The Baltimore Ravens had yet another triumphant performance this season.
Throughout their history, the Ravens have won in many different settings: rain, snow, blazing heat, freezing cold, preseason, postseason… pretty much any circumstance you can name.
But like the mythical Greek hero Achilles, the team has had a vulnerable point that has proven fatal to more than a few seasons: October road games.
October is the only one of the NFL season’s four main months in which the Ravens have a lifetime losing record (36-50). But the Ravens stood that stat on its ear with Sunday’s overwhelming 21-0 win over the host Tennessee Titans before 64,441 rain-soaked Nissan Coliseum fans.
The Ravens unleashed a furious pass rush, recording a franchise single-game-record 11 sacks against Titans quarterback Marcus Mariota, who completed one fewer pass (ten) than he had sacks against him. Baltimore got sacks from eight different players, also a franchise record.
Baltimore broke its previous record of nine sacks, accomplished on three different occasions, all at home (1997 vs. Philadelphia, 2006 vs. Pittsburgh, 2011 vs. San Francisco).
Za’Darius Smith led the team with three and part-time inside linebacker Patrick Onwuasor had a pair. Getting one each were Terrell Suggs – his 130th career sack – as well as Kenny Young, Matt Judon, Tony Jefferson, Chris Wormley, and Anthony Levine, Sr.
Mariota became the first NFL quarterback to be decked 11 times in a game since the New York Jets’ Greg McElroy also went down that often in a 2012 game against the then-San Diego Chargers.
Not only that, the Titans were held to punts on all nine of their possessions and ran just six plays in Ravens territory.
It resulted in the Ravens’ 14th lifetime shutout – the most in the league since the Ravens’ 1996 birth – and the team’s fourth in the last season and a half, three of them coming on the road.
It was the third of an arduous three-game road stretch for Baltimore, a team whose lifetime mark away from home strongly belies its dominating home mark. While the Ravens (4-2) had not had to play three straight road games since 2008, they finished the current stretch 2-1 and tied for the AFC North Division lead with Cincinnati.
The team’s usual swoon in the season’s second month can be blamed on the fact that, despite ten lifetime postseason berths, the Ravens – burdened by taking the constant road trips dictated by only managing to grab lower seeds – have only played five home playoff games in their history, none since the 2012 Wild Card Weekend game against Indianapolis that was the final Baltimore appearance of linebacker Ray Lewis’ Hall of Fame career.
Part of the reason can be blamed on the schedule. This year’s October itinerary marks the fifth time in the last seven years the Ravens were only slated to play one home game during this pivotal month. That will be the case next week, when the Ravens’ lone appearance in front of its fans takes place against the high-powered New Orleans Saints (Sunday, October 21; 4:05 p.m.; WBFF-TV, WIYY-FM).
What makes that game against record-setting quarterback Drew Brees even more perilous is the fact that New Orleans will be coming off its bye week, the only Ravens opponent this year that will be doing so. Last year, Baltimore faced just one post-bye foe, the Titans. Tennessee hosted that day and took a 23-20 win.
But it couldn’t use home field to its advantage this time around, as the hosts allowed the Ravens to shake off their offensive slump and get on the board first.
The Ravens opened the game in a way the Titans (4-2), who had allowed only seven first-quarter points all season, couldn’t have foreseen.
Backed up to their own six-yard line, the Ravens proceeded to grind out a season-long 17-play, 94-yard drive. Michael Crabtree (93 yards, six catches, touchdown), the league leader in drops who mishandled three passes in Cleveland last week, caught passes of 21 and 27 yards before finishing it off with a four-yard back-shoulder catch over Super Bowl cornerback standout Malcolm Butler.
Alex Collins (photo, dothaneagle.com)
What had to be more encouraging than the Ravens’ first touchdown in 25 drives was the fact that the drive contained nine runs and eight passes, a near-perfect balance against a unit coordinated by former Ravens defensive guru Dean Pees. For the game, the Ravens ran the ball 35 times and passed it on 37 occasions.
The Ravens continued their relentless, high-tempo attack in the second quarter, as Joe Flacco (25-for-37, 238 yards, touchdown, interception, 82.9 rating) found John Brown for 23 yards to the Titans’ 13. Brown’s 20-yard average is the league’s third-highest per catch.
On the next play, Alex Collins (54 yards, 19 carries, two touchdowns) raced through a slow-developing hole in the Titans’ 26th-ranked run defense for a 13-yard touchdown and a 14-0 lead for the visitors.
With the league’s best third-down defense and an aggressive mindset, Baltimore had converted six straight third-down plays during its opening salvo (eight of nine in the first half, 12-for-17 for the game), and with a franchise-record-setting six pre-halftime sacks from five different players in the game’s first 25 minutes, Mariota (10-for-15, 117 yards, 11 sacks, 90.7 rating) couldn’t come close to doing the same.
To make matters worse for the Titans, they had allowed only nine quarterback takedowns coming into the game while not scoring touchdowns in three of their last four games before the Ravens’ swarming defense came calling.
Add to that the fact that Baltimore had not allowed a second-half touchdown all year and had allowed no points in 14 of 23 quarters all season to that point (including an overtime), and the two-touchdown halftime lead seemed more than secure.
The Ravens emphatically re-established their dominance with a 78-yard, 12-play drive that ate up seven minutes and featured two third-down catches by Willie Snead (60 yards, seven catches), including one that converted a third-and-17.
Backup quarterback and first-round pick Lamar Jackson posted a team-season-high 22-yard run to the Titans’ 2. From there, Collins rushed into the end zone around right end to boost the lead to 21 points and complete the second seven-minute-plus possession, a first in franchise history.
For all intents and purposes, another October road game had ended.
But for once, the Ravens avoided Achilles’ fate, using both elements to their great benefit.
