Abandoning the run game in the first quarter became a familiar accusation after Baltimore’s AFC Championship collapse. The warning signs appeared on the Ravens’ first offensive snap against Kansas City on January 28, 2024. Lamar Jackson lined up under center, with fullback Patrick Ricard helping form a heavy offensive look. Across the line, Steve Spagnuolo’s defense crowded eight players into the box and kept one safety deep.
Justice Hill took the handoff and gained one yard. Kansas City’s linebackers closed the running lane, and Baltimore’s opening possession immediately began slipping away. But that single carry never told the full story. On their next possession, Jackson exploded for 21 yards on a fourth-and-one direct snap. Gus Edwards followed with a 15-yard run against a seven-man box. Baltimore had just shown that Kansas City’s defensive front could be beaten.
Yet the Ravens finished their 17–10 loss with only six running-back carries. The NFL’s leading rushing offense, responsible for 2,661 regular-season yards, had barely used its most recognizable weapon. Was Baltimore’s disappearing ground game a coaching failure, a response to defensive numbers, or an example of modern passing analytics pushed too far?
How Kansas City Turned Baltimore’s Strength Into a Question
The Ravens entered that championship game with a rushing identity few opponents could match. Their 2023 offense averaged 156.5 rushing yards per game, supported by Jackson’s explosive legs and Edwards’ ability to punish defenders between the tackles. Kansas City understood the threat. Spagnuolo wanted Baltimore throwing against a defense comfortable disguising pressure and challenging passing windows.
On the opening snap, the Ravens deployed a heavy grouping with Ricard, two wide receivers, and another tight end. Kansas City answered with eight defenders near the line of scrimmage. Baltimore’s postgame film review identified that overloaded box. Hill gained one yard, leaving offensive coordinator Todd Monken with an uncomfortable choice. He could keep attacking a crowded front or exploit the space Kansas City had left elsewhere. Neither option guaranteed success.
The Fourth-and-One Run That Challenged the Game Plan
Baltimore’s second possession offered a persuasive argument for keeping the ground attack involved. Facing fourth-and-one at its own 34-yard line, Jackson took a direct snap and broke free for 21 yards. The designed quarterback run put Baltimore’s most dangerous athlete against defenders who had to account for multiple rushing threats.
Edwards followed with a 15-yard gain against seven defenders in the box. Soon afterward, Jackson found Zay Flowers for a 30-yard touchdown, leveling the score at seven. For a brief stretch, Baltimore’s offense resembled the unit that had dominated much of the regular season.
However, Kansas City’s offense created a different problem. Patrick Mahomes directed an opening touchdown drive that consumed 5:45. The Chiefs’ next touchdown possession lasted another 9:02, restricting Baltimore’s first-half opportunities. At halftime, Kansas City led 17–7. The Ravens had called fewer runs than expected, but their limited possessions also made establishing a sustained rushing rhythm difficult.
After the season, head coach John Harbaugh acknowledged the disappointing rushing total. He explained that Baltimore’s game plan included run-pass options and checks that allowed Jackson to respond to defensive alignments. That distinction complicates the criticism. Baltimore had not necessarily removed the ground game from its playbook. Kansas City’s defensive looks influenced which options Jackson selected.
The RPO That Showed Where Baltimore Lost Control
One first-half sequence revealed the danger of those decisions. Baltimore opened its third possession with a nine-yard completion to Flowers. On second-and-one, Jackson pulled the ball from an RPO look and threw outside. The pass fell incomplete. The Ravens’ postgame film breakdown suggested that Hill might have found running room had Jackson handed off.
Baltimore converted the next down, but the possession soon unraveled. On another RPO, Jackson moved slightly right as Ronnie Stanley faced Charles Omenihu in protection. A developing route to Rashod Bateman offered the possibility of an explosive completion. Omenihu disrupted the play and forced a fumble. Kansas City recovered.
The turnover exposed the difference between choosing an advantageous passing matchup and successfully exploiting it. Baltimore had the option to attack through the air, but its protection failed before Jackson could capitalize. Abandoning the run game becomes dangerous when replacement plays demand cleaner protection or more precise execution than an offense can consistently provide. For Baltimore, the problem extended beyond the number of handoffs. Its passing alternatives repeatedly failed to produce the points needed to challenge Kansas City.
EPA Explains Why Coaches Are Willing to Throw Early
Monken’s decision to lean on Jackson’s arm was not inherently flawed. Modern passing analytics have spent years challenging the old belief that an offense must establish the run before throwing. The numbers explain the temptation.
Expected points added, or EPA, measures how much a play changes a team’s expected scoring output. A five-yard completion on third-and-four can extend a touchdown drive. The same gain on third-and-twelve usually forces a punt.
