This Baltimore Ravens defense struggled to force turnovers unlike any other in team history.
But no other Ravens defense improved more during a season.
The Ravens finished as the NFL's second-best defense in the second half of the season after ranking 24th in the first half. Only the Houston Texans had a better defense since Week 10.
In the first eight games of the season, Baltimore allowed 383.6 yards per game. In the final eight, the Ravens gave up an average of 291.1 yards. That's a difference of 92.5 yards per game.
"We had a chance to gather our thoughts mentally and just kind of tell ourselves that we have to play better. And guys responded," linebacker Elvis Dumervil said. "On defense, it's all about effort and passion. And that got turned up."
The Ravens set a team record for futility this season with 14 turnovers. But what changed dramatically was how Baltimore limited big plays downfield. The Ravens allowed 15 completions over 30 yards in their first eight games and gave up three such passes in the last eight.
As a result, Baltimore allowed the fewest passing yards in the second half of the season (183.3 per game) and ranked third on third downs (opponents converted 30.3 percent of the time).
The Ravens made some personnel changes over that time. Lardarius Webb played more free safety, and Shareece Wright moved into a starting role. But coach John Harbaugh said the improvement came down to how the players executed.
“I think we have been playing with more discipline, and I think we have playing better assignments," Harbaugh said. "We cleaned up our assignments and our system a little bit. We put it together a little bit better in ways guys could operate. You learn those types of things over the course of season, and we’re going to go to work and continue to do that over the next few months. We’re going to come out swinging as a coaching staff in the next few weeks, and we’re going to be putting together some systems with offense, defense and special teams that will be better than the one we ended the season with. That’s our responsibility to do that, and we think we can do it.”
The Ravens finished as the No. 8 defense in the NFL in 2015. Six of the seven teams ranked ahead of the Ravens are in the playoffs (Denver, Seattle, Houston, Arizona, Carolina and Kansas City).
It's the 14th time in the franchise's 20-year history that the Ravens defense ranked in the top 10, including the sixth time in Harbaugh's eight seasons.
FINISHING STRONG
A look at where the Baltimore Ravens' defense ranked in the second half of the NFL season: