Trey Hendrickson’s first game against his old team in Baltimore didn’t go the way anybody in purple hoped. The Ravens came out with a 35-13 loss to the Cincinnati Bengals, and Hendrickson didn’t sugarcoat what he saw from his new club in the wake of another stunning collapse.
After the Ravens again grabbed a double-digit first-half lead and then went completely silent after halftime, Hendrickson pointed to the bigger issue he believes is hanging over the team’s recent unravelings.
“The game isn’t over until it’s over. And we have a standard of our play. So, continuing to go out there and finishing the game was most important,” Hendrickson said, per Josh Tolentino of the Baltimore Sun.
He added, “I can’t speak for everybody else, but there is a standard to the way we should prepare, and nobody should be having these side conversations on the sidelines, if there is any.”
The second-half fade against Cincinnati was especially brutal because it left Baltimore scoreless after the break while the Bengals piled on 35 unanswered points. It was the second straight week the Ravens built a sizable lead, only to watch it disappear, and the absence of quarterback Lamar Jackson is clearly a major part of that story. Still, the defense has to carry some of the blame too, especially for a group with this much talent.
Roquan Smith said the team needs more “consistency” when discussing the swings in performance. For a defense loaded with high-end players, the answer may be less complicated than it looks: the stars have to start living up to what they’re capable of.
That includes Hendrickson himself. He came into Baltimore after five seasons with the Bengals and two straight full years of 17.5 sacks, but his start with the Ravens has been quiet by his standards. Through five games, he has two sacks and six quarterback hits.
In Other News...
Ravens Collapse In Cincinnati Sparked A Bigger Problem Than One Loss
Zay Flowers gave Baltimore something to build around in Cincinnati, turning in another strong showing with 8 catches for 137 yards and a touchdown, but the rest of the afternoon unraveled around him. The Ravens second straight loss came with the defense looking overwhelmed in the second half under Jesse Minter, and the overall performance carried a far more troubling tone than a simple division setback.
Derrick Henry never found a rhythm on the ground, and the frustration around the team seemed to bleed into everything as the game slipped away. For a Ravens group that entered the week trying to steady itself, the concern now is less about one bad result and more about whether the mood and execution behind it point to something deeper. [Read more 🡒]
Ravens Second Half Collapse Exposed A Bigger Problem Than One Loss
For much of the afternoon, the Ravens were forced to keep adjusting on the fly up front, and the offense never really found its footing. Baltimore ran 67 offensive snaps with injuries reshaping the starting line, while Derrick Henry and Justice Hill split the workload in a running game that never looked comfortable. Even so, Zay Flowers kept giving the offense a lift as the passing game became the most reliable part of the attack.
The deeper concern is how quickly one injury can ripple through everything Baltimore wants to do. Vega Ioanes exit with a knee injury forced Emery Jones Jr. into the lineup for the final stretch, and that kind of change can expose a unit already under pressure. On defense, the Ravens leaned on familiar core pieces such as Nnamdi Madubuike, Mike Green and Roquan Smith, but the edge rush group and safety rotation were also hit by injuries, leaving Baltimore with more questions than the loss itself suggested. [Read more 🡒]
Ravens Short-Yardage Problem Has An Obvious Fix They Keep Ignoring
Short-yardage has been one of the lingering issues for Baltimore through Week 7, and it showed up again in a recent game when the Ravens kept finding themselves in uncomfortable third- and fourth-down spots with just a few yards to get. For a team built around physicality and efficiency, those are the kinds of snaps that can stall drives and leave points on the field, especially when the offense has already moved the ball well enough to be in position to finish.
The obvious answer has been sitting in plain sight for a while: a more regular dose of the Tush Push. It has been one of the leagues most reliable short-yardage answers since 2022, and Baltimore has a built-in piece for it in Mark Andrews, who has handled those snaps before. The Ravens do not need a wholesale offensive reset to solve the problem, but leaning harder into a play they already know how to execute would at least give them a more dependable option when the game is on the line. [Read more 🡒]