Seven weeks isn't a long time, but it might as well be an eternity in football. Seven weeks ago, we were wondering whether the Chargers might be the most explosive offense of the 2026 NFL season, if anybody would be able to stop the Rams from marching to the Super Bowl and whether the Browns were actively tanking to land Arch Manning with the first overall pick in next year's draft. A lot has changed.
Of course, in a league where each week can feel monumental and significant, actually separating the passing trends from what's really meaningful is both difficult and important. This time a year ago, the Chiefs' offensive struggles might have felt like a mirage, but they turned out to be real. And while Sam Darnold's hot start didn't stick around into the second half, the Seahawks quarterback established that he had a higher ceiling than most of us would have expected before later showing that off with a brilliant performance in the critical NFC title game victory over the Rams.
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Today, I want to take a closer look at some of the key players and storylines from Sunday's action and try to get a sense of whether what we saw was a notably good (or bad) day or a more substantial trend. And with two of the three unbeaten teams heading into Week 7 losing for the first time, it only seems reasonable to start with the last remaining undefeated.
Jump to whether it's time to:
... call the Vikings defense historically great
... give up on the Texans' defense as elite
... treat the Giants as NFC East favorites
... move on from Glenn as Jets HC
... start Mendoza in Las Vegas
... start worrying about Henry in Baltimore
Is it time to ... start treating the Vikings as a historically great defense?
I don't think anybody is too surprised that the Vikings are fielding one of the best defenses in football. Brian Flores' unit was fourth in the NFL in points allowed per drive in 2024 and then again in 2025. There were changes during the offseason, notably the departure of edge rusher Jonathan Greenard, but the Vikings brought back Flores and many of the pieces that fueled the team's success over the past couple of seasons. Projecting the Vikings to be a top-five defense heading into 2026 wouldn't have been controversial.
The Vikings are not just a top-five defense, though. They're No. 1, and it isn't particularly close. Through six games, Minnesota is allowing 1.1 points per possession. To put that in context, there's only one other team in the NFL allowing fewer than 1.7 points per drive, and that's the defending champion Seahawks at 1.4. After allowing the Packers to score two touchdowns in the first half of Week 1, Flores' defense has allowed a total of four offensive touchdowns over the ensuing five and a half games.
Is that historically great? It depends on where you set your cutoffs. Elite defenses from the turn of the century, such as the 2000 Ravens and 2002 Buccaneers, were playing in a different era of football with more liberal defensive rules against offenses that played more conservative styles and at slower paces. There were a handful of defenses from that era that allowed fewer points per drive than these Vikings, but it's more appropriate to start that look back in 2007, when the Patriots kicked off a more modern offensive era.
Across that timeframe -- and looking at teams only through six games each season -- the Vikings are the 10th-best defense of the past 20 seasons. The No. 1 defense by a considerable margin through the first six games of those respective seasons was the 2019 Patriots, who were allowing a miniscule 0.4 points per possession.
That Patriots team played a remarkably easy slate of opponents early in the season, and it's fair to wonder whether the Vikings might have also enjoyed a generous slate of opposing quarterbacks, given that they've faced Baker Mayfield, Malik Willis and Tyler Shough in recent weeks. Of course, they also held a Bears offense that has been explosive and dynamic with Caleb Williams at the helm to three points through three-and-a-half quarters before Williams left the game with a hamstring injury.
On Sunday against Indianapolis, Jonathan Taylor opened the scoring with a 38-yard touchdown run. But the Colts did precious little on offense afterward. Former Vikings backup Daniel Jones was limited to 64 net passing yards on 26 plays while being blitzed on more than 85% of his dropbacks. It was the highest blitz rate for any defense in a single game since 2013, and the Vikings unsurprisingly have the five highest on the list.
The Colts made it into the red zone only once more, at which point they were forced back out by a holding penalty and a Jones sack. While Spencer Shrader missed two field goals on a frustrating day for Shane Steichen's team, the Colts barely mustered anything on offense after the early score.
And what makes the Vikings such a particularly devastating unit is how the blitz and the threat of the blitz force offenses to react. While the Vikings are a dominant defense when they send extra pressure, they're an even more impressive pass defense when they don't send extra players after the quarterback. They allow just 3.6 yards per attempt and 2.8 yards per dropback when they rush four or fewer, both of which are the best marks for any defense through six games in the QBR era, which dates back to 2007. That's a direct product of shell-shocked offenses overloading their pass protection to account for Flores' blitzes, only to then see a limited number of eligible receivers flooded by seven or eight defenders dropping into coverage.
