Ryan: Patriots defense did its job against Lamar Jackson and Ravens ... except for when it mattered

Containing an offense commanded by a QB with Lamar Jackson’s skill set is a bit like trying to get from Point A to Point B on the MBTA these days.

It’s a frustrating, drawn-out endeavor, to say the least. And even when it feels like true progress is being made, all it takes is one signal issue (or big-yardage sprint through the c-gap) to undo all that momentum and have you back at square one — red in the face and wanting to rip your hair out outside of Oak Grove (or perhaps down the Gillette Stadium tunnel).

Devin McCourty might have said it best when it came to assessing the performance of New England’s defensive unit following Sunday’s 37-26 loss to the Ravens on Sunday afternoon.

On paper, it looked as though the Patriots did their job against a Ravens offense that averaged 31 points per contest through the first two weeks of the 2022 campaign. 

Successfully grappling a dual-threat signal-caller like Jackson and bringing him down to the turf is often a fruitless venture, but New England managed to sack the former NFL MVP four times — with Deatrich Wise (three sacks in the first half) becoming the first Patriot to bring down a QB three times in a game since Chandler Jones did it against Buffalo back in 2015.

In his first game at Gillette Stadium in over 11 months, Jonathan Jones was a fly in the ointment for Jackson — snatching a throw across the middle of the field for his first interception since Sept. 12, 2021, while later forcing a fumble after ripping a ball out of Rashod Bateman’s grasp in the fourth quarter.  

For most of the afternoon, the Patriots' defense — the expected foundation of whatever success that New England hopes to achieve in 2022 — seemed to be up to the task against Jackson and the Ravens. 

But for all of those flashy stats etched into the stat sheet, McCourty added that the most important integer — the final score — should have been the whole story. 

“That's the thing when playing against him,” McCourty said of Jackson. “Stat-wise or I would say overall — it can look like you did some good things. But he changes games with a couple of different plays. 

“And some of those QB run plays at the end of the game were huge for them. Changing the field, big gains. So that's the thing, when you play against a team like this, an offense like this, we battle, we have some really good possessions, we have some good back-to-back drives where we were able to get off the field  — like we had good moments. But against a team like this, an offense like that — it's 60 minutes of consistently trying to show up and doing a good job. … You give up 37 points, it's gonna be tough to win in this league."

In certain situations, you might just need to shrug your shoulders and tip your cap to the opposition executing against you — be it the threaded pass that Jackson tossed to Devin Duvernay in the third quarter (giving Baltimore a 28-20 lead), or Justin Tucker casually booting a 56-yard field goal on a drive where it looked like the Patriots’ D had a momentum-shifting stand following a Mac Jones pick. 

But during a pivotal stretch of the game in which the Ravens scored on four straight drives (three resulting in touchdowns) to flip a 20-14 Patriots lead into a 31-20 advantage for the visitors, New England lamented the multiple opportunities in which they could have shaved points off the board.

“I don’t think there were any new plays,” Bill Belichick said postgame. “They ran their C-gap plays and Lamar did a good job of keeping some of those or the option choices that he made. We lost leverage, missed a couple of tackles there.”

On multiple drives, the Ravens were gifted new life by way of accumulating some chunk yardage off of a small selection of plays — such as Justice Hill’s scrambling 34-yard, third-quarter rush in which New England’s secondary was left taping up their collective ankles. 

Less than two minutes later, Jackson hit Josh Oliver for a one-yard score to give Baltimore the lead once again in the third quarter — with Baltimore going 5-for-5 in the red zone with five touchdowns. 

"It goes back to the red area," McCourty said. "When you play an explosive offense, you want to try to force them to drive the field. And you gotta show up in a red area when they do that. And like I said, they're going to make some plays and they did that. Andrews had a catch over me that was tough, Duvernay had a tough catch in the corner of the end zone. But I think just playing better in a red area, kicking field goals. You got to limit it.”

When it comes to scanning the headlines from Sunday’s loss, most will deservedly center on Mac Jones’ injury — and the multiple opportunities that the Patriots’ offense let slip through their grasp in a winnable game against Baltimore.

But if you ask New England’s defensive anchors, a loss like Sunday stands as a particularly bitter pill to swallow. 

Multiple individual performances deserved praise, no doubt. 

But given the end result, it sure feels the Patriots' defense shares a similar sentiment with the rest of the roster entering Week 4 — stuck adrift on the train tracks, waiting and hoping for more good news to fall their way.

“We'll walk away and just feel like we could have just played a little bit better in a red area,” McCourty said. “Turning some of those touchdowns into field goals could have helped us out a lot.”