Ravens' Defense 'Not Overlooking' Bengals Offense

The Baltimore Ravens will face one of the most explosive offenses in football in the Cincinnati Bengals on Sunday.

Can the Baltimore Ravens' defense limit the Cincinnati Bengals offense for the second straight week?

That answer may be the deciding factor in Baltimore beginning the season 2-0. The Ravens' defense did its part in 2022, limiting Joe Burrow to an average of 213 passing yards across three games. In total, he only threw three touchdowns and an interception and was also sacked eight times by Baltimore last season. 

Baltimore (1-0) also held Burrow to his second and third-lowest quarterback rating in the 2022 regular season. 

While the Cleveland Browns (1-0) gave a bit of a blueprint for how to slow down Cincinnati's (0-1) offense in its 24-3 win on Sept. 10 at home, Ravens defensive coordinator Mike Macdonald isn't pulling too much from that performance because of the difference in personnel. 

"I think it's hard to look at gameplans and say we're going to copy what this guy did," Macdonald said. "There's so much more that goes into it than just what you see on tape, situationally, who you have out there personnel-wise [and] things that you're setting up. We're just going to focus on how we think we need to best attack this offense this year with the people we have given the things they're doing."  

The Browns' pass rush was pivotal in flustering Burrow. Myles Garrett and Za'Darius Smith combined for eight of the Browns' 10 pressures. Garrett also had one of Cleveland's two sacks.  

Burrow was 14 of 31 for 82 yards against Cleveland in rainy conditions.

Despite the poor performance, Macdonald isn't buying into the Bengals' performance against Cleveland, given their talent with Burrow and one of the best trios of receivers in football with Ja'Marr Chase, Tee Higgins and Tyler Boyd. 

Along with the Bengals' talent on offense, they played their best at home in 2022. Cincinnati averaged 28.7 points per game at home, the fourth most in the NFL. 

"We're not making too much of it," Macdonald said. "We know what this offense is, the players they have, the coaches they have and the system. We know what's at stake, so we're definitely not overlooking anything."

Baltimore's defense is coming off a strong performance in its 25-9 win over the Houston Texans on Sept. 10 at M&T Bank Stadium. The Ravens' pass rush had 10 pressures and five sacks against Houston. 

If the Ravens' pass rush can find similar success against Burrow and the Bengals, it'll go a long way toward limiting one of the most explosive offenses in the league. 

"It's a big test," Macdonald said. "There's a lot of plays where these guys are breaking tackles and creating explosive plays on catch and throws and slants and screens and things like that. It's a point of emphasis for us. I sound like a broken record, but it's Week 1, and there's a lot of things we need to improve on. I think we gave up three explosive passes by our metrics, and two of them were because of missed tackles...It's a challenge, and that's something that we're stressing very much this week." 

Baltimore heads to Paycor Stadium on Sunday to face the Bengals at 1 p.m. ET.