According to TruMedia figures published by The Ringer in June 2023, NFL passing plays averaged +0.01 EPA in the 2022 season, compared with −0.03 EPA per rushing attempt. Passing also generated a 44.2 percent success rate, ahead of rushing’s 39.7 percent. Those historical figures show why coordinators often trust their passing attacks, particularly against defenses loading the box.
However, abandoning the run game in the first quarter only makes statistical sense when the passing concepts exploit those defensive commitments. A quick stick route against soft coverage might produce six easy yards. An RPO bubble screen can punish a defender who crashes toward the running back. Meanwhile, a glance route behind an aggressive linebacker can turn defensive pressure into an immediate gain.
The designs make sense on the call sheet, but what happens after the snap determines their value. Baltimore learned that against Omenihu. A potentially productive passing opportunity became a turnover before the route could develop. Passing offered theoretical efficiency. Execution determined its actual value.
Pass Rate Over Expected Reveals What the Box Score Misses
EPA explains the results, but it cannot tell us whether a coordinator abandoned the run voluntarily. That’s where pass rate over expected, or PROE, becomes useful. The nflfastR analytical framework estimates how frequently an offense should pass based on down, distance, field position, score, and time remaining. PROE measures how far actual play selection differs from that expectation.
Consider an offense throwing on 80 percent of its early plays. If the situation predicts a 65 percent passing rate, its PROE stands at +15 percentage points. That signals unusual passing aggression. However, an offense throwing at the same 80 percent rate while trailing and facing repeated long-yardage situations might simply be following the expected game script. Both teams produce the same passing percentage, but their coaching decisions differ.
For Baltimore, the distinction changes how analysts should interpret those six running-back carries. Jackson’s designed runs, passing dropbacks, and option decisions shaped a rushing profile that raw statistics cannot fully explain. The numbers expose the imbalance, while film reveals how it happened.
PROE cannot settle whether Baltimore should have handed off more frequently, but it helps separate deliberate aggression from adjustments forced by the defense. More importantly, it challenges the assumption that abandoning the run game always reflects a coordinator’s original intentions. The harder question remains whether those adjustments actually gave Baltimore its best chance to score.
The Hidden Cost of Giving Up Productive Runs
Kansas City’s defensive front discouraged Baltimore from handing off. Yet the Ravens’ successful early carries showed that running lanes existed. That raises a better question than whether Monken should have called ten additional runs. Which rushing opportunities offered greater expected value than the passes Baltimore selected?
A December 2021 Pro Football Focus study by analyst Eric Eager provides insight. Using data from 2017 through 2021, Eager examined early-down rushing plays during the first three quarters of games in which the score differential remained within 16 points.
When every blocker avoided a negative run-blocking grade, rushing plays averaged +0.27 EPA and achieved a 60.2 percent success rate. However, plays containing at least one negatively graded block averaged −0.27 EPA, while their success rate dropped to 25.7 percent. That represents a 0.54-point EPA gap between the two groups.
The findings do not prove that additional rushing attempts automatically improve offensive production. Blocking grades and play outcomes are closely connected, and stronger blocking naturally accompanies more successful runs. Still, the research reveals how dramatically execution changes the value of a handoff.
A coordinator who repeatedly runs into penetration wastes scoring opportunities. On the other hand, abandoning the run game despite a productive blocking matchup can remove one of the offense’s most reliable advantages. The difficulty lies in identifying when the rushing attack has truly stopped working and when one failed carry has merely discouraged another attempt.
A Successful Run Changes More Than the Yardage
Picture a defense keeping both safeties deep while its linebackers widen to defend passing lanes. An offense counters with inside zone. The center and guard create a crease against a lighter interior front, and the running back gains seven yards. Suddenly, the coordinator faces second-and-three with nearly the entire playbook available. He can run again, attack a linebacker with play-action, or target an intermediate crossing route.
Now change the opening call. The quarterback attacks a deeper passing concept, but an edge rusher immediately beats the tackle. The resulting sack creates second-and-seventeen. The offense has lost yardage and flexibility. Its next play becomes easier to anticipate, and the defense can attack without respecting the full rushing threat.
However, a handoff would not necessarily have succeeded. The same defender might have penetrated the backfield against a running play. That uncertainty makes the statistical impact of abandoning the run game in the first quarter difficult to isolate. The question concerns more than play selection. It depends on blocking matchups, defensive personnel, and whether the coordinator recognizes an advantage before it disappears.
Third-Down Distance Reveals Where the Damage Builds
A play-caller often pays for inefficient early-down decisions when the offense reaches third-and-nine instead of third-and-three. Defensive coordinators relish that difference. On third-and-long, they can widen their edge rushers, disguise pressure, and force receivers to develop routes beyond the sticks. The quarterback faces tighter throwing windows while his offensive tackles endure longer protection assignments.
