• Jadeveon Clowney is on pace for a historic Ravens season: He could be the first Baltimore defender to break 80 pressures since PFF began collecting data in 2006.
• Roquan Smith is inching toward a DPOY case: While the award usually goes to players with gaudy sack or interception totals, Smith could sneak into the picture if he keeps up his current performance.
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Estimated Reading Time: 6 minutes
The Baltimore Ravens are 3-1 after four weeks and, with two road wins in the AFC North under their belt, have enjoyed about as perfect of a start as possible without being undefeated.
There’s a lot of football left to play, but a team that entered the 2023 NFL season with many questions is producing plenty of answers already.
Here are the five things we’ve learned about the Ravens so far this season.
Injury replacements have stepped up
The Ravens' season could have easily gone off the rails already, given the injuries they sustained on both sides of the ball. Projected starters at the beginning of the year have now combined to miss 26 games, including left tackle Ronnie Stanley and starting safety Marcus Williams sitting out the past three games, while cornerback Marlon Humphrey has yet to play this season.
Baltimore sits at 3-1, though, because of replacements stepping up. At cornerback, all three of Brandon Stephens, Rock Ya-Sin and Ronald Darby have earned 63.0-plus PFF coverage grades, while Geno Stone’s 82.2 PFF grade ranks ninth among safeties. Along the offensive line, Sam Mustipher earned PFF grades of 65.0 or better as both a run blocker and pass protector when filling in for starting center Tyler Linderbaum, and backup left tackle Patrick Mekari has earned a 63.3 PFF grade, tied for 33rd among all tackles.
Jadeveon Clowney has been a boost off the edge
When the Ravens added Clowney late in the summer, it felt like a move to raise both the floor and ceiling of a relatively untested edge defender group led by Odafe Oweh and David Ojabo. Both have missed time early in the season, too, making Clowney's addition all the more important.
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