How the Ravens' defense presents a unique challenge to Joe Burrow

A few minutes after Cincinnati Bengals quarterback Joe Burrow signed his record-setting contract extension, head coach Zac Taylor was asked to pinpoint Burrow’s biggest strength.

“His ability to process,” Taylor said without hesitation. “He instantly sees the entire field and processes the whole picture. He does that better than anyone.”

On Wednesday, heading into the Bengals’ Week 2 game against the Baltimore Ravens, Burrow described the unique challenge of facing the Ravens’ defense.

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“They do a great job of sending blitzes at you that you don't see on tape before,” Burrow said. “You have to be able to adapt.”

The Bengals faced the Ravens three times last season, and no defense in the NFL did a better job of making Burrow doubt what he was seeing than Baltimore. Burrow sees the Ravens’ defense as a unit that’s pretty good at taking away what Burrow called “the Bengals’ bread and butter.”

During the 2022 season, the Ravens rested several of their best players in Week 18 when they played the Bengals because they were set for a rematch in the playoffs the following week. The other two matchups between the two teams were two of Burrow’s shakiest performances.

Over the last two years, the Cleveland Browns, the Pittsburgh Steelers and the Dallas Cowboys shut down the Bengals offense with elite pass rushers dominating one-on-one matchups.

The Ravens are the rare defense that has challenged Burrow in a different way. Ravens defensive coordinator Mike Macdonald has schemed up game plans for Burrow that are as effective as Bengals defensive coordinator Lou Anarumo’s famous game plans for Kansas City Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes.

The Ravens’ deep tool box of tricks and their versatile defense held the Bengals’ offense to 17 points in Week 5 and 17 points in the Wild Card round.

“They're smart and they’ve got a lot of talent,” Taylor said. “It's a really good defense that can really cause problems and disrupt the quarterback’s timing.”

The Ravens disrupted Burrow’s timing better than any other defense last season. In Week 5, Burrow thought he had an easy throw to a wide-open Ja’Marr Chase over the middle of the field. But he didn’t see Ravens linebacker Patrick Queen, who started the play at the line of scrimmage and backpedaled 20 yards down the field to sneak between Burrow and Chase.

A big piece of what makes Burrow special is that he seems to know where all 22 players on the field are at all times. His interceptions are usually a result of tipped passes, batted passes and aggressive plays near the sideline. His interceptions almost never take place because he doesn’t see a defender.

But he threw that pick in Week 5 because he didn’t see Queen. It was Burrow’s most uncharacteristic turnover of the season. In that game, Burrow completed 24 of 35 passes for just 217 yards and took three sacks.

“They’re sound in the secondary,” Bengals wide receiver Tyler Boyd said. “They kept us condensed and made us take what they gave us. They did a good job with that.”

"They do a lot of different things and have a lot of different looks," Chase said. "Their whole defense, they fly to the ball. They play fast and physical."

The Ravens are very aggressive rotating coverages after the snap, which makes Burrow take an extra second to process the field. Taylor said the Ravens’ linebackers are as good as any team’s linebackers in the NFL, and the Ravens’ linebackers are the queens on the chess board who can move all over the field and make an impact.

Queen, a former first-round pick and Roquan Smith, an All-Pro, are versatile and well-rounded players. The Ravens trust them to blitz and trust them in coverage. The Ravens' talent at linebacker unlocks their entire game plan.

“They’ve got two good linebackers,” Bengals center Ted Karras said. “And they’re going to be bringing (the heat).”

In the Wild Card round against the Bengals, the Ravens’ game plan featured simulated pressures that caught Burrow off-guard. The Ravens almost exclusively rushed four players, but they weren’t the four players that Burrow was expecting.

On one down, Queen would blitz and a defensive end would drop back in coverage. Another down, Smith would replace the defensive end as the pass rusher. The Bengals weren’t successfully predicting which four players would be rushing the passer.

Even though the Ravens rarely blitzed, their simulated pressures gave pass rushers unexpected paths to the quarterback. The Ravens had four sacks and had four different players rotate in as blitzers.

“You can feel hot (with a blitz coming), but you’re not,” Bengals center Ted Karras said. “That’s the biggest thing. From a quarterback perspective, you can feel like you're hot and the blitz is not picked up but it really is.”

In the Wild Card game, Burrow completed 23 of his 32 passes for just 209 yards and took eight quarterback hits against a defense that didn't have a star-studded pass rush. Burrow had to hold onto the ball longer to process the Ravens' defense, which gave the Ravens' pass rush time to break through.

These simulated pressures had another effect on Burrow. He noticed a linebacker or a safety was blitzing and audibled to a hot route. Expecting an aggressive pass rush, he looked to get rid of the ball immediately. But when the Ravens blitzed a linebacker and a defensive end dropped in coverage, the math was still five Bengals’ receivers vs. seven defensive backs in coverage.

Those quick throws were supposed to be open against the blitz, but they weren't open because the Ravens weren’t blitzing. Burrow then either had to scramble or throw the ball away.

Burrow also didn’t get many chances to be aggressive and look down the field. The Ravens were a patient defense that used two safeties in zone coverage deep down the field to keep the Bengals in front of them. Burrow completed 70% of his passes, but none of his completions went for longer than 20 yards.

“Teams that play that softer style of defense and keep it in front and limit explosives, you try to get guys in space underneath,” Bengals offensive coordinator Brian Callahan said. “We did, but we really didn’t get anything after the catch. We didn’t break a lot of tackles. That’s what made it feel challenging. Every time we completed the pass, it was a four-or-five-yard gain and we were tackled. It creates a bit of a slog feeling.”

This week, the Ravens will be relying even more on Macdonald’s scheme. All-Pro cornerback Marlon Humphrey and star safety Marcus Williams are expected to miss the game with injuries. The Ravens will have three new cornerbacks who didn’t start in the playoffs last year.

They’ll need to keep Burrow guessing to prevent him from finding Boyd, Tee Higgins and Ja’Marr Chase open down the field.

“Baltimore is a great defense,” Burrow said. “They tackle really well, they make it tough on you to create explosives after the catch, and that's always the challenge when you are playing them. They run the ball really well on offense, so it limits your possessions, and then their defense is tough and physical.”

This article originally appeared on Cincinnati Enquirer: What makes the Ravens' defense a unique challenge for Joe Burrow