The blitzes also keep teams out of play-action passing, which is the league's favorite way to create explosive plays on offense. The Vikings have faced play-action attempts on only 18% of opposing dropbacks this season, the second-lowest rate in the league. Teams try to run them out of the blitz and avoid third-and-long, but while they allowed a long touchdown to Taylor on Sunday, the Vikings have also been the league's best run defense in terms of success rate, preventing opponents from staying on schedule 66.7% of the time. Flores' defense turns everyone into dropback passers and then runs their pass protection through a shredder.
And of course, while so many great defenses feature Hall of Fame talents, it's even more remarkable to see Flores' unit elevating players who weren't stars elsewhere. Harrison Smith was a Pro Bowl-caliber safety for a long time, and Dallas Turner is a first-round pick in the middle of a breakout season, but Minnesota has gotten so much out of players who weren't previously perceived to be standouts. That includes players such as Andrew Van Ginkel, Byron Murphy Jr., Isaiah Rodgers and Eric Wilson.
On Sunday, that spotlight shined on linebacker Blake Cashman. A backup with the Jets before emerging as a starter with the Texans, Cashman has taken his game to a new level during his three years in Minnesota. He wrecked shop against the Colts, with two sacks, four quick pressures and five total pressures on 12 rush attempts. The veteran looped around the line for one sack to knock the Colts out of field goal range, then ran through Taylor to overpower the star back and take down Jones. Having linebackers such as Cashman and Wilson who can hold up in coverage and absolutely terrify running backs in pass protection makes Flores' defensive vision come to life.
Many of the defenses ahead of the Vikings in the top 10 for points per possession since 2007 weren't able to sustain their dominance over a full season. The 2009 Jets, 2019 Patriots and 2008 Ravens are the only teams to finish the season allowing fewer points per drive than the Vikings have so far this year. And there are elements of Minnesota's game that might not stick. The Vikings are second in turnover rate (15.9% of drives) and have allowed touchdowns on a league-low 23% of drives that reach the red zone. Opposing kickers have missed three of 12 field goal attempts and two of seven extra point tries. It's tough to count on that sustaining.
Of course, even if the Vikings take a step backward, they would still be the best defense in football. With the Lions, Bills, 49ers and Packers all coming up, Minnesota will be tested by much stiffer competition. If the Vikings can sustain this level of play against high-end offensive attacks, we can start talking about them as one of the greatest defenses of the past 20 years with some confidence.
Is it time to ... give up on the Texans as an elite defense?
The Vikings were fourth in points allowed per drive (1.7) last season ... two spots ahead of them were the Texans (1.5), who also projected to stay among the league's best defenses in 2026. While there was turmoil surrounding the offense after C.J. Stroud's woeful postseason, a defense with Will Anderson Jr., Danielle Hunter and one of the best young secondaries in the game was expected to dominate again this season.
Instead, the Texans got off to a rough start against the Bills and haven't really recovered. Sunday might have been a low point, as a Giants team starting its third quarterback of the season in J.J. McCarthy lit up DeMeco Ryans's defense. In his first start with the team, McCarthy went 20-of-28 for 252 yards. Cam Skattebo, who was benched and didn't touch the ball last week, returned to the lead role and had 17 carries for 124 yards, including the key run that set the Giants up in overtime. Devin Singletary, one of the many backs the Texans have cycled through in the hopes of fixing their run game, then finished things off with a 30-yard touchdown to win the game for the Giants.
The Texans are a mess against the run. They rank 23rd in EPA per play and 30th in success rate against opposing rushing attacks this season. Sunday's loss saw the Giants rip off five gains of 10-plus yards while succeeding on 50% of their rush attempts. Just as the Vikings stopping the run forces teams into unwanted third-and-long situations against Minnesota's blitz, the Texans being unable to stop the run allows offenses to stay out of third-and-long against Anderson and Hunter, muting Houston's biggest strength.
