BALTIMORE — Mark Andrews said he will take wins by whatever means necessary. Kevin Zeiter said he will take wins “no matter how they came about.” No one in the Ravens locker room is going to apologize or worry about style points after a 10-9 win against the Denver Broncos at M&T Bank Stadium on Dec. 4.
Not after starting quarterback Lamar Jackson left with a knee injury at the end of the first quarter and linebacker Patrick Queen was carted from the field in the fourth quarter.
After the scuffling Ravens offense produced just three points in the first three quarters, backup quarterback Tyler Huntley engineered a 16-play, 91-yard drive in the closing minutes, and his 2-yard touchdown run with 28 seconds left, coupled with Justin Tucker’s point-after kick, lifted the Ravens (8-4) to a 10-9 win against the reeling Broncos (3-9).
The Broncos had a last-gasp chance to win, but Brandon McManus’ 63-yard field-goal attempt as time expired came up a few yards short.
“That was a great win,” head coach John Harbaugh said. “In December football, you have to find a way to win the game, and I’m proud of our team. … I’m proud of every single guy in that room there, player, coach, manager, trainer, everybody. That was the kind of win that you have to get in December, and I feel great about it.”
The Ravens’ defense allowed a few big plays, but they usually came with the Broncos backed up deep in their own end of the field as the two teams engaged in a field-position dance for most of the first 55 minutes. Denver came into the game as the league’s lowest-scoring offense (14.3 points a game), and the Broncos will stay there after the Ravens held them to three field goals.
Facing a Denver defense that is ranked No. 3 overall, the Ravens couldn’t get much going and didn’t help themselves with a couple of key turnovers. Huntley threw an interception as he was flushed from the pocket and forced a pass toward Mark Andrews, and the Ravens squandered a scoring chance early in the fourth quarter when a pass by wide receiver James Proche on a double reverse — a highly questionably play call in field goal range — was intercepted in the end zone.
The Ravens’ only points through the first three quarters came after another red-zone trip came up short. After the Ravens had first-and-goal at the Broncos’ 11-yard line, two short completions by Huntley and a run netted just 3 yards, and Tucker came on for a 26-yard field goal that tied the game at 3.
McManus added field goals of 41 and 50 yards — the latter set up by Huntley’s interception — for a 9-3 lead before Huntley got the ball at the Ravens’ 9-yard line with 5:02 left and engineered the game-winning drive.
Here are five quick impressions of the win, which keeps the Ravens atop the AFC North entering their first matchup of the season against the Pittsburgh Steelers next week:
1. The Ravens trust Tyler Huntley …
The Ravens saw plenty of Tyler Huntley last season when he started four games in place of Lamar Jackson. Huntley led the Ravens to a win at Chicago, then lost his other three starts, though those came by one point to the Green Bay Packers, by one point to the Los Angeles Rams, and in overtime to the Pittsburgh Steelers.
When he took the field to begin the second quarter against the Broncos, the team didn’t flinch. He entered the game facing third-and-13 to begin the second quarter, and his 11-yard pass to Devin Duvernay was his first pass of the season. Huntley had played one snap last week at Jacksonville in his only action of the season before this game.
But on Huntley’s first full drive, he led the Ravens 62 yards in 10 plays, setting up a 26-yard field goal by Justin Tucker.
“We have so much confidence in ‘Snoop.'” tight end Mark Andrews said, referring to Huntley by his nickname. “Obviously last year we got a ton of work with him so we have a lot of trust in that.”
“Things weren’t perfect,” Andrews said, “but for him to be able to come in, especially that last drive, and do what he did, and have the composure that he had, just shows you how good he really is, and how much he’s learned.”
Huntley finished 27-for-32 for 187 yards, relying primarily on short high-percentage throws, and he ran 10 times for 41 yards, including a critical fourth-and-2 conversion on the final drive. On the next play, Huntley pumped a pass to Kenyan Drake, then hit Drake on the left sideline for a 13-yard gain to the Broncos’ 2-yard line. Huntley scored on a keeper on the next play to tie the game at 9.
Huntley has a style and a skill-set in the mold of Jackson, which is precisely why he is the backup quarterback to Jackson. The Ravens have confidence that, if need be, he can fill in and win, and the dropoff from starter to backup at quarterback won’t be as precipitous as it might be for some other teams.
On this day, at least when it mattered most, Huntley validated those beliefs.
“Our playbook is still all open to us, so nothing to worry about there,” guard Kevin Zeitler said. “He’s played a lot, going back to last year, and had us in every single game. With him back there, we aren’t worried.”
2. … but Lamar Jackson’s knee is the story of the rest of the season.
All credit to Tyler Huntley for engineering the game-winning drive, but that allowed the Ravens to barely escape with a win at home against a Denver team that has lost eight of nine and is in disarray.
As the Ravens try to navigate the final five games and maintain their grasp on first place in the AFC North, the health of Lamar Jackson will be the dominant storyline for the remainder of the season.
Jackson left the game after he was sacked by Jonathon Cooper on the final play of the first quarter. It was the end of a tough quarter for Jackson, who was sacked on two of his six dropbacks and led the Ravens to 17 net yards in three possessions.
Head coach John Harbaugh said after the game that the injury was not season-ending and that Jackson would be undergoing further testing Monday.
“It’s going to be a number [of] days to weeks. … We’ll see if he can go back this week. If not, it’ll be sometime after that shortly,” Harbaugh said.
