After a nearly flawless performance in a 38-6 dismantling of the front-running Detroit Lions a week ago, the Ravens would have been hard-pressed to match that execution again. And indeed, playing the bottom-feeding Arizona Cardinals they weren’t nearly as good, but they were good enough, and that’s all that counts.
Gus Edwards ran for three touchdowns, and the Ravens held off the Cardinals, 31-24, at State Farm Stadium in Glendale, Ariz., on Oct. 29. The Ravens had chances to pull away but couldn’t, and the victory wasn’t secured until Nelson Agholor fell on the Cardinals’ second onside kick in the game’s final two minutes.
Agholor failed to secure the first and the Cardinals recovered, leading to a late field goal that made it a one-score game. But Agholor did grab the second onside kick and the Ravens (6-2) iced away the final seconds for their third straight win.
The Ravens blitzed Detroit last week with a 28-0 lead by midway through the second quarter, but they couldn’t match that intensity or performance against the lowly Cardinals (1-7).
Arizona marched 75 yards in 12 plays on the game’s opening drive and took a 7-0 lead when quarterback Joshua Dobbs powered over the goal line on a 1-yard sneak. That marked the first first-quarter touchdown the Ravens have allowed all season.
The Ravens answered when Lamar Jackson capped the Ravens opening drive with a 5-yard touchdown pass to tight end Mark Andrews.
Struggling in the first half to find their footing, the Ravens got a big break when Dobbs’ pass intended for Michael Wilson was picked off by Brandon Stephens near midfield. A 24-yard swing pass to Justice Hill moved the Ravens into the red zone, and Edwards capped the drive with a 1-yard touchdown run for a 14-7 Ravens lead at the half.
The Ravens took advantage of another turnover in the third quarter when Geno Stone picked off Dobbs deep in Arizona territory. Three plays later, Edwards bounced off the left tackle and in for a 21-7 lead.
Each time the Ravens added to their lead in the fourth quarter, though, the Cardinals answered. The Ravens, who came into the game with the league’s top-rated scoring defense and had not given up more than one touchdown in a game since Week 2, then yielded touchdowns on back-to-back Arizona drives in the fourth quarter.
Dobbs’ 1-yard touchdown pass to former Raven Marquise Brown cut the Ravens lead to 31-21. A holding penalty on the ensuing two-point conversion attempt backed up the Cardinals, and Dobbs threw to Brown but well short of the goal line and the Ravens swarmed him to keep the margin at 10.
The Cardinals, though, recovered an onside kick that short-hopped and bounced off Agholor, and Matt Prater kicked a 47-yard field goal with 26 seconds left. Prater’s second onside kick, though, was snared by Agholor to secure the win.
Here are five quick observations of the game, which makes Jackson 17-1 in his career against the NFC:
1. Michael Pierce set the tone on defense.
Defensive tackle Michael Pierce has quietly been thriving in the trenches this year, and he was as disruptive as any player on the Ravens defense against Arizona.
The Cardinals had the Ravens reeling early. They had a long opening drive that ended with a touchdown and the Arizona offense was playing with some early swagger. Pierce helped put an end to that.
Twice early in the game, the Cardinals kept the offense on the field in fourth-and-short situations, and twice Pierce denied them.
On the Cardinals’ second drive, they went for the first down on fourth-and-1 from the Ravens’ 44-yard line. Dobbs tried to pass over the middle, but Pierce batted the ball down.
On their next possession, the Cardinals had fourth-and-1 at the Ravens’ 36. The 6-0, 355-pound Pierce fought off a block by Cardinals center Hjalte Froholdt and wrapped up running back Emari Demercado for no gain.
Then in the third quarter, Pierce bull-rushed up the middle and sacked Dobbs, forcing a fumble. Ravens edge rusher Jadeveon Clowney tried to scoop up the loose ball on the run and couldn’t, and the Cardinals recovered, but Pierce’s sack forced a punt.
Pierce, who turns 31 next week, has 20 tackles this season. He missed almost all of last year with a torn triceps, but in this game he showed why the Ravens, who had initially signed him as an undrafted rookie out of Samford, re-signed him in 2021 after a two-year stint in Minnesota.
On a defense headlined by players such as Roquan Smith, Patrick Queen, Marlon Humphrey and the emerging Justin Madubuike, it’s time to give Pierce his due.
2. Gus Edwards can be that workhorse, clock-killing back.
The Ravens don’t have a bell-cow, 30-carry running back, nor do they have any designs on playing that way with Greg Roman departed as their run-first offensive coordinator.
But the Ravens still want to impose their will at the line of scrimmage, and when playing with the lead in the second half, they want to hold the lead and bleed the clock. They were able to do that against Arizona behind Edwards, who finished with 19 carries for 80 yards and three touchdowns.
Edwards became the first Ravens player with three rushing touchdowns in a game since Mark Ingram in 2019.
The Ravens curiously seemed to forget about the running game in the first half. They dropped back to throw on nine of their first 10 snaps. Jackson had a quiet day overall, going 18-for-27 for 157 yards with one touchdown and no interceptions.
In the first half, Edwards (6-20) and Justice Hill (1-6) carried on just seven on the team’s 28 offensive plays.
