Trey Hendrickson’s return gave the Baltimore Ravens exactly what they wanted on one side of the pass rush, but it also exposed a new wrinkle they have to sort out with Mike Green.
Against the Cleveland Browns in Week 6, Hendrickson looked like the problem he’s supposed to be. He finished with 6 pressures, 1 sack, 1 QB hit, and 1 tackle for loss.
Green, meanwhile, didn’t match that pace. He posted just 1 pressure and came away without a sack, QB hit, or tackle for loss.
The split wasn’t hard to see. Hendrickson was working as a force on the right side, where he’s been at his best. Green had grown more comfortable there while Hendrickson was out, but once the veteran came back, Green shifted over to the left and wasn’t nearly as disruptive.
That leaves Jesse Minter with a real adjustment to make.
Baltimore’s defense still turned in a strong performance in the loss. The Ravens held Cleveland to 13 points, kept Deshaun Watson to 164 passing yards, and piled up 5 sacks and 10 QB hits.
It was their best defensive showing of the season. But the ceiling gets even higher if Hendrickson and Green can hit their stride together.
Minter acknowledged that challenge in his latest press conference.
“We gotta find the spots where, potentially, both of them move them around, create different matchups,” Minter said. “Trey is a really, really good right-side rusher…We gotta find good ways to make sure we’re still getting a lot out of Mike.
I thought he played well the last couple of games where we didn’t have Trey. So we gotta make sure that we’re finding ways with both of them out there to be really effective.”
The Ravens aren’t about to pull Hendrickson away from the side where he’s been dominating. He has 20 pressures and 2 sacks in 4 games, and Baltimore handed him a four-year, $112 million contract. That kind of investment usually comes with a pretty clear idea of where you want him lined up.
Still, there’s room to move him around some. Green has shown enough to deserve chances to thrive on the right, and Hendrickson has the talent to shift if needed. But the bigger burden falls on Green, the 23-year-old who needs to keep growing into a true complement to Hendrickson.
There’s been evidence he can do it. In Week 2 against the New Orleans Saints, Green picked up his first sack of the season from the left side and earned an 80.1 grade from Pro Football Focus.
His best stretch of the year also came while Hendrickson was sidelined with a finger injury. In Week 4, Green had 5 pressures and 3 QB hits.
In Week 5, he added 1 sack, 2 tackles for loss, and 3 pressures.
That’s why this feels less like a problem and more like an unfinished job. Baltimore has two edge rushers who have both flashed at different points.
Now the Ravens have to make them work together. Minter clearly believes there’s a way to do it, and the defense already has enough juice to be dangerous.
The next step is getting Hendrickson and Green on the same page more often.
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