Ravens now 2-1 thanks to record 66-yard FG set up by Jackson-Watkins 4th-and-19 completion. Broncos next.
Sunday, September 26, 2021, Ford Field, Detroit: In the automotive world, the ultimate test is a 24-hour endurance race; several of them are held around the world each year.
Like any event, there are signposts and milestones in such a race. Once one goal has been achieved, celebrations are put on hold, for it’s time to get back behind the wheel and proceed to the next barrier.
The Baltimore Ravens knew all about this principle as they had to quickly move on from their first win over a Patrick Mahomes-led Kansas City Chiefs squad, strapping on their helmets (football, not racing) and cruising into the Motor City of Detroit to keep the momentum going Sunday against the winless host Lions.
Detroit is where an assembly line of championship teams was cranking out exciting, captivating football in the 1950s. But, just as the city’s manufacturing sector declined, so did the Lions, a franchise that has turned into a warped, rusty, ineffective shell of its former self.
The team hasn’t won a championship since 1957 – predating the first Super Bowl by nine seasons; the Lions have never appeared in one – and hasn’t won a division title since 1993. The present-day NFC North was formed after the 2002 realignment, but the Lions have never finished first.
Unlike many of the Detroit area’s assembly lines, the Lions haven’t completely shut down, but the days when they are thought of as a stable, vibrant, vital part of pro football are long, long gone.
And while the Ravens’ hometown indeed has its problems, the football team isn’t one of them… even while its play occasionally doesn’t hit on all cylinders.
Baltimore was able to shake off the euphoria of the Kansas City win – not to mention its sloppiness – and put its foot to the gas pedal. More accurately, kicker Justin Tucker put his foot to the football and entered an even higher realm.
Tucker burnished his already-stellar reputation as the most accurate kicker in league history (nearly 91 percent) with an NFL-record 66-yard field goal at the final whistle – one that bounced off the crossbar for dramatic effect – to give the Ravens a 19-16 win before 50,788 stunned Ford Field fans.
Tucker was hoisted onto his teammates’ shoulders after they stormed the field.
“That one was something else,” Tucker said. “I really don’t have the words to do justice to the moment. All I can say is trust.”
On the previous play, working with no timeouts, quarterback Lamar Jackson (16-for-31, 287 yards, touchdown, interception, four sacks, 81 rating; 58 yards, seven carries) had to find Sammy Watkins on a fourth-and-19 play to get the ball to the Lions’ 48; Jackson then spiked the ball, setting the stage for Tucker’s heroics with three seconds left.
Tucker had kicked six field goals in a 2013 Monday-night game in Detroit and had made all 21 career indoor attempts before missing an early 49-yarder Sunday. That snapped a 27-kick road streak for the tenth-year undrafted kicker from Texas.
But Tucker, as usual, delivered when it counted, dealing Detroit a game-ending loss with a league-record field goal for the second time. In 1970, New Orleans’ Tom Dempsey did in Detroit with a then-record 63-yarder, a mark broken by current Arizona kicker Matt Prater in 2013 when he kicked a 64-yarder while with Tampa Bay.
“These games help you in the end,” tight end Mark Andrews said. “But at the same time, we’ve got to play better.”
Despite Andrews’ 109-yard, five-catch performance, the Ravens blew several opportunities early in the game to break away from the hapless Lions, what with wideout Marquise Brown dropping three wide-open passes, believed to be the first NFL player to do that in a half since Arizona’s John Brown, who was a Raven for a time, did it in 2015 as an Arizona Cardinal.
However, head coach John Harbaugh took Brown aside on the sidelines and gave him a message of hope.
“When you’re looking back on your career, and you’re looking at the great career you’ve had, this is going to be part of your story,” the coach said he told Brown. “So let’s go to work on that starting Wednesday.
“Off (Tucker’s) foot, my first thought was … (the winning kick) got a chance. … It got a little supernatural push right there… Hey, he’s the best kicker in history. For him to come through like that is just historic.”
Despite years of seemingly endless losing, Detroit fell to 0-3 for the first time since 2015. The Ravens, despite a historically poor track record in indoor games, raised their record in that department to 8-15 with this win under the stadium with the permanent roof in downtown Detroit.
In a remarkable testimony to the franchise’s consistency throughout its short history, the Ravens are now 2-1 for the 16th time in 26 seasons, including a current streak of five straight campaigns. Not only that, Baltimore ended up making the playoffs in 11 of the 15 previous seasons in which they won two of their first three contests.
In other words, while the late-summer spate of injuries and scattered COVID cases may have slowed the team’s progress towards building a sound, dominant roster, the players that have had to take up the slack and perform have done precisely that.
