3 takeaways from Baltimore Ravens' Week 1 win against the New York Jets as Lamar Jackson outduels Joe Flacco

The Baltimore Ravens had a dismal 2021 season and were hoping to make a winning start to the new campaign. That's exactly what they did as they crushed the New York Jets 24-9 on a rainy day at the MetLife Stadium.

The Jets did not play poorly by any means, but made costly mistakes at crunch moments to hand the Ravens the advantage.

On that note, here are the three biggest takeaways from the Ravens-Jets game:

#1 Lamar Jackson has become one of the best deep-ball throwers from the pocket

I've always felt that Lamar Jackson is one of the most underrated passers in the league and believed that he had shown a lot of growth as a quarterback in structure last season.

On Sunday against the Jets, the Ravens offense certainly wasn’t in its element, but was still able to put the game out of reach. New York’s defense actually started the game on a very strong note, holding Baltimore to a miniscule 2.7 yards per play through the first 25 minutes of action, with very little success on the ground.

Yet the Ravens were up 10-0 at the break, thanks to a four-play touchdown drive, where Jackson fired a deep ball in the direction of Demarcus Robinson, which prompted a flag for pass interference on Lamarcus Joyner. He then dropped a ball right over the head of Bryce Hall on a 25-yard touchdown to Devin Duvernay on a fade route.

On the second drive of the second half, the Ravens cashed in on a shanked punt by the Jets, as Jackson hit Duvernay once more for a 17-yard score. And finally, the Ravens QB put a skinny post right through the safeties perfectly on the run for Rashod Bateman for a 55-yard TD, to put the game out of reach.

He did throw a late interception when the Ravens were at their own 11-yard line on a third-and-six, where he didn’t have space to really step into the throw, but even that acted as more like a punt.

#2 Ravens defense has a lot of similar elements, but a slightly different look under Mike Macdonald

The Ravens made the conscious decision to let defensive coordinator Wink Martindale walk and bring in Mike Macdonald, who had a lot of success in his one year at the job for John Harbaugh’s brother Jim at Michigan.

At its core, those two guys have some of the same belief systems, but unlike Wink, who showed hesitancy to some degree to adapt to more modern two-high safety structures, Macdonald embraces the idea of pairing their pressure looks with more match-zone principles on the back-end.

Baltimore finished just one spot outside the top-10 in terms of blitz percentage (30.6%) last season, but unlike what we saw back then – and facing Joe Flacco certainly contributed to that – the Jets weren't open to taking their shots down the field.

The Ravens didn’t go straight man-coverage across the board a whole lot, unlike last season, when they gave up league-high in 20+ yard completions.

In fact, Baltimore defensive’s ADOT (average depth of target) of 5.0 yards was the third-lowest in week one and they still were able to get three sacks on Joe Flacco (plus another one negated by penalty), along with seven QB hits. They missed just five tackles on 79 total plays.

One of my breakout candidates for 2022 in Justin Madubuike was a menace on the inside, recording four pressures, along with half a sack and a TFL on just 43 defensive snaps.

#3 The Jets still can’t get out of their own way

All hope isn’t lost for Gang Green, because once again, I thought their defense actually did a great job in the first half.

If Lamarcus Joyner didn't panic and draw the defensive pass interference call, and the ball landed inches further to the side, Bryce Hall’s arm was right there against Devin Duvernay on the first touchdown. As such, the Jets may have trailed by just one score heading into the break.

They held Baltimore to just three yards per rush on the day and other than the three of four deep balls by Lamar, held them in check for the most part.

There were also a couple of bright spots on offense, like running back Michael Carter Jr. going for 100 scrimmage yards on 17 touches and some flashes by the young receiving corp.

However, when it came down to actually making the plays to push for a win in a game that was somewhat up for grabs for most of the day, it never felt like they’d be able to deliver.

Of course, we had the Marcus Williams interception to set up the first points of the day, where the Jets' tight end Lawrence Cager slipped on an in-breaker for the easy pick.

Elijah Moore bobbled a third-down pass at the sideline on the ensuing drive, followed up by a hooked field goal attempt by Greg Zuerlein. Starting the fourth quarter, rookie running back Breece Hall had the ball punched out by Chuck Clark at the Baltimore 10.

And finally, as they got to fourth-and-goal with four minutes left, Michael Carter was about to walk into the end-zone after shaking the linebacker on an option route, but he endsed up dropping his one pass on the day on a lay-up.

Check out my piece on the full week one slate at halilsrealfootballtalk.com !