However, teams do not need a predetermined number of handoffs to avoid those situations. Efficient first-down passing can accomplish the same objective. A quick completion on a stick concept creates second-and-four. A well-executed glance route can move the chains before the linebacker closes. The problem emerges when an offense repeatedly chooses passes that produce sacks, incompletions, or other negative plays.
Consequently, early-down success rate and third-down distance deserve attention alongside rushing volume. To measure the damage, researchers should examine whether unusually pass-heavy first quarters lead to longer third downs, higher sack rates, and reduced offensive EPA. They must also account for quarterback quality, defensive strength, score differential, and field position.
Without those adjustments, an analysis risks blaming the play call for failures that began with blocking or execution. Baltimore provided a striking example. The Ravens found some running room early, but their passing attack suffered a costly turnover and failed to maintain enough scoring pressure. The decision to throw was only part of the story. The negative plays that followed proved more damaging.
The Winning-Team Rushing Trap
Traditional football arguments often point to winning teams that accumulate large rushing totals. The problem comes from confusing cause and effect. A team protecting a 17-point fourth-quarter lead naturally hands off more often. Those additional carries may reflect its advantage rather than explain how it built the lead.
Conversely, a losing team often throws because the scoreboard leaves little alternative. Because of this relationship, comparing final rushing totals against wins can produce misleading conclusions. An offense might appear to benefit from running frequently when its rushing attempts simply reflect a comfortable lead.
The more useful approach isolates competitive first-quarter situations and examines what happens after an offense chooses to pass more frequently than expected. Even those comparisons cannot establish what an uncalled rushing play would have produced. However, they can reveal whether aggressive early passing tendencies coincide with improved scoring efficiency or greater offensive instability.
That moves the debate beyond the familiar demand to establish the run. Instead of judging abandoning the run game through final carry totals, analysts can examine the circumstances that led to each decision and the efficiency of the plays that followed.
What Baltimore’s Loss Says About the Future of Offensive Balance
The enduring lesson from Baltimore’s championship defeat has little to do with demanding an arbitrary number of handoffs. Kansas City attacked the Ravens’ offensive identity with a carefully constructed defensive plan. Spagnuolo crowded heavy formations, challenged Jackson’s decisions, and trusted his pass rush to punish longer-developing concepts.
Baltimore still generated opportunities. Jackson’s fourth-down burst and Edwards’ 15-yard run demonstrated how the ground game could exploit defensive vulnerabilities. Flowers’ touchdown showed that the passing attack could also strike. Yet the Ravens never established a sustainable rhythm between those options.
Harbaugh’s explanation after the season highlighted the difficulty. Baltimore had designed runs available through checks and RPOs, but defensive alignments and limited possessions steered the game elsewhere. That makes abandoning the run game in the first quarter more complicated than a coordinator simply losing patience.
Today’s offensive minds must balance immediate tactical advantages against the danger of becoming predictable. A strong passing matchup deserves exploitation. Yet a productive rushing concept should not disappear simply because an opponent crowds the box on an earlier snap. Before long, defensive coordinators begin anticipating how an offense will respond. Those expectations create opportunities for counters.
Play-action, designed quarterback runs, and complementary blocking schemes allow offenses to preserve uncertainty without chasing a 50-50 run-pass split. Modern offensive analysis should therefore focus on whether a team selected its most valuable available play, not whether its rushing percentage satisfied traditional expectations.
Abandoning the run game in the first quarter can improve efficiency when quick passing concepts repeatedly beat the coverage. The same decision can backfire when protection fails, third-down distances grow, and productive rushing opportunities disappear.
For Baltimore, six running-back carries became the defining number of a painful afternoon. But the deeper problem involved recognizing which opportunities Kansas City’s defense had actually eliminated. The next coordinator facing that dilemma will see the same familiar picture: a crowded box, a quarterback scanning the secondary, and a running back waiting behind the line.
The pass might offer the better matchup. But if the defense keeps daring an offense to stop running, how certain should the coordinator be that the invitation isn’t a trap?
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FAQs
Why did the Ravens abandon the run against the Chiefs?
Kansas City crowded the line, while long Chiefs possessions limited Baltimore’s opportunities. The Ravens also relied on passing adjustments that failed to produce enough points.
Does abandoning the run game early hurt NFL offenses?
Not always. Early passing can improve efficiency, but poor protection, sacks, and missed rushing opportunities can turn an aggressive game plan into a costly mistake.
What does EPA reveal about running versus passing?
EPA measures how much each play helps or hurts scoring chances. Passing generally produced better average results in the historical data discussed in this article.
What is pass rate over expected in the NFL?
Pass rate over expected measures how often a team throws compared with what its game situation predicts. It helps identify unusually aggressive passing strategies.
Can an NFL offense succeed without establishing the run?
Yes. Efficient passing can sustain drives without heavy rushing volume. The challenge comes when predictable throws invite pressure and eliminate manageable down-and-distance situations.
