Quick Slant: TNF - The NFL's Halloween Edition Features Two Teams Trying to Spring From the Grave
Mat Irby’s Quick Slant
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It’s Halloween—a time where we revel in the most stomach-churning, disgusting, and terrifying things; what better way to celebrate the awful than with a matchup between the 2025 Ravens and Dolphins?
Hold your nose when I say this, but these teams are actually pretty similar.
While more was expected of the Ravens entering the year as one of the primary Super Bowl favorites, they and the Dolphins began the season with their sights set on January and beyond. Both came in with reasonable expectations of explosive, nearly unstoppable offenses. And here, on Devil’s Night, both have just two wins, and their chances are already as cold and pale as a Transylvanian count.
The difference in perception goes back to the summer. The Dolphins set out, and some saw something wicked this way coming—stripping away even more parts from a janky defense, all traces of former HC Brian Flores gone. Well-documented turmoil between WR Tyreek Hill and the organization made their unity feel skeleton-thin and the offense as fragile as Dr. Frankenstein’s stitching. Their QB, Tua Tagovailoa, had always felt like a system player. But his absence due to concussions a year ago was like the false bottom jamming on the hat with the rabbit inside during a live show; without Tagovailoa to make the whole thing hum, the Dolphins’ trick went from mindfreak to full refund territory as quick as you can say “toil and trouble.” Still today, many see Miami as one hard hit away from the magician himself becoming the Invisible Man.
We all go a little mad sometime, but for the Ravens, it’s seldom been as bad as this. It would be easy to blame all their dysfunction on a curse upon two-time MVP QB Lamar Jackson, who left Week 4 with a hamstring injury and hasn’t returned. But that’s admittedly at least a little disingenuous. Was the offense machine going brr before that? Absolutely; they averaged 37 points over the first three weeks. Has it stalled since? Absolutely; 11 points over the next three, mainly under QB Cooper Rush. But all along, the defense has been a ball and chain, anchoring them about two tiers below their aspirations.
But don’t look now; the Ravens are suddenly reanimated, having first found an alternative QB who could hold the fort—Tyler Huntley, who made a Pro Bowl with Baltimore in 2022 under similar pretense, then slashed through Chicago like it was Crystal Lake. In an even better turn of events, the Ravens will next be led by one of the QBs of a generation, Jackson, who was close to returning in Week 8 and has already been greenlit for TNF. Finally, the defense has been growing healthy and fast-improving in consecutive games against decent offenses, LA and Chicago. The only question is: at 2–5, have the Ravens procrastinated too long, or are they too far behind to surge back?
The Dolphins found something in Week 8. The Falcons have had a relatively stout defense this season, but Miami dropped 34 points on them with ease. More importantly, their defense, which has been a found-footage nightmare, held all-world RB Bijan Robinson to next to nothing and essentially ended any QB Kirk Cousins trade rumors by limiting Atlanta to 10 points. The Dolphins are 2–6, and for now, their HC and QB are safe. And just like the Ravens, they’ll turn their attention toward trying to preserve a wild-card run.
Why does surviving 2025 sound like fantasy for the Dolphins and destiny for the Ravens? Part of the answer is grounded in credibility built over a decade of proof-of-concept. Most of us expect the Ravens to be there because they always are, while the Dolphins, under HC Mike McDaniel, still feel like a charm that worked but broke at dawn.
Yet wherever they started, and whatever we thought we knew, might the Dolphins and Ravens not be as different as we thought? Strip away the veneer of the July pretext and old trophies, and aren’t these the same items, marketed in different ways? Is it possible that one is truly known while the other wears a mask? Are we overcomplicating what should be Child’s Play?
And are we just back where our presuppositions began—with Jackson himself—the type of player who can spring the Ravens from the grave; are the Dolphins about to emerge from this Black Lagoon and pose a new threat? Could either of these teams still be the season’s final girl? Or are these nightmares doomed to repeat like many, many . . . many familiar sequels? Whatever you do, don’t fall asleep. This could be a Thriller
Ravens
Implied Team Total: 28.5
Pythagorean expected wins have the Ravens and Dolphins back-to-back.
Reports on Tuesday said the entire Ravens 53-man roster was in attendance (excluding IR). That includes Jackson, who has already been taken off the injury report.
The difference in the Ravens with and without Jackson cannot be overstated. It would be hard to find another player with more of a singular impact on his team’s success than Jackson with Baltimore. Not only is Baltimore far better in every significant passing metric with Jackson under center, but they are also far less prone to giveaways and score over 13 points more per game since 2019, his first season as the full-time starter.
Jackson has been under pressure more often this season at 43.7%. Last year, that rate was 38.9%. In his MVP season in 2022, it was 36.3%. Additionally, he’s holding onto the ball too long, so opposing defenses have been converting their sacks more frequently. Jackson’s pressure-to-sack rate is at 28.8%, far and away the highest of his career. As a result, his 15 sacks taken thus far are more than half of what he took all last season (29) in only four appearances.
Jackson typically performs well under pressure, though, and 2025 is no exception. His drop in QB Rating is 50.5 points when pressured vs. when left clean, which is the eighth most significant disparity for any QB. However, this has more to do with how great Jackson is from a clean pocket (142.0 QB Rating, 1st) than with how poor he is under the gun (91.5 QB Rating, 4th).
Jackson is the most hyperefficient fantasy QB we’ve ever seen since OC Todd Monken came on board last season. Last year, Jackson put up the highest single-season fantasy points over expected (FPOE) since 2000 (the earliest season in the RotoViz Screener, and consequently, the earliest record of single-season FPOE) at +167.2, besting Peyton Manning’s 2004 FPOE of +156.4. So far this season, Jackson has a league-leading +8.5 FPOE per game; extrapolated over 17 games, that would come to +144.5 and rank fourth.
