BALTIMORE — Four days after a gut-punching, buzzer-beating loss to the Cleveland Browns, the Ravens regained command of the AFC North as they pulled away to beat the Cincinnati Bengals, 34-20, at M&T Bank Stadium on Nov. 16.
The win came with another gut-punch, however; All-Pro tight end Mark Andrews suffered an ankle injury on the game’s opening drive and head coach John Harbaugh said Andrews’ season is likely over.
The Ravens (8-3) never trailed after Nelson Agholor caught a tipped pass and raced 37 yards for a touchdown to give the Ravens a 14-10 lead in the second quarter.
They built the lead to 34-13 behind a pair of touchdown passes by Lamar Jackson and a pair of touchdown runs by Gus Edwards.
The Ravens win dealt two serious blows to the Bengals (5-5), who lost not only the game but also quarterback Joe Burrow to a wrist injury.
The Bengals took their only lead at 10-7 after Burrow hit Joe Mixon for a 4-yard touchdown to cap a 12-play, 82-yard drive, but that proved to be Burrow’s last snap. He aggravated an apparent wrist injury on that play and was unable to grip a ball after that. Burrow had been seen wearing a brace on his wrist when he arrived in Baltimore, though he was not listed on the team’s injury report.
After Burrow’s touchdown pass, the Ravens answered with Agholor’s deflected pass for a touchdown, and just before halftime, Jackson connected with Rashod Bateman on a 10-yard touchdown pass for a 21-10 halftime lead.
The Ravens got another scare when Jackson briefly went into the blue medical tent with an apparent ankle injury, but he did not miss an offensive snap.
After the game, Jackson said he was “feeling good,” and he welcomed the long weekend that the Ravens earned by virtue of a Thursday night game. Jackson said he expects to be ready to go when the Ravens visit the Los Angeles Chargers on Nov. 26.
Jackson finished 16-for-26 for 264 yards and two touchdowns, and he ran nine times for 54 yards.
Edwards led the Ravens with 12 carries for 62 yards. He gave the Ravens a 7-0 lead on the opening drive of the game as he ran off left tackle for a 3-yard touchdown. That came two plays after Andrews was injured.
Then in the fourth quarter, Edwards essentially put the game out of reach when he scored from 3 yards out, his 10th touchdown of the season and ninth in the past five games.
Here are five quick impressions of the win, Lamar Jackson’s eighth in nine starts against Cincinnati:
1. Mark Andrews’ injury changes the dynamics of this offense.
The NFL always has a “next man up” philosophy, and Ravens players were echoing that in the wake of the news that All-Pro tight end Mark Andrews is likely done for the season. But head coach John Harbaugh might have said it best: “You say next man up, and it’s not just the next player at that position, it’s all of them,” Harbaugh said. “It’s all the players. … Replacing a player like Mark Andrews, it’s going to take everybody. It’s going to take the team to do it.”
Andrews and quarterback Lamar Jackson came to Baltimore as rookies together, and Andrews has always been Jackson’s security blanket, the guy he looks for on third down and when the play breaks down. The duo often connect on improvised plays that Jackson once called “Streetball.”
“That’s the guy who I entered the league with,” Jackson said. “We’ve been bread and butter, peanut butter and jelly — whatever you want to call it. It’s very tough, because that’s my boy.”
With Andrews out, Jackson indeed will need to lean on other targets, beginning with tight end Isaiah Likely, who figures to move into the starting tight end role.
“Every game from this point on is for Mark,” said Likely, who like most Ravens was subdued after hearing the news about Andrews. “Every snap I’m gonna take the rest of the season is going to be looked at for ’89.'”
Likely did not have a catch in this game. He has nine catches for 89 yards on the season. The No. 3 tight end, Charlie Kolar, made his first catch of the season in this game.
Likely emerged as a rookie last year when Andrews left a midseason game early. Then, with Andrews out, Likely had a career-high 103 yards in the regular-season finale against the Bengals last season.
As Harbaugh said, though, replacing Andrews goes beyond the tight ends. Each receiver will be asked to do more.
And most important, someone has to become that No. 1 trusted target, the player Jackson knows he can go to when the play breaks down and he needs to play “Streetball.” Will that be Zay Flowers, who leads the Ravens in receptions? Will it be Odell Beckham Jr., who suffered a shoulder injury in this game? (Harbaugh said it isn’t serious.) Will it be Rashod Bateman? Nelson Agholor? Likely?
The Ravens will find out soon enough.
2. Even without Marlon Humphrey, the Ravens’ secondary shined.
With Marlon Humphrey sidelined by a calf injury, the Ravens knew they needed to rely on others in the secondary, and they delivered in a big way.
Bengals quarterback Joe Burrow got in rhythm on his touchdown drive, completing seven of eight passes. But the Ravens’ secondary made things tough on Bengals receivers all night. Ravens defensive backs broke up seven passes, led by safety Kyle Hamilton with three.