But after safety Geno Smith intercepted Dobbs late in the third quarter with the Ravens leading, 14-7, they rode with Edwards. He carried twice in a row on that abbreviated drive, and his 7-yard touchdown run gave the Ravens a 21-7 lead.
On the Ravens’ next possession, early in the fourth quarter, Edwards carried on the first four plays, totaling 30 yards. On their possession after that, Edwards again carried on the first four plays. That sequence netted a first down and also forced the Cardinals to burn all their timeouts.
Edwards might not have breakaway speed, but the 6-foot-1, 238-pounder will exact punishment running north and south and he can move the chains.
The Ravens have insisted all summer that the offense is going to look different this year, with its high-profile, rebuilt passing game. But certain times call for a return to their old-school, power run game, and as he showed in this game, Edwards is the man for that job.
3. John Harbaugh can’t be happy with special teams play.
Special teams play falls under a broad umbrella, covering execution on field goals, kickoffs, kick returns, punts and punt returns. John Harbaugh cut his teeth as a special teams coach with the Philadelphia Eagles, so he understands the many nuances of special teams. So it must torment him that each week, the Ravens seem to have a significant special teams lapse.
One week it might be yielding a long punt return. (In fact, that’s been a recurring problem this year, which is why the Ravens have allowed 16.3 yards per punt return, the highest in the league.) One week it might be a blocked punt, as happened in Pittsburgh. In this game, it was a failure of the “hands team,” the special kick return team designed to field an onside kick.
The Ravens practice their onside kick every week, both as a kicking team trying to recover and as the hands team looking to make the proper recovery. The hands team, as implied, puts an emphasis on players with good hands rather than blockers looking to set up a return. It’s made up of receivers, tight ends and defensive backs.
In this case, Arizona kicker Matt Prater kicked the ball directly into the turf, creating a high bounce. As the ball began to come down, receiver Nelson Agholor hesitated, and the ball bounced, hit him and caromed away. The Cardinals recovered the ball and maintained possession.
Fortunately for the Ravens, a missed two-point conversion on the previous play had kept the margin at 10, but this was a major execution lapse. After the Cardinals kicked a field goal to cut the Ravens lead to 31-24, they tried another onside kick, kicking again toward Agholor. This time, though, he grabbed the ball and fell to the turf, essentially ending the Cardinals’ comeback bid.
Longtime NFL writer Rick Gosselin produces an annual ranking of the league’s special teams units, based on 22 categories, and the Ravens traditionally rank among the best. Last year, the Ravens ranked No. 3 in Gosselin’s rankings, and they were No. 1 two years ago.
Of course, it never hurts to have the league’s most accurate field-goal kicker, though Justin Tucker clanked one off the Arizona upright from 53 yards.
If special teams coordinator Chris Horton wants his unit similarly recognized this season, he’s got some work to do.
4. Geno Stone is making himself some money this year.
The remarkable rise of Geno Stone continues.
The safety recorded his league-best fifth interception, pretty much stepping in front of Brandon Stephens to grab a poorly thrown pass from Dobbs. Stone’s pick gave the Ravens the ball at the Cardinals’ 23-yard line, and three plays later Edwards rumbled in for a touchdown and 21-7 lead.
This marks the third straight game in which Stone has had an interception, something no Raven has done since Cary Williams in 2012. More impressively, only one other Ravens player has recorded five interceptions in the first eight games of the season: Hall of Famer Ed Reed in 2007.
Stone is a former seventh-round draft pick who was cut by the Ravens late in his rookie season, then briefly signed away by Houston before returning to the Ravens the next spring. He struggled to find his footing on defense behind veterans such as Chuck Clark and Marcus Williams, but the injuries to Williams have allowed Stone to thrive. Williams missed the Arizona game with a hamstring injury, the fifth game he has missed this season.
Stone was briefly a free agent this past spring after the Ravens did not put a tender on the restricted free agent. Less than 24 hours later, he re-signed with the team and said last week it was “almost a no-brainer for me to come back here.”
The Ravens are paying Stone about $1.7 million this year, with a cap hit of $1.1 million. That increasingly is looking like one of the bargains of the year. Williams, in the second year of a five-year, $70 million deal, has a cap hit nearly seven times that of Stone ($7.2 million) and that balloons to more than $18 million next year.
After signing the one-year deal last year, Stone is set to hit free agency again in the spring. Whether in Baltimore or somewhere else, he is playing himself into a nice payday.
5. Back home again, the Ravens have a chance to separate in the division.
The win in Arizona gives the Ravens a 6-2 record, tied for the best in the AFC. Coupled with losses by Pittsburgh and Cleveland in Week 8, the Ravens have opened up a 1.5-game lead in the division, with the other three teams in the division all sitting at 4-3.
The Ravens have just concluded a rugged stretch that included long trips east to London and west to Arizona, sandwiched around a home game with NFC North-leading Detroit. They went 3-0 in those games, and now benefit from three straight home games beginning next Sunday against Seattle.
After that, the Ravens host Cleveland and Cincinnati in a five-day span, with the Bengals game a Thursday Night Football showdown on Nov. 16. The Ravens already have road wins against both teams, and if they can beat both at home, they will have a chance to gain some separation in the AFC North.
It’s a week-to-week league to be sure, but with a three-game winning streak and those October travel logistics behind them, the Ravens have to feel good with the calendar turning to November.
Photo Credit: Kenya Allen/PressBox