While Ravens players went their separate ways after Wednesday's practice, John Harbaugh and his coaching staff worked Thursday at the team facility. They'll return today before taking the weekend off.
The focus of these two days is on self-scouting and starting to game-plan for their next couple of games. Starting with the Nov. 6 matchup with the Pittsburgh Steelers, the Ravens have three games over a 15-day span, so preparation will have to be condensed. This week gives the Ravens staff a head start.
As for self-scouting, the coaches review what has and hasn't been working and make changes accordingly. They do so throughout the season, but the bye week gives them a little more time to home in on the Ravens' play without having to worry about practices, meetings and game preparation.
The Ravens' unofficial first half started with three wins and ended with four losses. An uplifting September
Anybody who has watched the Ravens this season knows what has troubled the team during its current four-game losing streak. Quarterback Joe Flacco has not played well, and the running game has been virtually nonexistent. The offensive line has been a consistent problem. The Ravens aren't making enough big plays, and they've given up too many over the past couple of weeks. The pass rush has been spotty. Injuries have thinned the roster, and penalties have hampered the team's ability to win.
All of that will need to be fixed — or, at the very least, improved — if the Ravens are going to make a postseason run over the next nine weeks. That should be obvious, but here are eight smaller moves the Ravens can make to give themselves a better chance to win.
Go back to the fundamentals: From Flacco's footwork to offensive-line penalties to subpar tackling and pursuit angles, the Ravens have experienced consistent and significant breakdowns with their fundamentals. The Ravens work on this stuff all the time, so it's far too simplistic to suggest that they need to make it a focus. But perhaps going back to square one in certain areas would get the message across even clearer.
Help Flacco by any means necessary: Look, Flacco has a lot of say in this offense and what plays the team is and isn't running. Any suggestion otherwise is ludicrous. But absolutely anything and everything should be done to try and help Flacco out of a slump that deepens by the week.
After recent games, he's looked a combination of confused, frustrated and beaten up. For better or worse, Flacco is the franchise quarterback, and his play is going to decide what becomes of the rest of this season. He's taken accountability for his poor play on several occasions, and he deserves the criticism he's getting. He needs to break some of his poor habits.
From this point on, though, the Ravens need to do anything in their power to protect him and make him more comfortable.
Settle on an offensive line: One bit of optimism this week came from the offensive line, whose first-team players practiced together for the first time in weeks. Ronnie Stanley was at left tackle, with Alex Lewis at left guard, Jeremy Zuttah at center, Marshal Yanda at right guard and Rick Wagner at right tackle.
If the coaching staff deems them the team's best offensive linemen, so be it. If the staff feels the Ravens would be better off with John Urschel at center over a struggling Zuttah, or Lewis at right tackle and Urschel at left guard, those changes should be made immediately. The Ravens need stability in front of Flacco.