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Entering Week 6, almost nothing was working for Ravens running back Derrick Henry. Quarterback Lamar Jackson’s hamstring injury had only added to the burden on an underwhelming offensive line, and a leaky defense was keeping the offense from meaningful late-game drives.

Offensive coordinator Todd Monken needed something to crack a tough Los Angeles Rams run defense Sunday. So he went back to what had worked for Henry in his glory days with the Tennessee Titans: a steady stream of outside zone handoffs.

In the Ravens’ 17-3 loss, Henry finally broke out of a four-game slump, finishing with 24 carries for 122 yards, his first game with over 50 rushing yards since Week 1. Most of that production (18 carries for 90 yards) came on outside zone and “stretch” runs, according to Sports Info Solutions.

Both blocking schemes call on offensive linemen to move in unison toward one side of the field, responsible for blocking zones instead of specific defenders. From there, the running back reads his blocks and can either “bend” back to the weak side of the play, “bang” into an open rushing lane or “bounce” the run outside the tackle.

Henry is well versed in the nuances of the schemes. During his career-best 2,027-yard season with the Titans in 2020, over a third of his production came on outside zone and stretch runs. The Ravens leaned into the concepts late last season, too: In a Week 16 win over the Pittsburgh Steelers, Henry rushed for 89 yards (11.1 per carry) in outside zone and stretch plays; two weeks later, in a win over the Cleveland Browns, he ran for 71 yards (10.1 per carry) in the schemes.

But after an outside-zone-heavy season opener (10 carries for 107 yards against the Buffalo Bills), the concept all but disappeared from Monken’s rushing menu. Over the next four weeks, as the Ravens struggled to win up front, Henry had just seven total outside zone and stretch runs for 19 yards, with fewer carries in each successive game. (Backup Justice Hill, meanwhile, had just four in the same span, taking one for a 71-yard touchdown in a blowout loss to the Kansas City Chiefs.)

The Ravens’ run diet changed Sunday. They used variations of the concepts six times on their opening drive, with Henry racking up 40 yards and three first downs.

“Each game, we go into it thinking, ‘OK, what is our best way to move the football?’” Monken said Tuesday. “Run, pass, anything that we do, screen game. And some games, we’re going to lean more heavily on your outside zone, your downhill runs. Some may be more gap schemes,” referring to plays in which blockers wall off frontline defenders from the ball carrier’s path and pulling linemen climb upfield to take on second-level defenders.

Monken added: “So it’s more team-specific, but we certainly are capable of getting into — whether it’s tight zone, wide zone, our gap schemes, right, all of the above — we are certainly capable of getting to that.”

Some of the Ravens’ reluctance could be owed to strategy: Why run wide against defensive fronts designed to constrict those lanes?

Personnel was likely a consideration as well. Center Tyler Linderbaum had one of Pro Football Focus’ highest zone-blocking grades for a prospect ahead of the 2022 NFL draft, and starting tackles Ronnie Stanley and Roger Rosengarten both have the lateral agility needed to stress defensive fronts in zone schemes. But left guard Andrew Vorhees has lost quickly as a pass blocker and run blocker this year, and right guard Daniel Faalele has struggled with his balance firing off the line of scrimmage and with his second-level blocking.

Even Sunday, when the Ravens rushed for 179 yards overall against a Rams defense that had been allowing just 93.6 per game, Faalele finished with a season-high two “blown blocks” on run plays, according to SIS. Both came on zone schemes.

“If we choose to run the ball, I think we have the capabilities of running the ball,” offensive line coach George Warhop said Tuesday. “So really, it’s how we decide we want to approach a game. Out of our six games, in three or four of them, we’ve run it really well, and in two of them, we were just kind of average in running the ball. ... We have great backs. Our guys do a good job coming off the ball. We’re physical, and we try to finish. That’s kind of our deal.”

Safety shuffle

With rookie Malaki Starks and trade acquisition Alohi Gilman handling the back end of the Ravens’ defense, safety Kyle Hamilton did not play a single snap as a deep safety Sunday, instead lining up primarily in the box and in the slot. The All-Pro’s impact was evident against the run — the Rams rushed for just 3.2 yards per carry — and in the Ravens’ intermediate pass defense. Rams quarterback Matthew Stafford was just 1-for-4 for 8 yards on throws 5 to 15 yards downfield and between the numbers, an area of weakness for the Ravens all season.

“A typical nickel doesn’t look like Kyle,” senior defensive assistant and secondary coach Chuck Pagano said Tuesday. “He covers as good or better than most cover corners. He’s a great blitzer. You can’t block him. Block destruction, he’s a menace. So now, you put that guy in and around the line of scrimmage — from an account standpoint, they have to know exactly where he is at, not only in coverage, but is he coming? Is he not coming? Those types of things.”

Pushback on ‘tush push’

Tight end Mark Andrews’ “tush push” plays aren’t all that imaginative, but until Sunday, they had at least been effective. Entering Week 6, over the past three-plus seasons, Andrews had converted seven of his nine carries in 1-yard-to-gain scenarios.

Then the Rams stopped him twice in a row at the goal line, prompting questions about whether the Ravens had anyone better equipped to handle the short-yardage scrums. Coach John Harbaugh shot down the notion Monday that Henry could be an option.

“We like Mark doing it,” he said. “He’s a good ball handler, and he’s had experience doing it. Derrick, that I know of, has never taken a snap under center, so we’d have to teach him how to do that. Why Derrick over Mark? Why would that be better? I think Mark’s done a good job with it. [Tight end] Charlie [Kolar] has done it before. They’ve been successful a bunch of times. Derrick, I don’t know where that idea comes from, but that wouldn’t be a thought, no. No, that would not be a thought. That’s not something we thought about doing.”