There's still plenty of talent here, but there's a sloppiness to how the Texans are playing against the run. On Skattebo's 19-yard touchdown run in regulation, both Derek Stingley Jr. and Henry To'oTo'o missed chances to bring down the second-year back. Skattebo's 42-yarder in overtime was sprung when the Texans slanted two defensive linemen over by a gap after the snap but didn't replace them with second-level defenders who were supposed to fill. To'oTo'o was essentially blocked out of the play by his teammates, and the Giants had a numbers advantage to the strong side of the play. Skattebo beat Calen Bullock in the open field and might have scored if it weren't for what appeared to be a pulled hamstring 42 yards downfield. Bullock then missed another tackle on the Singletary touchdown that followed.
The exciting young secondary has gone from being a strength to a major disappointment this season, with third-year corner Kamari Lassiter as a surprising primary suspect. He dropped an interception that would have won the game against the Bills, allowed a game-losing touchdown on the next snap and hasn't really recovered, with offenses picking on him all year.
With Jalen Pitre still sidelined by a shoulder injury, the Texans moved Lassiter into the slot and played Tremon Smith on the outside, which didn't solve their problems. Lassiter was quickly beaten by Malik Nabers on a fade out of the slot for 42 yards. Smith missed a tackle on an out to Malachi Fields, who turned upfield for a 47-yard gain. McCarthy layered in a couple of nice throws, but the Texans made their own problems with missed tackles. They've allowed 15 explosive plays from missed tackles this season, the fifth most in the NFL. A year ago, they allowed only 24 such plays all season.
After starting 0-3 before making it to the playoffs last season, there was an understandable perception that the Texans would figure things out and make their way back into the postseason picture, primarily through their defense getting back on track. Everything looked great for a week against the Titans, but Houston struggled to get stops against the Jaguars in London in Week 6 and would have allowed even more points against the Giants if it weren't for a pair of missed field goals by Dominic Zvada. It has been almost two months of pretty bad football.
A short-term improvement is likely on the way. The Texans are now on their bye, which will give Ryans a chance to reimagine the defense after taking over playcalling duties earlier this month. After the bye, the Texans get to face the Chargers, Browns and Colts, who aren't exactly blowing away opposing defenses. Still, it's tough to believe that this version of the Texans is going to be able to hold up against the league's best offenses. And frankly, if they couldn't stop McCarthy, are we sure the Texans won't have trouble against Deshaun Watson and Daniel Jones?
Is it time to ... respect the Giants as favorites in the NFC East?
Somebody has to win the division, and after two weeks of losses and ties, the Giants became the first team in the NFC East to win a game since Week 4 with their victory over the Texans. Trading for and then turning to J.J. McCarthy seemed like a desperate move for an organization that lost Jaxson Dart to a season-ending knee injury in Week 2. But even if you want to discount what he did against the Saints as work in garbage time, McCarthy looked poised and accurate throughout the game against the Texans on Sunday. His 63% precise pass rate, measuring how often a quarterback hits his receiver in stride in the torso area, was the best figure McCarthy has posted in a single game as a pro.
As a quarterback who is reticent to throw over the middle of the field, McCarthy has to live throwing to the sidelines, where anything short of excellent ball placement risks a pick-six and any hesitation to throw the ball blows up the timing of a play. He was excellent on those throws in his first start with the Giants, going 8-of-13 for 169 yards on throws outside the numbers. Having Malik Nabers helps, but McCarthy looked more comfortable and effective throwing to Nabers and Malachi Fields than he did Justin Jefferson and Jordan Addison a year ago. It's not proof that the Giants landed a steal with their in-season trade for McCarthy, but one impressive start is one more than a fair number of people would have expected from him in New York after his 2025 season in Minnesota.
Beating the Texans with a third-string QB was impressive, but it's even more notable when you consider how thin the Giants were elsewhere. In addition to Dart, the Giants were without five defensive starters in Tremaine Edmunds, Brian Burns, Roy Robertson-Harris, Jevon Holland and Greg Newsome II. The former three are out for the season. Veterans such as Jason Pinnock, Ar'Darius Washington, DJ Reader and Shelby Harris -- all signed to modest contracts in free agency -- started and played meaningful snaps for the Giants on Sunday.
