BALTIMORE — With many of the best players in franchise history in town for Terrell Suggs’ induction into the team’s Ring of Honor, the Ravens produced a performance that rose to that elite level. The Ravens scored touchdowns on their first four possessions and pummeled the front-running Detroit Lions, 38-6, at M&T Bank Stadium on Oct. 22 in a game that probably wasn’t as close as the final score.
The Lions (5-2) had entered the game tied for the league’s best record at 5-1, winning their past four games by at least 14 points, but the Ravens (5-2) torched them from the start, showing no signs of fatigue or any travel hangover after playing in London last Sunday.
Ravens quarterback Lamar Jackson shredded the Lions’ No. 7-ranked defense, going 21-for-27 for 357 yards and three touchdowns. He also ran nine times for 36 yards and one score.
On the game’s third play, Jackson found a wide-open Zay Flowers down the middle for 46 yards. Four plays later, Jackson kept around the left side on fourth-and-1 for a 7-yard touchdown.
On the Ravens’ next possession, Jackson spun out of trouble in the pocket, rolled right to buy time and found an open Nelson Agholor for a 12-yard touchdown. That capped an 11-play, 68-yard drive that left the Lions looking shell-shocked.
By the middle of the second quarter, the Ravens had outgained the Lions 245-13 and had rolled to a 21-0 lead before the Lions recorded a first down.
Gus Edwards rumbled in for a 2-yard touchdown run midway through the second quarter for a 28-0 lead — giving the Ravens four touchdowns on four possessions.
Tight end Mark Andrews caught his second touchdown pass of the game for a 35-0 lead in the third quarter before Lions running back Jahmyr Gibbs spoiled the shutout with a 21-yard touchdown run early in the fourth.
Here are five quick observations of the win, which improves Jackson as a starter to 16-1 against the NFC:
1. This is more what Todd Monken and the Ravens’ offense had in mind.
The Ravens’ offense was the source of so much optimism this summer with Monken hired as the new offensive coordinator and a makeover at wide receiver with the arrival of Odell Beckham Jr., Nelson Agholor and rookie Zay Flowers. Yet the offense had not played to its potential or certainly to its investment value through the first six games. In the past couple of games, the offense had scuffled through red-zone woes, dropped passes and inconsistent execution.
But in this game, Monken appeared to be a step ahead of Lions defensive coordinator Aaron Glenn all day. The Ravens’ offensive line, with an occasional assist from a running back, kept ferocious Lions pass rusher Aidan Hutchinson at bay, and with time, Jackson carved up the Lions’ defense.
How open were Ravens receivers? Fullback Patrick Ricard caught a short pass and rumbled for a 28-yard gain, and running back Gus Edwards gained 80 yards on a short reception when he had the entire field open in front of him.
On the pass to Ricard, Jackson found him over the middle, and Ricard turned and appeared stunned to find no Lions player within 10 yards of him.
Jackson’s pass to Edwards came when Jackson faked the run, sucked in the defense and floated the ball to Edwards, with every receiver flooding the other side of the field. Edwards had acres of grass in front of him and was finally dragged down after the longest play of his career.
“I had a choice in there whether to block the rusher or get open, and I said, ‘I’m gonna get open,” Edwards said. “I knew once I got open there was going to be nobody there. I wish I would have scored on it.”
Jackson had 20-plus yard passes to five different targets, and the Ravens’ offense executed as well as it has all season.
Harbaugh said that Monken received a game ball, and that was well deserved.
2. The Ravens’ defense is motivated by any perception some other team’s is better.
Before the Ravens faced Cleveland in Week 4, much of the talk centered around the Browns and their No. 1-ranked defense. This week, much talk centered around the Lions’ defense, which ranked No. 7 overall and No. 1 against the run.
To hear the Ravens’ defensive players speak, that kind of chatter is fuel. No, they don’t play against the other team’s defense, but they expect to show that, hey, we can play a little, too. The Ravens held the Browns to three points on Oct. 1, and in this game, the Ravens overwhelmed the Lions.
Lions quarterback Jared Goff was sacked five times, was called for intentional grounding once and threw several other passes into the turf under extreme duress. Goff finished 33-for-53 for 284 yards, but that included some late-blowout stat-padding, and at times he looked as uncomfortable as the run of rookie and backup quarterbacks the Ravens have seen lately.
The Ravens again got pressure from all angles, with Justin Madubuike recording a sack up the middle, Arthur Maulet dropping Goff on a blitz from the slot, and Kyle Van Noy and Odafe Oweh registering sacks off the edge. Van Noy had two sacks, and Oweh, back in action after missing four games with an ankle injury got his first of the season.
The Ravens entered the game with the No. 2 overall defense and tied for the league lead in sacks. They have not allowed more than one touchdown since Week 2.
Smith earlier this week had said the Lions had been “playing good ball, but, hey, I’m from the ‘show me’ business, so you have to show me.”
In the victorious locker room, Smith said, “We just know they hadn’t faced a defense yet like ours.”
Smith related that before the game, he told the team, “Hey, it’s our house at the end of the day. Lions? They’re coming to The Bank, ya know? It wasn’t a den. … I talked to team security and I told them, ‘Lock the doors. Lock the doors, and we’ll decide when we want to let them out.'”
