The Baltimore Ravens’ offense can leave viewers enamored with its speed when quarterback Lamar Jackson slingshots past defenders or skill players like Marquise Brown or J.K. Dobbins zip into the open field. But during a four-game winning streak, the Ravens haven’t only been running past opponents.
They’ve also increased heft to barrel through them.
For 20 of its 68 offensive plays during Sunday’s win over the New York Giants, Baltimore put a sixth offensive lineman on the field. The Ravens regularly opted to play with an extra center, guard or tackle as a way to supply the running game with extra muscle, and they’re likely to continue to lean on that strategy during Sunday’s crucial regular-season finale against the Cincinnati Bengals (4-10-1).
Since top-tier blocking tight end Nick Boyle suffered a season-ending knee injury in November, the sixth lineman has developed into a staple for offensive coordinator Greg Roman.
“When you’ve got Nick Boyle in there, you pretty much have pretty close to an extra offensive lineman in the game,” Roman said. “Once he went down, we had to try to find different ways to try to fortify our edges.”
While Ravens did add Eric Tomlinson, a blocking tight end, to the roster to more directly replace Boyle, he plays only a fraction of the snaps that Boyle did on a regular basis. Baltimore has mixed in more and more of the six-lineman looks to pave paths for ball-carriers.
Baltimore (10-5) had an additional lineman in the game for at least seven offensive snaps in each of the past four contests — all victories in which the team averaged 233.3 rushing yards.
After his benching last month in the wake of a string of shaky snaps, former starting center Matt Skura stepped into the new role, lining up often as a tight end in recent weeks. Sunday, when center Patrick Mekari left the game with a back injury, Skura replaced him and fourth-round rookie guard Ben Bredeson took over in the tight end-like role.
The offensive line shuffling didn’t stop Baltimore from increasing the strength on the field, as Bredeson saw 14 snaps of action.
The Ravens use the sixth linemen more often than any of their opponents. Coach John Harbaugh said the reason is simple: Another forceful blocker makes it harder for an opposing defense to win in the trenches.
“It’s just the body,” Harbaugh said. “It gives you just another guy who’s a 310- to 315-pound guy, like Matt Skura is, to block. And he can block with those down blocks or the reach blocks or the base blocks. A tight end certainly could do it, but they’ll put a big defensive end out there and mismatch your tight ends. So, sometimes you want to put in a guy who matches up with him. Or sometimes, some of that can overpower a smaller defensive end. It becomes a matchup kind of an idea.”
Dobbins’ first touchdown run of Sunday’s win over the Giants is a good example of how well the strategy can work. Watch below. Skura (No. 68) lines up as a tight end to the right of the right tackle, and Dobbins runs behind him.
Skura pushed his way through the first level of the defense and then collided with 240-pound Giants linebacker David Mayo (No. 55) near the goal line. Mayo wasn’t able to push past the heftier Skura in time to stop Dobbins from stretching into the end zone.
Many teams add an extra lineman when they’re close to the goal line, but the Ravens do it early in the game when they’re nowhere near the end zone. Skura has started three of the team’s past six games not at center but as a tight end.
Conversely, one-time Pro Bowl tight end Mark Andrews hasn’t started a single game over that span. On their first snap of a contest, Baltimore typically prefers muscle over pass-catching prowess.
Of course, every scheme decision comes with a downside. The Ravens know that opponents do not treat Skura — or other linemen — as a serious pass-catching threat. But Baltimore counters with a uniquely diverse running game that relies on the skills of Lamar Jackson, who last year broke the NFL single-season record for rushing yards as a quarterback.
Even if a defense knows the Ravens will run the ball on a given play, it doesn’t know who will carry it.
Baltimore also has called play-action passes out of the heavy sets, though Jackson has not targeted an offensive lineman on a pass all year.
“You do have some plays off of that to just keep them honest,” Harbaugh said, “so they can’t completely over-sell to the run.”
The Ravens will clinch a spot in the playoffs if they beat the Bengals on Sunday, so they’ll need to unleash their best offensive designs. That probably includes a few plays with an extra linemen, whether Skura returns to the role or a rookie like Bredeson or Tyre Phillips steps into it (Mekari has missed two practices this week with his back injury).
Whatever the personnel looks like, it’s difficult to deny Baltimore is the midst of a trend. It used six linemen for seven offensive snaps in a Dec. 8 win over the Cowboys, then for nine snaps in the next game, 11 after that and 20 last week. And positive results have been mounting, too, with the Ravens riding a four-game winning streak and the offense’s production rising.
“These young linemen who are doing it – Skura has done it some – they’re doing a good job,” Roman said, “and we look forward to continuing to develop that.”
Aaron Kasinitz covers the Baltimore Ravens for PennLive and can be reached at akasinitz@pennlive.com or on Twitter @AaronKazreports. Follow PennLive’s Ravens coverage on Facebook and YouTube.