New defensive coordinator Dennard Wilson has leaned heavily into the blitz, with the Giants sending extra rushers at the seventh-highest rate in the NFL. Those blitzes are working: The Giants are allowing just 4.8 yards per dropback when they blitz, the fifth-best rate in the league. C.J. Stroud was 6-of-11 for 62 yards against the blitz on Sunday, although he did throw a touchdown pass late in the game against a rush where Kayvon Thibodeaux would have had a clear run at the pressured quarterback, only to fall down and allow Stroud to boot out before throwing a game-tying score.
While the defense allowed that touchdown late in the fourth quarter, the Giants came up with a stop (and a near interception that Thibodeaux dropped) on the opening drive of overtime, putting the offense in an any-score-wins situation. And they've generally been excellent when things matter most. Holland picked off Cam Ward in the end zone with 24 seconds left to seal a 12-7 win over the Titans in Week 3. Deonte Banks picked off a fourth-and-goal pass from Jacoby Brissett and returned it for a pick-six as time expired against the Cardinals in Week 4, sealing up a 36-24 victory. And the Giants stopped the Commanders at the end of regulation and the first drive of overtime in a Week 5 tie before the Commanders stopped themselves on their second and final drive of the extra period.
Does that feel sustainable? Not really. Narrowly winning (or tying) games over middling teams with late takeaways isn't something you can count on every week, as the Giants exhibited when Stroud scored against them late Sunday. And after this week's bye, the Giants' schedule gets much tougher. The Jaguars, 49ers, Seahawks and Lions are all on the docket over the second half of the season (although the Eagles won't have a healthy roster for their home-and-home against their rivals).
At the same time, somebody has to win this division. At 4-2-1, the Giants are two-plus games ahead of the Cowboys and Eagles, with the latter now starting Tanner McKee for the rest of the season and likely to be dealing players at the trade deadline. The Commanders, at 1-4-1, have spent the past few weeks embroiled in their own internal turmoil. ESPN's Football Power Index gives the Giants a 39.0% chance of winning the NFC East, up from 10.5% before the season.
Sometimes, teams claim divisions in triumphant fashion by dominating their competition. Others win by being the last team left standing. The Giants might be more likely to fall in the latter camp, but having not won a division title since 2011, I suspect their fans won't care how they do it.
Is it time to ... move on from Aaron Glenn in New York?
Nobody was going to want to be the first team to lose to the Dolphins, who hit their bye at 0-5 while being outscored by more than 12 points per game. If a successful team slipped on a banana peel, the loss would be embarrassing. For a less successful team, losing to an outwardly tanking team such as Miami could be something more devastating -- the sort of defeat that raises serious questions inside and outside the building about whether your program is on track.
For Glenn, it could be the beginning of the end. It could also just be the end. The second-year coach was already coming into the season with real concerns about his viability, having gone 3-14 in 2025 before firing the vast majority of his staff after one year. An offseason push to add veteran talent and some turnover regression to the mean helped the Jets get off to a 2-4 start, and a homestand against the Dolphins and Raiders had Jets fans wondering if the team could hit the .500 mark by midseason.
Instead, a 28-25 defeat to the Dolphins felt embarrassing, even by Jets standards. The Dolphins converted three fourth downs, went 3-for-3 in the red zone and produced the biggest play of the game on a 63-yard touchdown pass to Caleb Douglas. The Malik Willis-led offense, which scored seven touchdowns through the first five games of the season, scored four in one afternoon against Glenn's defense.
And again, Glenn's mastery of game management came up lacking. With the Dolphins driving at the end of the first half, Glenn neglected to use any of his timeouts to stop the clock on defense, which would have given his pass rush a breather and allowed the offense to potentially get the ball back after the possession. Glenn's argument was that he was confident the Jets were going to stop the Dolphins, which was misguided at best.
Glenn' Jets have now been outscored 107-6 in the final two minutes of the first half since he took over as head coach. That's an absolutely staggering statistic. No other team has been outscored by more than 45 points during those two-minute drills. The Panthers, whose minus-45 margin in those spots is 31st in the league, are closer to 14th place than they are to the Jets.
Better clock management won't singlehandedly fix that, but Glenn can't be naive to think he's handling those situations well or expect the Jets to come up with stops when they've been hopeless late in the first half. Glenn also took a timeout in the third quarter before a third-and-16 in field goal range because the Jets weren't prepared for a snap when a delay of game wouldn't have materially impacted the operation. The play the Jets then called was a simple checkdown to set up a field goal. Former Dolphins player Jason Sanders also missed the kick, which tells you what kind of day it was for the Jets.