The surprising Week One overtime loss to Las Vegas seems like a distant memory now, even though a tiring, thinned-out defense nearly led to the same result in Detroit.
So, how have the Ravens done it? How have they managed to get back above water despite all that’s happened?
It’s no great mystery, for they’ve done it the same way they always have, by staying focused and driven, never taking their foot off the gas, keeping their eyes on the road, and, perhaps most importantly, staying patient when traffic got rough.
Speaking of rough, the Ravens have historically had plenty of troubles in road games over the years, posting a lifetime 88-114 record (.435). But Baltimore can confidently steer its way through its latest road jaunt, for the win in Detroit represents the 14th away from home in their last 18 such games, dating back to the start of the 2019 season.
The victory also lifted Harbaugh’s career road record over the break-even mark; he is now 53-52 away from M&T Bank Stadium.
In Week Four, another road challenge awaits the team with a trip to Denver – and its loud fans and tricky altitude – to play the Broncos (Sunday, October 3, 4:25 p.m.; Locally, WJZ-TV, Channel 13; WIYY-FM).
But the Ravens are probably so confident behind the wheel right now. They could drive up Pike’s Peak through a blizzard in a rear-wheel-drive station wagon.
Denver is not only the site of the team’s dramatic 2012 Divisional playoff double-overtime win over the Broncos, but it is one of five stadiums where the Ravens were the first visitors to win a regular-season game after it opened. The others are located in Washington, Pittsburgh, Nashville, and East Rutherford, New Jersey (MetLife Stadium).
The Broncos are also one of three teams tied with Baltimore in the lifetime head-to-head series (Seattle, Minnesota). The Ravens and Denver have split 12 regular-season meetings.
That is certainly not the case when it comes to the Lions. The Ravens have now won five of six lifetime clashes with Detroit. A team Baltimore had played fewer times than any other opponent in the league since its 1996 debut.
And when the Ravens’ endurance machine pulled up to Ford Field this weekend, they had to like what they saw: a disassembled foe that resembles roadkill these days.
The Lions were grounded into the pavement by the Ravens’ trademark ground attack, gaining 116 yards, breaking the 100-yard mark for a 42nd consecutive game, one shy of the league record set by Pittsburgh from 1974-77. Baltimore also passed the 50,000 mark in lifetime rushing yards, the league’s third-most since the team was founded in 1996.
However, the Ravens’ inconsistency on offense – an abysmal 1-for-10 on third-down plays and six penalties – stymied Baltimore’s attempt to become the sixth straight team to score 35 or more points against Detroit. The Ravens were held scoreless in the first quarter for the first time all season.
Defensively, a usually-strong Baltimore unit that had allowed the NFL’s second-most points through two weeks – allowing 30 or more in both Weeks One and Two for the first time in franchise history – benefited from the Lions’ misdeeds, committing seven penalties and punting after each of its first four drives.
Despite getting tired late in the game, the team was able to get such an effort on that side of the ball despite a re-emergence of the COVID-19-connected problems that, at one time or another, sidelined nearly three dozen Ravens in 2020 and forced a crucial intradivisional game at Pittsburgh to be rescheduled three times before being bizarrely played on a Wednesday afternoon.
Friday, it was announced that nose tackle Brandon Williams, defensive tackle Justin Madabuike, and linebackers Justin Houston and Jaylon Ferguson were all placed on the COVID list. When that news broke, it left the Ravens with just four outside linebackers and four defensive linemen healthy for Sunday.
Just the same, the Ravens held Lions quarterback Jared Goff to 217 passing yards, dropping his record to 0-10 when he doesn’t have Sean McVay as his head coach.
Under McVay, Goff led the Rams to Super Bowl 53 three seasons ago, falling to New England. These days, Goff is working under former NFL tight end Dan Campbell, who was looking for his first win as a rookie head coach.
But Goff got a great big assist from dual-threat back De’Andre Swift, who contributed seven catches for 60 yards and rushed for 47 and a touchdown to keep the Ravens off-balance all day.
With the Lions down, 13-0, Swift ran for a two-yard touchdown, dominated another drive that led to a score, then helped set up newly-signed kicker Ryan Santoso’s 35-yard field goal with 1:04 to go that gave the Lions their first lead.
But even with the Lions getting the upper hand, that may have been an omen. Detroit had scored touchdowns on all six of its red-zone trips before then. Jackson made his big fourth-down pass to Watkins, Tucker came through with the record kick, and the Ravens’ resiliency again paid off.
Such was the Lions’ fate, one with which it is all too familiar. Detroit is probably immune to the scent of burnt rubber and more than accustomed to the sight of tire tracks plastered all over its football team.
But for the Ravens, it was necessary to leave some wreckage behind as their exhausting endurance race continues.
