Expecting an offense to put up more then 20 points before garbage time is not poor expectations. On its face the past 3 games look okay 23,28,25 points respectively which are solid but unspectacular numbers but the actual in game story is far different. They got a free TD against Browns in garbage time and a prevent defense TD against Chiefs that they were happy to give away.
That Browns game to me just highlighted that the offense NEEDS to do more. I am not asking Lamar to carry the team. Moore should have caught that ball. If Moore catches that ball that is 3 points on the baord and if Lamar places it better (he had SO much room) its 7 but that was not the only mistake that half. If ONE of them doesnt happen the Ravens are up at half and the entire game feels far different. For all the talk of the defense being leaky, they gave up 10 in the first half and held ODB to I believe the worst game of his career. They struggled dealing with Landry and the run defense without BWill was as bad as expected but that bring it back to there are sometimes when you need the healthy unit to step and win the game and the offense could not do that.
This is not all on Lamar as he is not the only person playing. He is covering for pretty poor OLine play but that does not matter if the offense cannot put points on the board when it matters. The defense will be fine once BWill and Jimmy are back but until then if the Ravens are going to win games they need the offense to do what it showed it could do.
Well there's no question the offense can make more plays.
My point is the exact same for both the Chiefs and Browns game... if we scored 40 points both games, we still have a 2-2 record heading into Pittsburgh. We're talking elite, top tier, stud offensive performances that translate into losses. That's how bad the defense was.
When we have games (and I'm sure there will be at least 1-2) when the defense gives up like 20-25 and generally play OK, and the offense fails to deliver, then we can talk about why the offense playing better is a priority.
Take the KC game for example... the offense did pretty much everything you would want them to do, except score more points. While I admit that's the crucial element, it can also be the most skewed element.
They won Time of Possession by over 5 minutes, which everybody would tell you is key against Pat Mahomes
They rushed for over 200 yards, and were efficient doing it (over 6 YPC)
They were respectable, not great, on third down (5/13)
They were great on 4th down (3/4)
They didn't turn the ball over
They were great at converting in the red zone (4/5)
Like if you give me those numbers every week, I don't even really need to see how many points they scored. The point will take care of themselves at that point. I know there's 4 TDs in there just based on red zone efficiency, and I would expect points allowed to be much lower, given the lack of turnovers and the TOP gap.
The Browns game was not similar, hence why I said a lot of this "the offense needs to do better" argument is limited to the Browns game.
Time of Possession was largely even, slightly favoring the Browns - bad sign #1
Rushing yardage was still there and efficiency was still there, but time of possession wasn't
Turned the ball over 3 times (yes the two INTs were late in the game with it pretty much "in-hand", but that's how you end up giving up 40 points to begin with, but the Ingram fumble was back breaking and arguably the biggest play of the game)
Were pretty average on 3rd down (4/10)
Only had two possessions in the red zone (1/2)
Like literally, you can take these 5-6 stats, and for the most part, figure out how our offense did, without even looking at the points.
Cardinals game:
Dominated TOP (by over 15 minutes)
Large rushing numbers and efficiency
Didn't turn the ball over
Respectable on third down (50%)
4 red zone trips (only converted one on this game, hence the lower point total than probably expected)
3/4 weeks the offense is largely doing what you expect of it. Cleveland game it didn't. But like KC, it wouldn't have mattered. If we scored more, they would have just scored more, because there was nothing we were doing defensively to stop it.