A year ago, you could make a case that Glenn's defense was irreparably compromised by the decision to trade Sauce Gardner and Quinnen Williams for draft capital, moves that were right for the franchise in the long term but came at the expense of short-term success. Having brought in veterans such as Minkah Fitzpatrick, Demario Davis and Joseph Ossai this offseason while adding David Bailey with the second-overall pick, Glenn couldn't make that same case in 2026. If he was going to stick around past this season, the bare minimum had to come with defensive growth.
And to be fair, the defense is better. It's 19th in points allowed per drive and 20th in EPA per play after ranking 31st in both categories in 2025. But veterans are still making mistakes in key moments. Brandon Stephens wasn't able to contain an Ollie Gordon II run from getting outside before a 25-yard gain in the first quarter. On another play, Stephens blitzed out of the slot off a condensed Dolphins formation, a common trend in the league over the past year, but nobody rotated down to take his receiver in Douglas. The Dolphins rookie caught a quick flat in the pass, shook a would-be tackle attempt from Fitzpatrick on the sideline and ran upfield for a 63-yard touchdown. Glenn can't make his guys into superstars, but when his veterans are making simple mistakes, the Jets don't have the talent base to overcome them.
Glenn turned the offense over to Frank Reich, but there's a reason why Garrett Wilson was spotted screaming on the sideline during yesterday's loss. Even knowing that opposing defenses want to take Wilson out of the contest, it's unconscionable that the team's best playmaker would get only three targets against a Dolphins secondary that has been hopeless to start the season. Rookie Omar Cooper Jr. held his own, catching five passes for 115 yards and a touchdown, but first-round tight end Kenyon Sadiq has quickly fallen out of favor after a 105-yard game against the Lions in Week 3. He has caught four passes for a total of 21 yards over the four ensuing tilts. Mason Taylor scored twice against Miami, but again, good offenses are designing plays to create opportunities for their best playmakers.
Team owners make emotional decisions after embarrassing home losses; look at the Colts firing Chris Ballard after Indy blew a 12-0 halftime lead to the previously-winless Titans last week. It's entirely possible that the Jets will make a change Monday morning. Glenn is 5-19 and two of his five wins are over the Browns. The Jets have been outscored by nine points per game since the start of 2025.
I would argue that they are better off sticking with Glenn for now. The defensive improvement is there and speaks to Glenn's aptitude on that side of the ball, although it would have been hard to be worse than where the Jets were a year ago. The game management issues have to improve and soon. Perhaps that means handing over those responsibilities to Reich or someone else on staff. But frankly, even if Glenn's not a good coach and the Jets continue to struggle, the best thing for the 2027 team might be some (competitive) losses from the 2026 Jets.
Is it time to ... start Fernando Mendoza in Las Vegas?
A month ago, coach Klint Kubiak and the Raiders were riding high. After a 3-0 start, the Raiders were up 13-10 on the Chiefs at halftime. As often happens in Vegas, the guy with the hot hand got cocky. "We're winning," Kubiak said to the broadcast at halftime. "We're going to win the game." Given that Kubiak had just won the Super Bowl with the Seahawks, won his first three games as head coach and was beating the archrival Chiefs, you can probably understand why he was so outwardly confident about his team's chances.
Things haven't gone as well since then, though. The Raiders lost that game to the Chiefs, in part because they failed to score after Kubiak took a field goal off the board in the third quarter of a game they would lose by three. The Raiders then lost to the Patriots, Bills and Rams by a combined score of 113-68 over the next three weeks.
It's fair to look at that 3-0 start and point out that the Raiders didn't exactly play the stiffest competition, given that their victories were against the Dolphins, Chargers and Saints, three teams that are a combined 3-16. Las Vegas' defense forced nine turnovers across those three games, a feat that wasn't going to be sustainable for very long. The Raiders have forced a total of three over the ensuing four contests, including two against the Rams on Sunday.
Those turnovers produced two short fields and a touchdown for the Raiders, who needed the help on offense. The 35-21 score in the loss to the Rams flatters Kubiak's team, which was down 28-6 heading into the fourth quarter before a late surge from Kirk Cousins & Co. made things look closer. Over this four-game losing streak, Cousins has a 43.4 Total QBR over the first three quarters of games and a 75.9 mark in the fourth quarter, which has usually been a product of teams playing prevent defenses as opposed to the veteran elevating his game in a clutch moment.
