Baltimore gets fifth seed, will play AFC South champ, Tennessee, in Nashville.
Sunday, January 3, 2021, Cincinnati, OH: There is a poignant film clip of Hall of Fame linebacker/pass rusher Kevin Greene, in his role as a Super Bowl-winning assistant coach for Green Bay, forcefully telling one of his players, “It… is… time!”
During a commercial break before the fourth quarter of Super Bowl 45, the recently-deceased Greene let his team know that it was time to put the pedal to the floor, break open a close game against the Steelers, and bring home a championship. Early in the fourth quarter, the Packers forced a fumble, and momentum decidedly turned their way as they heeded Greene’s call and took home the Vince Lombardi Trophy.
For the Baltimore Ravens – a highly-touted Super Bowl pick before 2020 began – it is time to heed that same call, for it has been a season of injuries, inconsistency, a massive COVID-19 outbreak, and overall uncertainty.
But before all of that took place, only one narrative prevailed: could this team not only win a playoff game, which it has failed to do despite being AFC North Division champions the past two seasons but could it win a third Super Bowl in franchise history? When it comes to finding out, it… is… time.
While Baltimore could not pull off an unprecedented three-peat of division crowns, it did punch its expected playoff ticket Sunday afternoon with a 38-3 win over the host Cincinnati Bengals at Paul Brown Stadium, making itself part of the 14-team NFL playoff field that begins play this weekend with wild-card tripleheaders on both Saturday and Sunday.
The Ravens converted 11 of 17 third-down situations, and their punishing running game set a team record with 404 yards–part of an overall 525-yard effort. Rookie and Ohio State alumnus JK Dobbins led the way with 160 yards on 13 carries and two touchdowns, including a 72-yarder. The 404 team rush yards were just short of the Detroit Lions’ NFL single-game record of 426 yards, set in 1934.
Dobbins set the Ravens’ rookie record for rushing and total touchdowns, while quarterback Lamar Jackson’s 97 yards on 11 carries made him the first quarterback in league history to have two 1000-yard rushing campaigns.
The Ravens also broke their own single-season club record for rushing scores and topped 100 team rushing yards for a 39th straight game, four short of Pittsburgh’s NFL record set between 1974-77. The defense also held Cincinnati to a 1-for-9 third-down performance, 195 total yards, and less than 20 minutes’ worth of possession time.
As a result of the win over the Bengals, the Ravens (11-5) secured their seventh-lifetime wild-card playoff berth and 13th overall postseason appearance in their 25-season history.
Even though Baltimore would have gotten the berth without the win because of Indianapolis or Cleveland’s possible losses, it certainly wanted to control its own fate and win its own way into the postseason field. “We knew what was at stake for us,” Jackson said. “It’s not about (a possible opponent), it’s about us. We still have things that we want to finish. It’s just the beginning for us, to be honest with you.”
Also, since the Ravens got the fifth seed, it would have made the playoffs under the previous system used from 1990-2019, where only the conference’s top six seeds earned their way into the postseason. This year, the field was expanded to seven teams in each conference, and with the AFC sporting five teams with 10-5 records going into the final regular-season round of games, it made for a lot of high drama scoreboard-watching.
The team’s record matches Baltimore’s second-best ever posted for a team that did not win the division but still made the playoffs. In 2000 and 2010, the Ravens went 12-4 and appeared in the wild-card round, while in 2008, 2014, and 2020, Baltimore went 11-5 and made the playoffs without wearing the division crown. The Ravens would win Super Bowl 35 in 2000 and advance to the AFC Championship Game in 2008. In 2010 and 2014, the team was eliminated in the Divisional (second) round.
With the Ravens having nailed down the 5th-seed, they will begin their playoff journey on the road with a trip to the AFC South Division champion, Tennessee Titans, the 4th-seed. On November 22 in Baltimore, the Ravens lost a ten-point lead and fell to Tennessee in overtime, 30-24. Should Baltimore win the wild-card game, it would take on Kansas City in the Divisional round–if the Ravens are the lowest-surviving seed from the first weekend.
Even though the Ravens have a traditionally poor road record (87-113, .435), that applies only to the regular season. This year’s 6-2 road mark notwithstanding. Baltimore has won ten of 16-lifetime road postseason games, including winning at Tennessee on two occasions. The Ravens have played at Indianapolis once in the postseason but lost.
The Ravens also used to have plenty of problems playing in Cincinnati, especially when former Baltimore defensive coordinator Marvin Lewis was the Bengals’ head coach. But Sunday’s game marked the Ravens’ fifth straight overall win over the Bengals and third victory in their last five visits to Cincinnati.
Second-year Bengals head coach Zac Taylor – a former assistant coach of a Los Angeles Rams team that advanced to Super Bowl 53 – is now 0-4 against Baltimore and has seen his team get swept by the Ravens in each of his two seasons at the Cincinnati helm.
It seemed fitting that the Ravens’ regular-season campaign would end in the southern Ohio riverfront town known as the “Queen City,” what with Baltimore and the Bengals ending the regular season against each other for the eighth time, and sixth in Cincinnati since the NFL mandated intra-divisional play for regular-season finales starting in 2010. Perhaps the most notable of those many season-ending games was the 2017 edition, when Bengals receiver Tyler Boyd’s fourth-and-12 catch-and-run 44-yard touchdown into the west end zone of M&T Bank Stadium knocked Baltimore out of the playoff chase at the last possible moment (the Ravens were part of a win-and-in scenario, as they were on Sunday), allowing the Buffalo Bills to reach the postseason after a long drought.
Three years later, Buffalo and Baltimore are both part of the playoffs, while the best the Bengals could hope for was a third straight win and a strong finish to another dismal season.
But Cincinnati was no match for its visitors, going three-and-out six times, including on each of its first three series of the game. At one point, the Ravens held an obscenely-ridiculous 255-7 edge in total yards.
Besides his rushing yardage, Jackson threw for three touchdown passes. Dobbins ran for two scores, including a 72-yard jaunt, while Marquise Brown caught two scoring tosses, and Miles Boykin gathered in his fourth of the year. Defensively, the Ravens picked off Brandon Allen twice – including Chuck Clark’s first interception and one from Marcus Peters, who was back after two weeks out through injury – and held him to a 0.0 passer rating, believed to be the third time they have pitched a shutout on an opposing signal-caller.
In eight quarters against the Ravens this year, the Bengals managed just two field goals and got outscored by 65-6.
Not only that, but the Ravens appeared to incur no serious injuries in Cincinnati and could get de-activated standouts Yannick Ngakoue and Jimmy Smith back for the postseason.
Down the December/January stretch, the opposition wasn’t nearly as high-quality as Baltimore’s teams will face in the playoffs, but momentum breeds confidence. The Ravens, with five straight wins by a total margin of 97 points, have plenty of both right now. “It’s a whole new season we’re starting,” Brown said. “Everybody’s 0-0.”
But it was the late Greene who said it best ten years ago; his words echo strongly today: “It… is… time!”