3. The Ravens’ offensive line rose to the occasion.
Early in the game, Lamar Jackson dropped back to throw, and time and again, Lions elite pass rushing defensive end Aidan Hutchinson fired off the left side. And time and again, Ravens tackle Morgan Moses stood up Hutchinson, and Jackson had all the time he needed to survey the field.
It was a banner day for the Ravens’ offensive line across the board, and the pass protection of that group was a huge reason that Jackson completed 21 of 27 passes and compiled a passer rating of 155.7. On 27 pass plays, Jackson wasn’t sacked at all, and the Lions registered one quarterback hit.
The Ravens scored on their first five red-zone chances, as the offensive linemen stayed with their blocks and moved the pile, even in compressed space in the red zone. On the game’s first touchdown, Lamar Jackson faked a handoff to the right, then ran left for a 7-yard score behind left tackle Ronnie Stanley, who blocked Lions safety Kerby Joseph past the goal line and kept driving him right on through the end zone.
“I just knew Lamar was behind me,” Stanley said, “and I knew my boy Marshal Yanda was here and I was thinking to myself, ‘What would Marshal do in this situation?'”
Entering the game, the Lions had allowed 64.7 rushing yards a game, the lowest in the league, and 3.26 yards per carry, the second-lowest. The Ravens proceeded to run right at, and often over, them. During one sequence in the second quarter, Gus Edwards burst up the right side for 20 yards, and then Justice Hill ran for 27 on the next play.
Edwards, who finished with a team-high 64 yards on 14 carries, finished that drive with a 2-yard touchdown run for a 28-0 lead.
The Ravens totaled 146 rushing yards — more than twice the Lions’ average allowed — and averaged 5.4 yards a carry.
“The offensive line deserves a ton of credit,” Ravens head coach John Harbaugh said. “That was a really good pass rush team, a power-rushing team who wants to knock you back into the quarterback and cage-rush the quarterback, and Lamar had plenty of time back there.”
4. Lamar Jackson again proved he’s so hard to prepare for.
With the Ravens leading 7-0, the Lions appeared to have Lamar Jackson contained in the pocket, and a sack looked imminent. Except Jackson spun out of trouble, outran pressure to buy more time, and then found Nelson Agholor alone in the end zone for a 15-yard touchdown and a 14-0 lead.
Later, Jackson turned an RPO running play into an improvised pass to Gus Edwards, who looked up and saw green space pretty much all the way to Towson. Edwards ran for 80 yards before being chased down at the Lions’ 11-yard line.
Jackson later smiled when asked whether that play was scheme or improvised, but Edwards all but said it was made up on the fly; when Edwards flared out and gave up his pass-blocking responsibilities, Jackson floated a pass to the wide-open Edwards.
“It was schemed up,” Jackson said with a smile. “I’m going to say it was schemed up. … I don’t want to give it away, but hats off to Gus.”
The Lions, to be sure, had a scout team try to simulate Jackson all week. Many teams don’t use a third-string quarterback for that job, instead taking a speedy back or receiver just to try to simulate the challenge that Jackson’s speed can present.
Then the game starts, and it quickly becomes apparent that Jackson’s improvising is impossible to prepare for.
The Lions were a step behind Jackson all day, whether that was when he was slipping away in in the pocket, racing left for a touchdown after all the pre-snap motion and movement suggested a play to the right, or making a last-second decision to float a ball to Edwards that turned into an 80-yard gain.
“You can say that every week we’ve got to be disciplined, but with this guy, you better double it up, because Lamar is an issue,” Lions head coach Dan Campbell said.
Jackson’s critics re-emerge every time he struggles or has another costly turnover (which he did again in this this game he and Justice Hill botched an exchange.) But in a game like this, the singular way he can vex an opposing defensive scheme is on full display.
And now there is the pass play to Edwards to think about as well.
“We oughta put it in [the playbook],” Edwards said.
Yet another thing for opposing defensive coordinators to worry about in preparing for Jackson.
5. The Ravens’ ability to play to the level of competition is maddening.
The Ravens have displayed a maddening ability to play to the level of the competition, rising up for their most complete performances in wins against Cincinnati and Detroit, two of the best teams thus far on their schedule, and stumbling in mistake-prone losses to Indianapolis and Pittsburgh.
Yes, they could be 7-0, and they don’t get those lost chances back. But when the Ravens produce a game like this, in which the looked completely focused and executed at a nearly flawless level for most of the game, they proved that they are among the best teams in the league.
No, they can’t bottle it and open when needed. The challenge for the Ravens, and, really for every team in the week-to-week exercise in unpredictability that is the NFL, is to sustain that execution.
Two weeks ago, after the loss at Pittsburgh, tight end Mark Andrews likened the Ravens to a “sleeping giant.” They looked the giant part in this game, and they looked very much awake, motivated by the idea of hosting an opponent widely perceived as one of the best in the league.
Next week in Arizona, they face the Cardinals (1-6), who are not that. The challenge for the Ravens is to stay sharp and maintain the focus and execution in that game. From there, the Ravens begin a big three-game homestand that will include back-to-back AFC North games against Cleveland (Nov. 12) and Cincinnati (Nov. 16).
They have shown that at their best, they are among the best. A consistent ability to do that would give the Ravens a legitimate shot to be the AFC’s top-ranked team come Week 18.
This has been updated since its original publication.
Photo Credit: Kenya Allen/PressBox