But I'd still argue that Cousins is playing well enough to hold onto his job. He leads the league with 16 touchdown passes this season. His 79.3 Total QBR on play-action pass attempts is the second-best figure in the NFL. With limited wide receivers (and no Brock Bowers to begin the season), Cousins has generally held up his end of the bargain for Vegas. He has limited negative plays, taking sacks on just 3.7% of his dropbacks while throwing five picks on 257 attempts.
The problem with the offense, instead, is that the Raiders absolutely cannot run the ball whatsoever, an issue that has annually plagued the franchise. Last year, the Raiders were successful on just 34.8% of their rush attempts, which was last in the league and nearly five percentage points worse than the 31st-ranked Texans. Kubiak was hired in part because of his ability to build run games around the zone-heavy approach his family has used with the various Mike Shanahan-tree coaches for decades around the league.
Through seven weeks, the Raiders are even worse on the ground than they were in 2025. They've posted a 31.6% success rate on their rush attempts. Mike Washington Jr. has flashed with some big plays, but Ashton Jeanty is averaging 3.1 yards per carry. The 2025 first-round pick has run for just eight first downs on 83 rush attempts since his solid start to the season against Miami. Even with acknowledging that Kubiak's offensive lines can take some time to coalesce before improving in the second half of the season, the Raiders are almost unfathomably bad running the football, which leaves their offense in third-and-long.
The lack of a run game makes it harder for the Raiders to credibly install play-action. While announcers often talk about how the threat of the run creates opportunities for play-action, the threat goes both ways. Linebackers who are expecting play-fakes aren't as likely to fly to the line of scrimmage to fill their run responsibilities, which creates breathing room for the ground game.
The Raiders are running play-action on only 21.1% of their dropbacks this season, which is 23rd in the league. A year ago, Kubiak's offense in Seattle ran play-action 27.2% of the time, which was the ninth-highest rate in the league. QB Sam Darnold was devastating using a play-fake, as the Seahawks starter averaged 11.7 yards per pass attempt using play-action, trailing only Lamar Jackson.
Darnold (and just about every other quarterback running this offense) was particularly successful on the naked bootleg game that Shanahan tree disciples install as the obvious play-fake off their outside zone offense. Those are throws Cousins really isn't asked to make very often because of his lack of mobility as a 38-year-old quarterback with an Achilles tear in his recent past. But when he throws from outside the pocket with play-action this season, he has gone 10-of-10 for 115 yards with a touchdown and a league-best 98.2 Total QBR. That pocket movement also takes pressure off the offensive line by creating uncertainty for opposing pass rushers.
Cousins isn't very mobile, but that's not true of his backup. Mendoza isn't going to be asked to create with his legs as part of the quarterback run game, but he's more functionally mobile than Cousins and excellent at layering passes to all three levels, which Kubiak will ask him to do as part of the flood and sail concepts that come on those bootlegs. Kubiak could call more of these concepts with Mendoza in the lineup, which would create more explosive plays for the offense.
Now also feels like the right time to make the move. Four of Vegas' next five games are on the road, but a matchup with the Jets is the easiest possible starting point for Mendoza in the immediate future. After the Jets game, the Raiders will go up against the 49ers, Seahawks, Broncos and Browns before their Week 13 bye. If the Raiders want to insert Mendoza into the lineup with a relatively weak matchup as opposed to playing him against a top-10 pass defense, that move is either going to come now or against the Chargers in Week 14.
Is it time to ... worry about Derrick Henry?
The Ravens will be spending Halloween weekend at what has been a haunted site for them in years past: Buffalo. The Bills have beaten the Ravens three straight times at home, including a pair of playoff knockouts and with a memorable comeback in a 41-40 victory to open the season a year ago.
New coach Jesse Minter obviously hoped that they would be hitting that Bills game with one of the best records in the league. Instead, the Ravens are 4-3, having lost to the Saints and Browns before the Bengals hit the accelerator and sped away from them in the second half on Sunday. The Ravens couldn't hold up in coverage against Ja'Marr Chase and Tee Higgins, missed too many tackles and made multiple mental mistakes in coverage. And with the offense producing just one drive of more than four plays in the second half, the defense simply gassed out by the time Baltimore got to the fourth quarter.
