Inside the Ravens’ fourth-down decision everybody hated

With 4:15 left in their Sunday game against the Buffalo Bills, the Baltimore Ravens had an important decision to make. They had fourth-and-goal at the Buffalo two-yard line, and head coach John Harbaugh had a three-way go. The Ravens could kick the easy field goal to go up 23-20. They could run the ball and either score a touchdown, or pin the Bills near their own end zone. Or, they could put the ball in Lamar Jackson’s hands, and have Jackson try to throw a touchdown pass.

Harbaugh chose Option 3, and as it turned out, that was the wrong answer. The Ravens started this drive at their own five-yard line with 13:38 left in the game, and just about every play in that marathon drive was Jackson either throwing the ball or running it. Jackson had been playing at an MVP level through the first three weeks of the season, and even though the Bills seemed to have answers for him that other defenses did not, this was a reasonable call to make. Maybe not if your quarterback was Russell Wilson or Kyler Murray, but again, Jackson had earned the benefit of the doubt based on what he had done in-season.

If the play had worked in the Ravens’ favor, we’d all be talking about how great Jackson is, and how Harbaugh was once again ahead of the analytical curve.

That was not what happened. Out of 12 personnel, Jackson dropped back and threw an interception to safety Jordan Poyer — the second pass Poyer had picked off in the game.

What was John Harbaugh's thought process?

(Tommy Gilligan-USA TODAY Sports)

Harbaugh addressed the decision to go for it in detail.

“I felt like it gave us the best chance to win the game because [with] seven [points], the worst that happens is if they go down the field and score – and I think we’ll get them stopped – but if they go down the field and score a touchdown, the worst thing that can happen is you’re in overtime,” he said after the game. “But you kick a field goal there, now it’s not a three-down game anymore, it’s a four-down game. You’re putting them out there, you’re putting your defense at a disadvantage because they’ve got four downs to convert all the way down the field and a chance to again score seven, and then you lose the game on a touchdown.

“The other thing you think you’re going to get the ball at the two-yard line, so I’m very confident in the defense’s ability to stop them down there with the ball on the two-yard line, so we have them backed up if we didn’t get it. It didn’t turn out that way, unfortunately, and we lost the game. So, hindsight, you could take the points, but if you look at it analytically, understand why we did it.”

Harbaugh didn’t talk about why the Ravens went pass instead of run, but Jackson revealed exactly what went wrong there.

Why did the play fail?

(Tommy Gilligan-USA TODAY Sports)

The Ravens had bunch right out of empty, and receiver Devin Duvernay ran a corner route to the boundary, while tight end Mark Andrews ran a great crosser to Duvernay’s route. The result was, Duvernay was as open as he could have been. Poyer didn’t go with Duvernay to the corner — nobody did. Poyer stayed neat the goalpost, because Duvernay wasn’t his assignment — Jackson as a runner was his assignment.

“[Duvernay] was wide-ass open, ” Poyer said. “I kind of peeked at him, and he was in the corner of the end zone, and Lamar didn’t see him at first, so I peeked back at Lamar – he was scrambling – and as soon as I peeked at him, he was kind of raising his hands up like he wanted the ball. So, I just took off, and Lamar saw him open, and he kind of floated it in the air, and I just went to go make a play on it.”

Poyer made a play to get to that ball that 98 out 100 defensive backs in the NFL probably don’t make. There are several reasons he’s the best safety in the NFL today, and recovery speed is one of them.

As for Jackson, he was trying to navigate the specter of edge-rusher Greg Rousseau, all 6-foot-6 and 260 pounds of him, right in his face. This delayed Jackson’s reads and forced him to improvise. He didn’t immediately see Duvernay when Duvernay got open.

“Tall defensive lineman with his hands up,” Jackson said. “I was trying to see around him to see where my guys were., but I saw Duvernay late. If I would have seen him right off the bat, that would have been a touchdown. The lineman had his hands up and was bull-rushing a little bit and got in my peripheral. So, I couldn’t really see what was going on and the play was breaking down. I tried to get back some more but it was too late.”

Jackson didn’t just have Rousseau compressing the pocket to his front side; he also has Shaq Lawson compressing the pocket to his back side. That sped up the clock when Jackson couldn’t even see where his target was.

The end zone copy of the play shows how claustrophobic the pocket really was. Jackson couldn’t move to either side; he had to wait until he could see Duvernay.

(NFL Media)

Jackson also brought up that if the play before had worked, nobody would be talking about the fourth-down failure. The play before saw the Ravens with third-and-goal from the Buffalo four-yard line, and Jackson scrambling up the middle when the pocket compressed (again) and he couldn’t see an open receiver in time (again). That got the ball to the two-yard line. Jackson wanted the touchdown there.

The Ravens were left with several what-ifs.

(Tommy Gilligan-USA TODAY Sports)

There were a lot of what-ifs in this case. What if left tackle Ronnie Stanley has been healthy, and he was protecting Jackson’s blind side instead of Daniel Faalele, a rookie fourth-round pick who was still adjusting to a new position? What if right tackle Morgan Moses didn’t lose to Rousseau to the other side?  What if Andrews — a bigger receiver who Jackson has learned to inherently trust — had run the corner route instead of Duvernay? What if Jackson had taken off instead of waiting it out? You can imagine that the third-down play was on his mind.

Harbaugh has long been lauded for his reliance on analytics and his
“bravery” in fourth-down decisions. Jackson came into this game as the NFL’s best player, and Duvernay as a clear beneficiary in Jackson’s development as a pocket passer.

The Ravens had the worst possible result in their most important decision against the Bills. Whether it was the wrong decision or not is something left to the vagaries of process versus outcome.

Story originally appeared on Touchdown Wire