Miami allowed the most points in a home game in team history. The Ravens’ point total was the highest for a single game in team history, bettering the 55 they scored at home against Oakland in 2012.
Sunday, September 8, 2019: Despite living in a bright and sunny climate, the Miami Dolphins have had a dark cloud hanging over them the entire offseason. Picked apart by free agency, relying on a 36-year-old quarterback, and trading for another signal-caller who was a rejected first-round pick just one year into his career, were just some of the issues. Worse yet, Miami was projected by many pundits to be the NFL’s worst team.
To open the season on Sunday at Hard Rock Stadium, these Dolphins had to play the Baltimore Ravens–a defending division champion with a younger, faster look on both sides of the ball.
Baltimore is also a team that has easily handled Miami in recent years, winning six of the last seven meetings to take the overall lead in the series. That’s something because it has erased memories of the Dolphins’ long-ago domination of the Baltimore Colts. Miami won 20 of 29 all-time meetings.
Maybe it was to change their luck–or to make the Ravens wilt in 90-degree conditions–that the Dolphins wore white uniforms at home, an NFL rarity. Either way, the garb change didn’t work.
The Ravens devastated their hosts, romping to a 59-10 win in front of an announced crowd of 65,012 disgruntled fans. They saw Miami allow the most points in a home game in team history. Conversely, the Ravens’ point total was the highest for a single game in team history, bettering the 55 they scored at home against Oakland in 2012.
The Ravens gained 643 yards of total offense, another franchise record, which broke the 553 set at St. Louis in 2011 against the Rams.
The Dolphins’ roster–one so lacking in talent and depth that 14 new players joined the team in the past week alone– offered no threat to the far superior Ravens. Only 21 Dolphins (the league’s low) are back from last year. That number is tied with Arizona, the Ravens’ next opponent.
The days of players such as Kiko Alonso, Ndamukong Suh, Robert Quinn and Cameron Wake terrorizing opposing offensive lines are gone. The Ravens’ offensive line–the subject of plenty of offseason scrutiny as one of two significant question marks surrounding the team–had a field day on Sunday. The line helped produce a record offensive day that featured seven of 11 third-down conversions and over 250 net rushing yards.
As a result, quarterback Lamar Jackson–in his first Week One game as a starter, not to mention his first NFL game in his hometown–didn’t have to unveil the team’s so-called “revolutionary” offense fully. And he didn’t have to scramble-run more than the coaching staff would have wanted.
Jackson, who completed ten of 11 first-half passes and had a perfect 158.3 passer rating, got off to a blazing-hot start. He directed four straight touchdown drives as the Ravens relied on new acquisitions and rookies to bust out to a 35-3 lead by the time the second quarter was half-done.
Jackson (17-for-20, 324 yards, five touchdowns, one sack) was also the first passer to have at least five scoring passes in a Week One game since Denver’s Peyton Manning burned the Ravens for seven in the 2013 national-TV opener. His perfect passer rating in his three quarters of play was also a Ravens first.
The 21-point first quarter, which featured a 257-51 yardage edge, was a Ravens record for the first quarter of a Week One game. The 42-10 halftime edge represented the most first-half points in an opener in league history, not to mention the sixth-largest halftime lead in league annals. The point output also bested the Ravens’ 38-point first halves against Tampa Bay in 2014 and Seattle in 2014.
On defense, the Ravens did damage. They held the Dolphins to nine rushing yards at half, hit Ryan Fitzpatrick (14-for-29, 185 yards, touchdown, interception, two sacks, 66 rating) seven times in his first 15 dropbacks, and didn’t commit a penalty or allow a third-down conversion until late in the first half. That happened when undrafted rookie Preston Williams faked out Earl Thomas and got open for a token six-yard score with 13 seconds left.
But by then, the damage had been done.
First-round rookie receiver Marquise Brown, who didn’t play with Jackson at all in the preseason, made league history by cutting loose for touchdowns on his first two career catches–only the third player to achieve the feat. He finished with 147 yards on four catches.
One of Brown’s scores was a deep post route that covered 83 yards. The other came on a 47-yard quick slant, which was set up by a Thomas interception. In both instances, Brown easily shook a single defender and scored untouched.
Free-agent pickup Mark Ingram scored his 40th career touchdown since 2014. He’s second to Todd Gurley in that span. He scored again after free-agent special teams pick up Justin Bethel fell on a muffed punt. He had 107 yards on 14 carries with the two scores.
Veteran special teamer Anthony Levine ran 60 yards on a fake punt to set up a score, and slot receiver Willie Snead cashed in a 33-yard pass for yet another touchdown.
Third-round rookie Miles Boykin, the best receiver in camp, added a short scoring catch, while second-year tight end Mark Andrews contributed 108 yards on eight catches. And it was he who hauled in a fourth-quarter three-yard touchdown from Robert Griffin III to put the Ravens over the top and set the new points record.
The sparse Miami crowd was already booing before halftime. Then a 71-yard, nine-play Ravens drive in the third quarter ended with Patrick Ricard’s one-yard scoring catch. It was the icing on the cake of a single-game record for points on the road.
Justin Tucker added a 34-yard field goal toward the end of the third quarter to mark the second time in Ravens history the team had surpassed 50 points in a game. It was Tucker’s 45th straight successful field-goal try under 40 yards.
It was just one of many milestones for the Ravens as those dark clouds hung over Miami as Baltimore headed home.
And home they’ll be next week–with another huge break from the league schedule-makers–when they play the home opener against the also-downtrodden Arizona Cardinals (Sunday, Sept. 15, 1 p.m.; WBFF-TV, WIYY-FM).