It's no surprise that the Ravens have struggled on offense without Lamar Jackson, who has missed the past three games with what was revealed to be a high-ankle sprain. And for the second week in a row, the Ravens scored a touchdown on the opening drive and then failed to score another one the rest of the way, which suggests that they weren't able to find sustainable solutions after working through their scripted plays.
Even before Jackson went down, though, there was a real problem brewing for the Ravens. Henry was excellent in the opener, running for 144 yards and three touchdowns in a comfortable victory over the Colts. Since then, though, the future Hall of Famer has been extremely underwhelming. Since the start of Week 2, Henry has carried the ball 123 times for just 435 yards, averaging a mere 3.5 yards per carry. He has just one run over 20 yards during that span, a 29-yard carry against the Cowboys in Week 3. Those explosives are typically what Henry brings to the table as a special trait.
Even beyond the raw numbers, though, Henry has been more damaging to the Ravens than it might seem. The star back helped fuel that Bills comeback in the opener a year ago by losing a fumble with 3:10 to go, getting the Bills the extra possession they needed to launch the comeback. In Week 6 this year, Henry lost a fumble against the Browns in a 10-3 game with 12:45 to go, giving a struggling Browns offense a short field, which it subsequently converted for its only touchdown of the game in what would be a 13-10 Ravens defeat.
And what has been even more noticeable and worrisome is just how much Henry has struggled in short yardage. With Jackson out of the lineup, the Ravens have leaned heavily on Henry to convert relatively short distances for first downs. Henry has faced 27 carries with 1-2 yards to go for a first down or touchdown this season, the most of any player in the NFL. Running backs convert these into first downs about 65% of the time.
Henry is 11-for-27, a 40.8% success clip on those runs. He has scored just one touchdown on seven carries from inside the 2-yard line, turning those rushes into minus-4 yards. By the NFL Next Gen Stats model, Henry has generated six fewer first downs than an average back would have in the same situations in short-yardage this season, the worst mark in the league.
On Sunday, with the Ravens up 7-0 and their defense dominating, Henry failed to move the chains on second-and-1 and third-and-1 inside the red zone. The Ravens lined up to go again on fourth-and-1, but a false start by Matt Hibner ended the play and led the Ravens to kick a field goal. I'm not sure the final result changes if Henry converts that short-yardage opportunity and gets the Ravens into a goal-to-go opportunity, but it wouldn't have hurt.
Against the Cowboys, Henry's struggles helped keep Dallas in the game. In the first quarter, Henry was stuffed on a fourth-and-1 on his own side of the field to give the Cowboys a short field, which they converted for a touchdown. In the fourth quarter, he was initially given a touchdown on a run from the 2-yard line, only to be ruled short on review. He was then stuffed for a loss on the ensuing fourth-and-goal carry from the 1-yard line. On the next drive, Henry took another 4-yard loss on a third-and-1 attempt. He then failed to convert a second-and-2 for a first down and was stuffed for no gain on first-and-goal from the 2-yard line.
That's six failed short-yardage conversions in a single game; the only other back to do that in a single game over the past decade is Clyde Edwards-Helaire, who was so famously bad in short-yardage during his debut game in the pros that Andy Reid essentially took him off goal-line duties for most of CEH's remaining tenure in Kansas City. Henry did that against one of the league's worst run defenses, with the Cowboys ranking 29th in short-yardage success rate against the run in their games against everyone else this season.
Despite his size, Henry's game has always been more about creating explosives with his speed than overpowering people in phone booths. Right now, he's not doing either, though.
The Ravens have only Justice Hill and Rasheen Ali behind Henry, and I'm not sure they want to turn the backfield over to either player unless it's absolutely necessary. We're not at that point yet. Henry's a legend, and his résumé is too substantial to give up on the star back after a mediocre six-game stretch. Henry should be better with Jackson on the field, and I'm hoping we get them both back together for that Sunday rematch with the Bills.
But the Ravens have to be watching and worried about what's going on here. They'll need to start giving serious consideration to running Jackson in short-yardage more often, even if it creates more injury risk. And if a veteran back does shake loose between now and the trade deadline, general manager Eric DeCosta might need to give the idea of adding RB depth to support Henry serious attention.
