Week 9 Thursday Night Dolphins-Ravens: Advanced Review

The Ravens begin their long march to the playoffs with Lamar Jackson back in the saddle, and they're already the betting favorites for the AFC North

The adjusted scores quantify team play quality, with emphasis on stable metrics (success rate) and downplaying higher variance events (turnovers, special team, penalties, fumble luck, etc). Adjusted expected points added (EPA), in conjunction with opportunity-based metrics like total plays and drives, projects adjusted points. Adjusted scores have been tested against actual scores and offer slightly better predictive ability, though their primary benefit is explanatory.

All 2025-2022 and historical Adjusted Scores and other site metrics are available in a downloadable format to paid subscribers via Google Sheet.

Find previous advanced reviews here

** Adjusted Scores table:

• “Pass” - Pass rate over expectation (based on context of each play and historical averages

• “Success” - Success rate on offense, a key metric in adjusted score vs actual

• “H & A” - Home or away team

MIA vs BAL (-7.5)

Lamar Jackson was back to help the Baltimore Ravens roll over the Miami Dolphins on the road. The Ravens posted healthy offense advanced metrics (52.4% success rate, 85th percentile EPA efficiency), while their defense forced turnovers and stymied the Dolphins attack. Despite all they’ve been through and their 3-5 record, the Ravens are currently favorites to win a dysfunctional AFC North (roughly -170, implied 60% chance).

Jackson the and Ravens offense didn’t need to be highly productive in the first half to put up 14 points and establish a lead, as the Dolphins gave away the ball inside their own 10 yard-line to set up an easy Ravens score, and then missed a chip-shot, 35-yard field goal on the last drive of the first quarter. It wasn’t a smashing offensive showing for the Ravens, with six of their drives lasting only three or four plays before punting the ball away.

The Ravens got their 28 points with some field-position help, but also being efficient with their longer drives, scoring touchdown all three times they entered the red zone, with their other score coming just outside the red zone (technically it’s the 19 yard-line and in) via a 20-yard touchdown pass to Mark Andrews. The Ravens rushing game was effective, if not spectacularly efficient. Posting flat EPA is impressive on the ground, and Derrick Henry had a total of +0.1 EPA on 19 carries (119) without the EPA boost from a touchdown score.

The Dolphins were killed offensively by turnovers with two killer fumbles within 15 yards of each end zone (total 10.0 expected points lost), and an ultimately meaningless late interception (-1.2). As I mentioned earlier, the Dolphins also missed an easy field goal, plus they failed on a critical 4th & 2 conversion from the Ravens 13 yard-line. This was not the type of loss to protect the job of a head coach on the ropes, with plenty of self-inflicted wounds.

Fantastic efficiency for Lamar Jackson on low volume, in a game where the Ravens leaned on the run, with an even split (27-27) of dropbacks and designed runs. Jackson used his legs cautiously coming off of injury, with only two scrambles and one designed run. Jackson was highly accurate completing 18-of-23 passes, and all four of the Ravens touchdowns were passes.

It was really the fumbles that killed the Dolphins efficiency, but Tua Tagovailoa isn’t off the hook for his subpar performance. The Dolphins barely breached 40% in dropback success rate, and Tagovailoa only generated +5.3 EPA on 40 pass attempts.