Defensive line
Malik Jackson is a runaway train and I am living for every play he tears into the backfield like a hot Knife through butter. The front-four did a great job of suffocating the run…at least as far as the actual RB’s were concerned.
Josh Sweat continued to show out, getting his hands on a couple of passes, pressuring Lamar Jackson consistently, and rallying to 3 TFL.
Overall, the unit did about as well as they could, but I still want to see more from Fletcher Cox, who is still sailing swiftly under the radar.
Grade: C
Linebacker
Nate Gerry was absolutely dreadful (shock) and cost the team dearly, but there were positives to take. Alex Singleton played a really good game, tying Gerry for the team-lead in tackles, and we saw some actual snaps from Shaun Bradley and Davion Taylor. The inexperience was clear, but the bar is so low that any sign of development has to be considered as a positive and I think we saw that on Sunday.
Grade: C-
Cornerback
Darius Slay did Darius Slay things and oddly enough, the corners (NRC aside) didn’t seem too bad. Cre’Von LeBlanc had a solid day out, we saw a brief spurt from UDFA Elijah Riley, and the tackling across the unit was fairly sound.
Grade: C
Safety
Getting Will Parks back was huge and he played a massive role in limiting what we saw from Mark Andrews. Rodney McLeod has had better days at the office, but wasn’t bad by any means outside of a couple of bad calls. The back-end was, much like the corners, surprisingly solid.
Grade: C
Photo by Andy Lewis/Icon Sportswire