To be clear, the Ravens’ offense has a lot to fix and hasn’t looked fully in rhythm in weeks. But Jackson remains the centerpiece and the driving force, and whatever success the Ravens have moving forward most likely will hinge on how effective or available he can be.
3. This game was perfectly suited for the running game, and it couldn’t deliver.
Even with a healthy Lamar Jackson, the Ravens figured to lean heavily on their ground game against a Denver defense that ranked 19th in the league against the run and yielded 185 rushing yards to Carolina last week. Once Jackson left the game, it seemed even more likely the Ravens would rely on running backs Gus Edwards, Kenyan Drake and Justice Hill to dictate the tempo, rather than subject backup quarterback Tyler Huntley to a Broncos pass defense ranked No. 3 overall.
The Ravens’ running attack, though, got little traction throughout. The three running backs carried five times in the first half for a total of 13 yards, and overall they totaled 43 yards on 14 carries. Drake ran seven times for 29 yards, Edwards was held to 12 yards on six carries, and Hill gained 2 yards on his only carry. The Ravens finished with 28 carries for 103 yards, and that included a 14-yard run by Huntley — the team’s longest — and a 10-yard jet sweep by wide receiver Devin Duvernay.
The Ravens were playing without All-Pro left tackle Ronnie Stanley (ankle) for the second straight week, and his backup, Patrick Mekari, left the game several times with a foot injury, leaving rookie Daniel Faalele as the emergency fill-in on the left side. But the other four linemen were the regulars who had played increasingly well together but failed to open holes or win battles up front.
“There’s a reason why the Broncos were the [third-ranked] defense in the league, and they definitely showed us why today,” guard Kevin Zeitler said.
The Ravens face a top-10 run defense in Pittsburgh next week, and regardless of who is playing quarterback, the pressure mounts on the Ravens running backs to step up and command a larger role of an offense built around the running game.
“We’ll work on it, just like we always do,” head coach John Harbaugh said after the game, adding that, “It’s not the time to talk about that stuff. It’s game to game right now. … There are no big narratives. The big narrative questions, they’re irrelevant. What matters is the next game and trying to find a way to win it.”
4. The Roquan Smith trade looms even larger now.
The Ravens’ defense lost linebacker Patrick Queen to a thigh injury early in the fourth quarter, though head coach John Harbaugh said X-rays were negative and “that was very good news for us.”
Still, the depth of the inside linebacker group was perilous when the season began, which is why Smith was acquired in a midseason trade, and he has fit in seamlessly in the middle of the Ravens’ defense. He finished with a team-high 11 tackles, including two for loss, in this game.
Other than the fourth-quarter collapse at Jacksonville last week, the Ravens’ defense has rounded into form throughout the past month, and it’s no coincidence that Smith has been here for that.
The Ravens held Denver out of the end zone — though they aren’t the first team to do that against a Broncos team that ranks last in the league in scoring — and after some early success by former Raven Latavius Murray, the Broncos finished with 3.1 yards a carry (28-88).
But Queen’s injury further underscores how important it was for the Ravens to bolster than position with the addition of Smith. Behind those two, the Ravens’ talent pool drops off sharply, and reserve inside linebacker Kristian Welch left this game with a concussion. Del’Shawn Phillips, another inside linebacker who primarily plays special teams, missed the game with a quad injury.
The Ravens have kept veteran Josh Bynes inactive for the past four games, but he figures to be back in the mix if Queen has to miss time. They also can turn to Malik Harrison, but Smith’s presence becomes even more important.
5. The special-teams grinders came to play.
The kicker, the return specialists, the punter usually get all the attention on special teams. Kickoff and punt cover guys? They are usually blue-collar grinders who aren’t good enough to see the field on defense and rarely grab headlines. But Ravens Daryl Worley and Kevon Seymour earned a little credit in this game.
The two Ravens special teamers were exceptional in open-field kick coverage, beginning with Worley’s tackle of Montrell Washington at the Broncos’ 17-yard line on the game’s opening kickoff. Worley has been up and down from the active roster to the practice squad like a yo-yo this year, his name on the transaction wire just about every week. But he keeps finding a way onto the field on Sundays, and it’s because of plays like that.
Seymour also had two special teams tackles, maybe none bigger than the one right after the Ravens took a 10-9 lead with 28 seconds left. On the ensuing kick, Seymour raced downfield and dropped Washington with a textbook tackle at the Broncos’ 18-yard line with 23 seconds left.
That field position proved critical, because the Broncos were able to move the ball 37 yards in three plays, setting up a potential game-winning field goal by Brandon McManus. His 63-yard try was on line but a few yards short, eerily similar to the 67-yarder tried by Justin Tucker last week in the Ravens’ 28-27 loss at Jacksonville.
The Ravens were wise not to kick a touchback, forcing Denver to return the kick with the clock running. But then the onus is on the kick coverage unit to get down there and make a play. If Seymour doesn’t deliver the textbook hit, and if Washington gets the Broncos out to the 30- or 35-yard line, who knows what would have happened.
Granted, a longer return would have taken more time off the clock, but the play of Seymour backed the Broncos up from the start, and the play of the special-teams grinders gave the Broncos long fields all day. (Seymour also dropped Washington on a punt return of 0 yards.)
Denver averaged just 10.7 yards on three kick returns, and on a day when points were at a premium, those yards mattered.
Photo Credit: Kenya Allen/PressBox