BALTIMORE — The “MVP!” chants began raining down in the fourth quarter at M&T Bank Stadium, but they weren’t coming from Ravens fans. Instead, the sizable contingent of Philadelphia fans began serenading Eagles running back Saquon Barkley after his 25-yard touchdown run provided the decisive score in the Eagles’ 24-19 win against the Ravens on Dec. 1.
Barkley’s touchdown run built the Eagles’ lead to 21-12 midway through the fourth quarter, and that deficit indeed proved insurmountable for a Ravens team hampered by a scuffling offense and slumping kicker.
After taking a 9-0 first-quarter lead, the Ravens were held to three points in the final three quarters, save a garbage-time touchdown with three seconds left. And Justin Tucker missed two field goals and an extra-point kick, though after the game head coach John Harbaugh again voiced confidence in his embattled kicker.
For most of the game, the Eagles (10-2) were the more complete, more consistent and more physical team in all three phases.
“We didn’t play well enough and coach well enough,” Harbaugh said.
Lamar Jackson finished 23 of 36 for 237 yards and two touchdowns, but after the first quarter, the offense could not find any rhythm against the Eagles’ No. 1-rated defense.
After one failed third down when Jackson checked down to Justice Hill and didn’t see Zay Flowers open on the right side, Flowers stormed off the field, his visible frustration reflecting the mood of the offense overall.
Jackson was animated as well in his postgame media session, pounding the podium a few times and lamenting the Ravens’ inability to “finish.”
“We just have to finish those drives, man, especially in a game like this,” he said.
The Ravens thus limp into their bye week at 8-5, with losses in two of their past three games.
Facing an Eagles team that had won seven in a row, the Ravens dominated early. The Ravens outgained the Eagles 133-22 in the first quarter and scored on their first two possessions to take an early 9-0 lead.
Justin Tucker’s 34-yard field goal gave the Ravens a 3-0 lead, and then Jackson hit Mark Andrews on a 14-yard touchdown pass, though Tucker’s point-after try clanked off the left upright no good. Andrews’ grab in traffic was the 47th touchdown of his career, which ties the all-time Ravens record held by Jamal Lewis.
But the notoriously slow-starting Eagles — who have been outscored 56-17 in the first quarter this year — once again found their footing in the second quarter with back-to-back touchdown drives.
Eagles quarterback Jalen Hurts capped a 49-yard, six-play drive with a 17-yard touchdown pass to tight end Dallas Goedert that cut the Ravens lead to 9-7 midway through the second quarter. Then right at the two-minute warning, Hurts pushed across the goal line on a quarterback sneak — after fumbling the snap — for a 14-9 Eagles lead.
The Ravens cut the Eagles lead to 14-12 on a 50-yard field goal by Tucker with three seconds left in the half, but those proved to be the Ravens’ final points until Jackson’s pass to Likely with three seconds left.
Here are five quick impressions of the game, just Jackson’s second loss in 25 career starts against an NFC team:
1. The Ravens were bullied on their own field.
It wasn’t exactly a tone-setter as much as an exclamation point.
With the Ravens trying to mount something offensively in the fourth quarter, Lamar Jackson threw a checkdown pass to running back Derrick Henry on third-and-11. Eagles rookie defensive back Cooper DeJean met Henry in the left flat, lifted the 247-pound back and drove him into the turf after a modest 3-yard gain as the Eagles’ sideline howled in delight. Jackson threw incomplete on fourth down on the next play, and the Ravens’ offense made yet another slow trudge off the field.
From the second quarter on, in the trenches and in space, the Eagles were the more physical team. When the Ravens drove deep into Eagles territory in the third quarter, Lamar Jackson was buried for a 14-yard sack on third down, and Justin Tucker missed a 47-yard field-goal attempt on the next play.
Ravens wide receivers struggled to get any separation against Eagles defensive backs, and when they did, Jackson at times didn’t see them because he was being flushed from the pocket by a pass rush that sacked him three times and hit him six times.
And a Ravens defense that gamely battled for 3 ½ quarters, giving the Ravens offense every chance to get a lead, was ultimately worn down and yielded Saquon Barkley’s 25-yard touchdown run with 7:56 left as he fired through a hole off right tackle.
The Ravens pride themselves on winning the game’s physical battles. As they go into their bye week, they have to be concerned that in two of the past three weeks, they have been beaten physically by teams with playoff profiles (Eagles and Pittsburgh Steelers). Those teams disrupted them offensively.
If the Ravens want to make a deep playoff run, that will need to change.
2. The wide receivers went missing.
The Ravens have built this offense around Lamar Jackson and running back Derrick Henry, and they know they have two firepower tight ends in Mark Andrews and Isaiah Likely.
They also like to think they have explosive, big-play deep threats in Rashod Bateman and Diontae Johnson to complement top receiver Zay Flowers if they have to play from behind.
But in the second half of this game, when the Ravens needed to play from behind, the wide receivers totaled 2 yards on one catch.
Bateman, who did not have a target all night, walked off with a knee injury in the second half and did not return. Harbaugh simply said Bateman was dealing with knee soreness that prevented him from returning to the game. Johnson, though active and in uniform, did not play a snap.
Harbaugh had no explanation for Johnson’s unavailability, which was striking considering he was added at the trade deadline as depth should the receiver room need it. When they needed it in this game specifically, the team made the decision not to use him.
