Defeat makes for a crowded AFC playoff field. Boyle lost for the year.
Sunday, November 15, 2020: Two teams that have helped define 21st-century American sports royalty met at Gillette Stadium on Sunday night. New England and Baltimore are two of only four NFL teams that have won multiple Super Bowls since 2000 (Pittsburgh and the New York Giants are the others), and they are first and second in playoff wins with a respective 30 and 15.
Since 1994, the year that Patriots’ owner Robert Kraft purchased the team, the Patriots have posted a .693 win percentage–tops among the 123 franchises in the four major pro sports leagues. In a respectable 25th place (.563) are the Ravens, the team that the Patriots hosted on Sunday night.
But for anyone who even casually watches the NFL, it’s no secret that the Patriots’ two-decade dynasty seemed to be over and that the franchise has entered a rebuilding phase. That presumption couldn’t have been better for teams standing in the wings, like Kansas City, Pittsburgh, and Baltimore.
However, the winds of change can be fickle. And on this Sunday night, a game-long tsunami, injuries, and ill-timed mistakes prevented Baltimore from taking advantage of a golden opportunity. The Ravens left Gillette Stadium with a 23-17 loss.
And it was a damaging loss, too. Even with an extra playoff seed this year (and possibly two, if enough games are canceled due to COVID), the Ravens’ 6-3 record is the same as Cleveland, Miami, Indianapolis, Tennessee, and Las Vegas. If all of those teams don’t win their divisions–and, at three games behind Pittsburgh, it’s unlikely that the Ravens will take the AFC North for a third straight season–the tiebreaker scenarios could become nightmarish.
To make matters even more challenging for Baltimore, TE Nick Boyle was carted off the field with a season-ending knee injury. Willie Snead summed it up well: “It just sucks. (Nick) Boyle is such a hard worker.”
It was just one more reason why ‘disappointment’ was the emotion of the night. The Pats snapped the Ravens’ league-high ten-game road win streak, and Baltimore failed to get its first-ever regular-season road win against New England in six tries.
Now, the Ravens must turn attention from the dynastic Patriots to the upstart Titans–the team that vanquished them from last year’s playoffs. Tennessee comes to town on Sunday for a 1 p.m. kickoff. It’s a curious Titans’ team, too. Are they the group that got off to a 5-0 start or the team that has won only one of its last four games?
And for the Ravens, winning consistently requires resurrecting its once-dominant defense. Injuries are a major concern, and those injuries contributed to lanes opening up for New England’s workhorse running back, Damien Harris, who contributed 121 of his teams’ 173 rushing yards.
At the start, the Ravens was executing its run-first approach as the team steamed down the field on a 94-yard scoring drive, capped by Snead’s six-yard end-around touchdown. But the Patriots came right back. Rex Burkhead finished off a seven-play drive with a run to the pylon to tie the game.
Following a Justin Tucker field goal, the Patriots used Bill Belichick’s trademark chicanery to take the lead for good. Receiver Jakobi Meyers, a former high school quarterback, took a Cam Newton pitch and hit Burkhead from 24 yards out. Burkhead got behind linebacker Patrick Queen who reacted slowly in coverage. Later, Harbaugh described the play as a “rookie mistake.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Li9NgDh15g8
Just before halftime, Lamar Jackson was picked off by former Maryland corner JC Jackson, who notched his NFL-high sixth interception of the year. And when the third quarter began, two Harris runs totaling 41 yards, plus a Marcus Peters penalty, helped the Pats drive easily down the field for a Newton touchdown run that boosted the lead to 20-10.
The Ravens tried to answer by reshuffling their offensive line. RT DJ Fluker was having trouble containing faster Patriot defenders. Patrick Mekari was inserted in Fluker’s spot and Ben Powers played right guard. In the end, though, neither of those positions got press major box attention. But the center position did.
Inconsistency shown at the center position last week in Indianapolis became a critical issue on Sunday. A cut on Matt Skura’s hand contributed to issues with shotgun snaps, including a miscue on a fourth-down wildcat snap to Mark Ingram that gave New England the ball at the Ravens’ 37. That mistake set up a Patriots field goal that expanded the lead to 13. Later, another bad snap resulted in a 16-yard loss for Jackson. For his part, Harbaugh chalked up the snap problems “to the weather.”
Yes, the weather played a role in Sunday night’s loss, but so did the Ravens’ 115-yard rushing effort, which, coming on the heels of last week’s season-low 110-yard day at Indianapolis, is becoming a major factor.
Sunday night’s play was hardly the stuff of which football royalty is made–the status to which the Ravens aspire. Rather, the team on this night looked more like a group of commoners.
