Reviewing Madden’s 2018 Ravens predictions

Over the last few weeks, we’ve been posting videos that predicted the 2018 Ravens regular season game by game. They recently concluded with a home win over the Browns getting them to their franchise standard 10-6 mark after Joe Flacco rebounded nicely, Michael Crabtree found the end zone many times, and the defense regressed a bit.

Some of it was pretty realistic while other numbers and scenarios seemed a bit loony. Ultimately, I wouldn’t be doing my job as a blogger who plays too much Xbox if I didn’t post some of the in-depth stats of the starting players from the 16 games played.

Without further ado, let’s get into it:

Passing

Joe Flacco led the way with a nice bounce back season, going wire-to-wire from the first week all the way to the season finale despite finally facing some shaky job security in his career. His numbers were as follows:

• Yards: 3,616
• Touchdowns: 31
• Interceptions: 15
• Completion: 59%

This would almost indisputably be the best year of Flacco’s career. While the yardage is on the lower end of his typical total, 31 touchdowns is his highest ever by a decent margin, not to mention it outnumbers his interceptions by over 2 to 1.

While the completion percentage is sub 60, Flacco has often been at his best when the yardage numbers are a bit down and he throws the ball deep more. Regardless, this is a very nice season and would certainly be enough to make the Ravens front office think twice before shipping him off in favor of Lamar Jackson.

Rushing

Alex Collins demonstrates he isn’t a one-year one after breaking out in 2017, but it wasn’t anything staggering.

• Carries: 186
• Yards: 1,024
• Touchdowns: 6
• YPC: 5.7

Overall, I’d say if you account for a bit of lacking realism and some tough stretches for the offense, this is a decent effort for Baltimore’s bell-cow. Here’s hoping he outperforms it a bit in real life, though.

Receiving

On this category, I compiled the stats for the three starting receivers (Michael Crabtree, John Brown, Willie Snead IV) and starting tight end Hayden Hurst.

Crabtree

• Receptions: 37
• Yards: 1,080
• Touchdowns: 14

Brown

• Receptions: 23
• Yards: 611
• Touchdowns: 7

Snead

• Receptions: 27
• Yards: 680
• Touchdowns: 4

Hurst

• Receptions: 31
• Yards: 635
• Touchdowns: 6

If Crabtree posts numbers like this, he may never buy another drink in Baltimore again. The yardage numbers are about league average (if not a bit low) for a number one wide-out, but putting the ball in the paint 14 times would be very impressive for the new go-to guy.

Brown proved to be the nice deep threat the Ravens were hoping for when they signed, while Snead came up with some big plays from the slot as well. If Hurst has this type of production as a rookie, I’m sure Baltimore’s brass will be very excited about what the future holds for their first-round pick.

Defensive

This category was unfortunately a bit of a wash as the takeaway totals were low to an unrealistic degree, especially for a team that had so many the year prior.

The most notable stat I kept track of was sacks, which had Judon leading the way with 10 and Suggs chipping in another seven. This is actually a pretty fair representation and something I feel could be pretty accurate for this season.

So what do you guys think? At 10-6 with such a nice season from Flacco would you expect this team to ultimately end up in the playoffs?

Let us know down below and give us some final thoughts on these projections in the comments.