“I’m not really ready to comment on that right now,” Harbaugh said. “I will be, [but] just don’t have enough information right now to talk about that.”
In the absence of both of them, the Ravens tried to make noise downfield with Nelson Agholor, but he failed to haul in two deep balls, with one of them going off his hands. He struggled to get much separation.
The Eagles got grabby and physical with Flowers, who was visibly frustrated with a couple of non-calls and a couple of times Jackson simply didn’t see him when he did get open. Flowers finished with three catches for 74 yards — but none after halftime.
If the Ravens don’t have Bateman, and don’t have Johnson, they aren’t going to come from behind with Flowers not touching the ball.
3. Justin Tucker is in crisis mode, and that’s not the only special teams problem.
In a recurring theme this year, the Ravens again were badly outplayed on special teams. Justin Tucker’s three missed kicks that cost the Ravens seven points were the most glaring problems, but far from the only ones.
Punt returner Tylan Wallace fumbled two punts, and though he recovered both, he appeared more tentative and less confident as the game went on. And to the Eagles’ credit, punter Braden Mann angled a couple of punts that forced Wallace to make a split-second decision of whether to try to catch the ball on the run angling toward the sideline. When he let one of those bounce, the Eagles downed the ball at the 1. The Eagles’ defense then got a stop and excellent field position, leading to the Eagles’ first touchdown.
Tucker’s problems are impossible to ignore, though the team continues to have the All-Pro’s back even while watching him labor through the worst season of his career.
“If you’re asking me, ‘Are we going to move on from Justin Tucker?’ I’m not really planning on doing that right now,” Harbaugh said. “I don’t think that’d be wise. But he’ll tell you, he’ll be the first to tell you, he needs to make kicks.”
After missing an extra-point off the left upright, he hooked a 47-yard kick wide to the left. Every kick he had missed this season had drifted left — until he pushed a 53-yard field goal try wide to the right in the third quarter.
Tucker has been praised as almost robotic in his consistency for most of his career, but it’s impossible not to think his confidence is rattled at this point. Tucker this season now is 19-for-27 on field-goal attempts and has missed at least one in all five losses.
“I feel like I cost us this one, but it doesn’t really do anybody any good to dwell on it,” Tucker said. “The only thing that we can do, that I can do, is just continue to work. … I hate that I’ve had to have this same conversation over the course of this season, but that’s something that comes with the territory in this job description. The kicks are either good or they’re not.”
4. It was another encouraging performance by the defense.
The Ravens held the Eagles’ No. 3-ranked offense to 252 yards, their second-lowest total of the season. Their league-leading running game finished with 140 yards — 53 below their season average.
The Eagles’ offense ran just six offensive plays in the third quarter, netting no first downs and a total of 3 yards, and yet the Ravens failed to erase a 14-12 deficit because their own two third-quarter drives — which totaled 24 plays and 88 yards — both ended in missed field goals.
Held in check for so long, Saquon Barkley and the Eagles finally unleashed a big play in the fourth quarter with a 25-yard touchdown run that opened up a 21-12 Eagles lead.
Still, it’s clear that something is clicking for the defense, and that is encouraging as the team heads into the bye week.
For the second straight week, the Ravens did not allow a pass play of more than 20 yards; in the first 11 games, they had allowed 50 such plays, the second-highest total in the league.
Clearly, the biggest change has come at safety, where Ar’Darius Washington supplanted Marcus Williams as a starter. Williams, who had been benched earlier this season, was a healthy scratch for the first time. Safety Eddie Jackson has been released, and Tre’Davious White, acquired at the trade deadline, has moved into the rotation at outside cornerback. The Ravens also are using inside linebacker Chris Board more in passing downs.
There are still a lot of moving parts, but the defense is trending in the right direction.
“I feel like we’ve turned that corner,” cornerback Marlon Humphrey said. “It’s not perfect. I still think there are more corners to turn, but the mindset has really changed.”
Humphrey, who had been an outspoken critic of the defensive play early in the season, said there is also more accountability now.
“You want to play ball, then we’ll get you out there,” Humphrey said, “but if you don’t, you’re going to have to sit on the sidelines.”
5. The Ravens need this bye week and will benefit from it.
The Ravens head into their bye week with two losses in their past three games but should come out of their bye rested and still in good position for a postseason berth. The Ravens still find themselves chasing the Pittsburgh Steelers in the AFC North, and the Steelers (9-3) picked up a game on the Ravens with their 44-38 win at Cincinnati today.
The Ravens come out of their bye by visiting the reeling New York Giants (2-10) and then host the Steelers on Dec. 21 in a game that could have a lot to do with deciding the AFC North title. To be sure, the Ravens need that game much more than the Steelers do if they want to stay in the AFC North race, but between now and then, the Steelers will face this Eagles team in Philadelphia.
Then on Christmas Day, the Ravens visit Houston (8-5) while the Steelers host the Kansas City Chiefs (11-1).
After this game, Ravens players spoke of the need to get their bodies right for the stretch run, and the bye week will help them do exactly that.
“Everybody’s a little banged up,” defensive lineman Nnamdi Madubuike said. “If you’re not banged up, you haven’t played football. So, we just have to get ready, see your family, do what you’ve got to do, and get right in the mind. We have a four-game stretch coming up and we have to win every game.”
Photo Credit: Kenya Allen/PressBox