Amid the little fires everywhere for this Ravens team, it’s worth taking a careful look at who is holding the water hoses.

For defensive coordinator Zach Orr, there are many people around the franchise attempting to douse the flames.

Players leap to his support, claiming it’s on them to execute his vision. Coach John Harbaugh staunchly sticks by his side, saying “there’s no obvious move” going into the bye that makes the team better, though many fans would happily see Orr lose his job. Chuck Pagano, the obvious interim candidate to succeed Orr if the Ravens fired him, said Tuesday: “[Orr is] a selfless guy, and he knows what he’s doing, so we all have to be better to help him be better at his job.”

The wagons are circled around Orr, whose defense has struggled more weeks than it has dominated in the 1 1/2 seasons since he was hired.

Why, then, does it seem offensive coordinator Todd Monken — who oversaw record-breaking offenses in 2023 and 2024 — doesn’t nearly have the backing that Orr does?

It’s a question that keeps scratching around the back corridors of my brain as we spend the next week and a half poring over every aspect of the 1-5 Ravens in excruciating detail during the bye week. In a season on the brink, the offense has disappointed in the weeks since Lamar Jackson was sidelined with a hamstring injury. One of the most concerning aspects is how much a coordinator who was considered a head coaching candidate during the offseason appears to be an island castaway on his own team.

It feels like a warning bell. As much fan uproar as there has been over Orr, the underachieving offense and the lack of vocal, rah-rah support for Monken feels just as critical — if not more so.

Although Derrick Henry and Tyler Linderbaum have said the offense needs to execute better, they haven’t gone out of their way to defend their OC, even though they owe some of their best seasons to offenses he helped direct. Harbaugh has been far more critical of the offensive play-calling than of Orr’s shortcomings, perhaps a reflection of Orr’s age (33) and experience relative to the 59-year-old Monken, who seems more a finished product.

When asked Tuesday if Jackson, who typically holds on to the ball as long as any of the league’s passers, needs a quicker release when he returns, quarterbacks coach Tee Martin shot the question upstream: “Todd was just here [at the podium] before me — it’s kind of a question for him. But our job is to execute the plays that are called and do the best we can to get the ball out.”

Oof.

To be clear, there is plenty of blame to go around on the offense and it would be reassuring to see more accountability there. Martin strained credulity when he said he thought quarterbacks Cooper Rush and Tyler Huntley prepared and played well. Wide receiver Zay Flowers has yet to speak on being involved in two fumbles that helped put the Rams game out of reach. The line continues to be a glaring weakness, and offensive line coach George Warhop sounded a bit too sunny when he said Andrew Vorhees and Daniel Faalele continue to improve.

But the biggest issue — which Jackson’s absence has revealed all too plainly — is that everything screeches to a stop without the two-time MVP. As much as it falls on everyone to fix that problem, Monken is saddled with the biggest responsibility.

Before last week, the Ravens hadn’t squeezed more than 50 rushing yards out of Henry in four straight games. An experienced, versatile group of pass catchers — including former Pro Bowlers DeAndre Hopkins, Mark Andrews and Flowers — is being dramatically underutilized (only Flowers averages more than 30 yards per game).

The play calls on short yardage and in the red zone leave a lot to be desired. Several times, the Ravens have been stonewalled with goal-to-go despite multiple downs available, making them one of the worst red-zone teams (44.4% touchdown rate) after leading the NFL last season (74%).

The regression feels steeper than personnel losses. The team has been playing without fullback Pat Ricard all season and Jackson in the last 2 1/2 games, but should the drop-off be this big given all the available talent? The defense is ravaged, forced to do more with less — meanwhile, the offense has playmakers healthy and available but is not getting the most from them.

“For one, we can certainly scheme it better,” Monken said. “I say this all the time. You guys get tired of me saying it: Scheme it better, call it better and execute it better. That’s really what it comes down to.”

It feels notable that Monken seems to be getting less shielding than his defensive counterpart. There’s only so much that can be understood about team dynamics from outside the Ravens’ meeting rooms, but the surface appearance of an OC struggling to rally his unit the way his defensive counterpart has seemed to strikes me as odd, to say the least.

Monken has earned more than enough leeway to fix it, given his track record in 2023 and 2024 and that his offense averaged 37 points per game in the first three weeks of the season. It may be the burden of the sky-high expectations the coordinator set in his previous seasons — if this Ravens group fails to even creep close to that production, it will feel like a colossal failure.

Monken said he feels the offense hasn’t lost its collective focus on the practice field, even if that’s what we’ve all seen on Sundays.

“I have not seen that. I have not seen that at all,” he said. “That’s where the frustrating part is — when you’re going on the field and you’re not getting the results that are desired.”

High expectations are what these Ravens signed up for. Even if the game feels a bit unfair, Monken has to step things up in the face of adversity — or else watch what he’s built continue to burn down.