Baltimore notches 13th straight regular-season win, avenges 2019 opening season loss.
Sunday, September 13, 2020, M&T BANK STADIUM, BALTIMORE – For you amateur chefs out there, there’s a recipe for a game like this. Take one football team that posted a franchise-best record last year, add a gut-punching early playoff loss, sprinkle in a Week 1 opponent that beat you at home last year, and bake for 3 hours at about 80 degrees. Serves over 70,000.
For obvious reasons, fans couldn’t be in the stadium Sunday afternoon to watch the Ravens’ season-opening 38-6 blowout over the visiting Cleveland Browns.
It was Baltimore’s 32nd-lifetime win against 11 losses against the Browns, the opponent the Ravens have defeated most often since the franchise was born in 1996.
But the missing noise–with a piped-in crowd notwithstanding–was the only missing ingredient to a day that saw one of the AFC’s best teams (not to mention one of the league’s Super Bowl favorites) show why it has earned that distinction.
For one thing, the Ravens have deployed a 2020 roster that has just 13 new players on it, which is a low turnover rate in today’s free-agent/salary cap era. It’s no wonder then that with 91% of last year’s yardage returning, the Ravens hung 403 yards on the outclassed Browns, including a 6.9 per-play average while converting six of 11 third-down plays.
For another, a fearsome-yet-retooled defense harassed Browns quarterback Baker Mayfield all day, sacking him twice and forcing three turnovers. The Special Teams units won a decisive victory, too.
The Ravens won field position decisively, and many of their points came on short-field drives–not including only the second 99-yard regular-season touchdown drive in team history.
A team that fires on nearly all cylinders the way Baltimore did–that is facing an allegedly-easy schedule, too–will be well-served going into its next test. The Ravens travel to Houston to play the rested Texans on Sunday, September 20, 4:25 pm, in the only game Baltimore will play outside the Eastern time zone.
The Ravens will travel just over 6300 air miles to play during 2020, the fewest miles in the league, and the lowest figure for any team over the last four seasons. But before they get on the plane, it’s good to celebrate Baltimore’s 13th straight regular-season win–the most since the Carolina Panthers won 18 in a row between 2014 and 2015. And the Ravens have been exceptionally good in season openers over the past three years, blasting Buffalo, Miami, and now Cleveland by a combined score of 144-19.
Even after a virus-shortened offseason, in which none of the league’s 32 teams was allowed to conduct spring practices or a full training camp, Baltimore looked mostly sharp on Sunday. Cleveland, saddled with yet another new coaching staff, played according to the script. With the loss, the Browns’ Week 1 record schedule since 1999 is an unimaginable 1-20-1.
Unlike last year’s opener–when Nick Chubb ate up yardage against the Ravens–he gained a mere 60 yards on ten carries this time. Kareem Hunt added 72 on 13 attempts. The two ran through occasional holes early in the game, but the Browns’ penalty-prone ways and overall inferior talent were a bad match against the ultra-dominant Ravens.
Things weren’t much better in the passing game. Baker Mayfield hit on only 21 of 39 passes for 189 yards with a touchdown and interception, playing to an overall 65 rating. Ravens free-agent defensive lineman Calais Campbell deflected three of Mayfield’s passes alone, and one went to teammate Marlon Humphrey, who lodged the team’s first 2020 interception early in the game.
As for the Ravens’ offense, Lamar Jackson went 20-for-25 with three touchdowns and an overall 152.3 rating. He also ran for 45 yards on seven carries.
Baltimore’s special-teams get into the act early. LJ Fort stripped the ball away from Jamie Gillan after the Browns’ punter tried to engineer a fake. Anthony Levine recovered at the Browns’ 26, and that set up Justin Tucker’s 41-yard field goal, which extended the lead to ten points.
The Browns showed signs of life after that, driving 75 yards in six plays and getting a David Njoku one-yard scoring catch from Mayfield. But Austin Seibert banged the conversion kick off the left upright, and that was the end of the Browns’ scoring for the day.
Rookie draft pick Devin Duvernay returned the ensuing kickoff 38 yards, and Marquise Brown (101 yards, five catches) hauled in a 47-yard reception. Then, Patrick Ricard fumbled on his first career carry to end the drive.
Humphrey incurred a slight injury, and Matt Judon was called for roughing the passer, a penalty in which the Ravens led the league last year (11). But Cleveland couldn’t capitalize and punted Baltimore back to its one-yard line.
The ensuing drive began just in front of the west end zone, where the Ravens had painted the “MO” in “Baltimore” in a different color to highlight superfan Mo Gaba, who passed away in July. That seemed to be the impetus for the upcoming 99-yard touchdown drive to make it 17-6 after JK Dobbins’ short touchdown run.
Just before halftime, Jackson was on a streak that saw him complete nine straight passes against a Browns secondary that was missing two of its cornerbacks. Jackson found Andrews to end a 69-yard drive that took only 35 seconds, and the game was over at intermission at 24-6.
Humphrey would return to the game, but early in the third quarter, left tackle Ronnie Stanley hurt his ankle and had to be replaced by swing tackle DJ Fluker. Stanley would later say he got rolled on by a teammate and that the injury doesn’t appear to be serious.
But that didn’t stop Jackson, who threw perhaps the best pass of his career–a 19-yard seam route to Willie Snead to finish a 50-yard drive that started with a Browns face-mask call on a punt return.
Rookie first-round pick Patrick Queen contributed eight tackles, a sack, and forced fumble–a similar first-game stat line to what Ray Lewis did in 1996. Queen stripped Chubb late in the game, and Fort recovered as the third quarter ended.
Another rookie, second-round pick Dobbins, became the first Ravens running back in team history to score two touchdowns in his first game, plowing in from two yards out to complete the scoring.
So, all in all, Charm City was treated to quite a meal on Sunday, and that last score was the perfect garnish to this Week 1 appetizer. The main dish is yet to come.