Total FPOE includes rushing, and Jackson is clearly one of the best running QBs of all-time, but Jackson actually has +6.2 passing FPOE/G in 2025, which would extrapolate to +105.4 over 17 games and rank 11th. In 2024, his FPOE was +128.1, ranking fifth all-time.
The bottom line, of course, is that Jackson is a generational talent without hyperbole, and, really, throughout history, few, if any, match his quality and archetype at once. He is a perfect storm for fantasy and should be started in managed leagues no matter what.
The Ravens’ top target earner is WR Zay Flowers (25.5%). He and TE Mark Andrews (19.0%) are the only Ravens’ pass-catchers who are over a 15% target share.
Baltimore has recorded a -5.0% pass rate over expected (PROE, 28th). They have run on 46% of their offensive plays (T-5th). They are relatively slow at the line (28.1 seconds to snap, T-7th. As such, they’ve manifested very low play volume at 57 offensive plays per 60 minutes (T-31st) and 399 total offensive plays (32nd).
When you cut that small of a pie up, you need a player to draw a target share in the 25-30% range, as Flowers does, to be significant. Even Flowers is tied for 17th in targets per game (7.9), and he’s the only player who approaches anything close to a 25% share, so he’s almost the only game in town.
Andrews’ complications are worsening with the increasing involvement of TE Isaiah Likely. Likely was out for the first three games, during which Andrews had an 80% snap share. After a week for Likely to ramp up to speed in Week 4, Andrews’ snap share dropped to 58% in Week 5, while Likely climbed to 53%. In Weeks 6 and 8 (Week 7 was Baltimore’s bye), Likely has a 71% snap share to Andrews’ 70%. Andrews has still drawn more targets, but Likely’s workload is definitely carving into Andrews’ upside.
The Dolphins have had one of the worst defenses in the NFL this season. They rank 27th in defensive EPA per play allowed and 25th in defensive success rate. They are worse in pass defense, ranking 30th in defensive EPA per dropback and defensive success rate on dropbacks.
The Dolphins use man defense 26.7% of the time (13th), putting them right in line with league norms, and they run shell coverage 57.8% of the time (4th). Their most popular alignments are Cover 2 (29.5%) and Cover 3 (22.5%). They use Cover 2 zone more than any other team in the league. They blitz 31.0% (4th).
Fantasy Points’ coverage matchup tool uses analysis of the types and rates defenses use, compared with what skill players do against them, to determine the biggest matchups of the week. Surprisingly, based on this, no Ravens’ pass-catcher has a favorable matchup against Miami, nor does Jackson.
Against specific players, which is what PFF’s matchup tool measures, it’s an entirely different story. Jackson, Andrews, and WR DeAndre Hopkins’ matchups are graded out as great, while Flowers and Likely’s matchups are graded out as good. The strength of the Dolphins’ pass defense has been coverage against WRs, where they’ve held WRs to the second-fewest points over their last five games. It is probably worth wondering how steep the competition was in these matchups, as the Chargers were without Quentin Johnston, Cleveland without Cedric Tillman, and the Falcons without Drake London, and the quality of these WR cores is already somewhat below average to start.
The Ravens’ inability to stop pressure (+12.14% pressure rate over expected (PrROE) allowed, 25th this week) is offset by the Dolphins’ failure to generate it (+6.23% PrROE generated, 16th this week). As such, the matchup is somewhat neutral for the week. There was some concern that an ankle issue could hamper LT Ronnie Stanley, but he will be active tonight.
On the other hand, the Ravens should enjoy one of the more significant advantages in the run game based on adding their adjusted yards before contact per attempt (YBC/Att) generated vs. the Dolphins’ adjusted YBC/Att allowed.
This leads us to the brink of Occam’s Razor. The Ravens, who entered the season with the second-highest odds to win the Super Bowl, are now 2-5. They’ve had an abundance of injuries all year, which have all cleared up at once. They are 7.5-point favorites to win on the road against an offense that has high-variance speedsters who can break a game with long plays. They are seemingly in desperate need to get all of their playmakers kick-started, especially RB Derrick Henry. Isn’t the most likely scenario that they just shove Henry down Miami’s throat?
Miami is better in run defense than pass defense, but they are not particularly great at it. In fact, in their last five games, RBs have scored the 7th-most PPR points.
To their credit, they’ve performed best against arguably the best two RBs on this list (very arguable with Breece Hall these days), but upon further inspection, Robinson earned only nine carries against Miami; his fantasy points over expected (FPOE) were pretty strong, but his expected points (EP) were what was lacking. This all suggests Atlanta may not have given Robinson enough work last week, which looks good on Miami’s fantasy defense ledger but doesn’t prove much.
Again, the Ravens are favored by 7.5. Since the start of last year, their first season with Henry on the roster, whenever they’ve played with a game script in which they are ahead by seven or more points, they have run the ball at a 61% rate (T-1st). Henry has carried almost five more times per game in such scripts for over 40 more rushing yards, scoring more than five additional PPR fantasy points per game (FP/G).
If this all holds—a big if, since we are talking about a two-win team—Jackson managers could find the result somewhat deflating after waiting out this injury, the bye, and the Week 8 tease. Don’t bench Jackson; we don’t want to play that way. We like QBs in positive game scripts more than the other way around, but it should surprise no one if this is a Henry game more than a Jackson game.