Hamilton set the tone when he ripped a ball out of the arms of Pro Bowl receiver Ja’Marr Chase early in the game, and early in the fourth quarter, he hammered Tyler Boyd to force an incompletion and a punt.
Marcus Williams, playing through a serious pec injury in his left arm, made two diving pass breakups. Ronald Darby, who started in place of Humphrey, broke up a pass in the end zone and later drove Chase out bounds as he tried to come down with a long catch.
Brandon Stephens, meanwhile, continued his stellar play as a starting cornerback this season.
Those players helped defensive coordinator Mike Macdonald hold the Bengals under 300 yards of total offense for the fifth straight meeting between the teams.
The Bengals were missing Tee Higgins, but Chase came into the game with 69 catches for 821 yards, and the Ravens essentially took him out of the game. He finished with two catches for 12 yards, including an anticlimactic 2-yard touchdown in the game’s closing minutes.
True, the Bengals played most of the game with a backup quarterback, but they also played most of the game from behind, needing to throw. This was a resounding win for the Ravens’ secondary.
3. Odafe Oweh is becoming the guy the Ravens thought he would be.
Progress has come in fits and starts for linebacker Odafe Oweh, a former first-round pick whose lack of production has been a source of frustration among Ravens fans. Defensive coordinator Mike Macdonald suggested before the season that even Oweh probably had been expecting more from himself than the three sacks he registered last season.
Then this year, Oweh was sidelined for four games, and his impact looked like it might be minimal again as Kyle Van Noy and Jadeveon Clowney arrived and took over as the preeminent edge rushers. Across the past five weeks, though, Oweh is starting to look like the player the Ravens though they were getting when they selected him at No. 31 overall in the 2021 draft.
Oweh broke through and sacked Bengals quarterback Jake Browning in the third quarter, giving Oweh a sack in three straight games and in four of the past five.
The Ravens have surprisingly become the league leader in sacks, and it’s because they are coming from all over; defensive lineman Justin Maduibuike recorded another one in this game, giving him a sack in six straight games, a franchise record.
Against the Bengals, though, the edge group shined, recording four of the team’s five sacks. Oweh, Van Noy, Clowney and even rookie Tavius Robinson also registered one each.
The Ravens signed Van Noy and Clowney as veterans who have produced more than the Ravens could have expected as street free agents signed well into training camp (or in Van Noy’s case, after the season had begun), but they are older players and it’s possible they will wear down in the grind of the 17-game season.
Tyus Bowser and David Ojabo remain sidelined, and the Ravens have been waiting for Oweh to emerge as the young leader of that group. It’s taken awhile, but it’s starting to look as if he is ready to do exactly that.
4. Get ready to hear more about “hip drop” tackles.
The league has discussed the danger of the “hip drop” tackle, in which a defender encircles a player at the hips and drops down, putting all his weight on the lower, essentially immobilized part of the body of the ball carrier.
It’s exactly that type of tackle that led to Andrews’ injury. Andrews caught a pass at the Bengals’ 9-yard line, and as he raced toward the end zone, Bengals linebacker Logan Wilson wrapped him up at the hips and then dragged him down, landing on Andrews’ left ankle. The tackle left Andrews writing in pain on the ground.
“It was definitely a hip-drop tackle,” head coach John Harbaugh said. “It’s being discussed. It’s a tough tackle. Is it even necessary in that situation?”
Patrick Mahomes, Geno Smith and others have also been injured by hip-drop tackles, and as injuries mount, the calls to outlaw the play are likely to grow.
One person who seems not to have an issue with it is linebacker Patrick Queen, whose job is to tackle people.
“I hate that Mark’s hurt,” Queen said. “Prayers for him, but at the end of the day, we play football. We play a tackling sport. I don’t think a hip-drop tackle is that bad of a thing. How else do you want us to tackle? Let the guy run past ’em? … We got pads on, we got all this stuff on for a reason.”
5. The Ravens are back in control of the AFC North.
With the win, the Ravens have all but stuck a dagger in the Bengals, who in August were thought to be their most threatening rival for AFC North supremacy this year. Coupled with their 27-24 win at Cincinnati in Week 2, this victory gives the Ravens a season sweep of the Bengals, which amounts to an extra half-game; should the teams tie for the division title, the Ravens would win it based on the series sweep.
Joe Burrow’s wrist injury clouds the immediate future for the Bengals as well.
The win also allows the Ravens to stay ahead of the winner of Sunday’s Browns-Steelers game. Both those teams enter that game at 6-3, and the Browns’ season has become somewhat unsettled with the news that quarterback Deshaun Watson will undergo season-ending surgery on his throwing shoulder. The Ravens have shown that a good defense can carry a team a long way, so no one should dismiss the Browns just yet.
Don’t look now, but for all their flaws, the Steelers just might be the Ravens’ biggest divisional threat, again. The teams meet in the regular-season finale in what could shape up to be yet another massively important game in one of the league’s best rivalries.
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