cat look for Derrick Henry and into a pass that produced the Ravens’ only touchdown. But after the first two drives, the night went sideways fast: no points on nine straight possessions, seven punts, a missed field goal and Henry’s fumble.
Henry’s opening quarter was the high point of the ground game. He had eight carries for 41 yards in the first period, then only nine rushes for 17 yards the rest of the way. That drop-off, paired with Snoop Huntley’s limited passing output of 5.3 yards per attempt, left Doyle with an offense that had little margin for error and not enough answers once Cleveland took away the easy stuff.
“We just didn't execute well enough,” Henry said. “We couldn't get any momentum, and [the Browns] played better [on defense] than we did [offensively] for us not to be able to move the ball like we did on that first drive.
We just couldn't get anything going. Hats off to them; they played a hell of a game.”
The Browns had clearly identified what Baltimore wanted to do. Henry behind the tackles and Henry on pitch plays showed up early and then got squeezed out once Cleveland adjusted. The response from Doyle never really arrived, even though the setup was begging for one.
Shotgun runs for Justice Hill would have made sense, especially with more speed and outside sprint action, but Hill never got a handoff. The pony package that worked so well against the Falcons, with Henry and Hill both in the backfield, never appeared. Option football never materialized either, and neither did much of anything with someone other than Henry handling the load.
That mattered because the Ravens kept leaning into under-center runs even though the interior was struggling, and the numbers reflected it:
Ravens Shotgun Runs: 8-37 (4.1), 5.0/carry on 1st Down, -.36 EPA
Ravens Under Center Runs: 14-50 (3.6), 3.1/carry on 1st Down, -50 EPA
If Doyle wanted to keep hammering under-center looks, the personnel needed to change with it. A tackle-eligible package showed up for only three snaps, which wasn’t nearly enough to give the offense a different shape without Durham Smythe, the “Joker” blocking tight end, who is now out for the season.
Huntley’s legs also never became part of the plan in a meaningful way. Against a Browns team that plays man coverage more than anyone in the league and still leaned on it for nearly a third of Huntley’s dropbacks, there were opportunities to use the quarterback run game. Instead, Cleveland mostly sat in Cover-3, and Doyle never really got into the RPO answers that could have stressed that shell.
“I don't know how many times I can say they changed it up, but they did a great job of switching it up every drive that we came out,” Huntley said.
Doyle had shown feel for the screen game against the Falcons, but Sunday brought far less of that creativity. Hill could have been featured more, especially with Cleveland living in base nickel and Cover-3 for much of the afternoon.
Delayed screens, bubble screens for Zay Flowers, touches for Devontez Walker near the line of scrimmage - any of those could have served as a pressure valve. Instead, the Ravens mostly used their best wrinkles early and then ran out of answers.
By the time the game got to the fourth quarter, Baltimore’s offense had been in the mud for three quarters, managing just 123 yards and 3.2 yards per play in that stretch. Henry remains on a record pace for age 32 running backs and leads the NFL with 130 carries already, but when the defense takes him away, the Ravens need something else to take over. On Sunday, that something never came.
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