Pulsating 16-point, 4th Quarter rally to tie ends with long TD drive in OT.
Monday, October 11, 2021, M & M&T BANK STADIUM, BALTIMORE – The season changes, and the air grows crisper. There’s nothing like being home in front of a warm fireplace. The Baltimore Ravens headed into the second quarter of their schedule with this in mind, greeting the cooler weather with a team ablaze. Better yet, they did it against an opponent that used to call Charm City home.
Courtesy Ebony Bird
A quarter-century ago, the Ravens moved into the Indianapolis Colts’ old digs, built a new house, and turned up the heat, so much so that on Monday night – just as annual Homecoming celebrations have begun at numerous high schools and colleges across America – the Russell Street thermostat nearly broke.
The Ravens overcame another game filled with sloppy tackling, poor execution, and overall inconsistency to score 22 unanswered points and beat the visiting Indianapolis Colts in overtime, 31-25, on Lamar Jackson’s five-yard touchdown pass to Marquise Brown roughly halfway through the ten-minute extra session.
The win, which took place in front of 70,510 fans, marked theRavens” fourth straight win and the 18th victory in their last 22 home games. They raised their record to 4-1 while the Colts (1-4) re-entered the loss column after getting their first victory at Miami last week.
Currently playing their 26th season, the Ravens have gotten off to a 4-1 start only six times before, in 2000, 2006, 2010, 2011, 2012, and 2020. The team added to that figure in 2000, 2012, and 2020 by going 5-1 out of the gate.
The win, coming in Baltimore’s ninth Monday-night home game in 25-plus seasons, was the Ravens 140th regular-season home victory in team history as well as the 170th regular-season win over an American Football Conference opponent. The Ravens are also 6-3 when home on a Monday night, while Indianapolis hasn’t won on a Monday, home or away, in five years.
Another positive trend: with defensive tackle Haloti Ngata’s halftime Ring Of Honor induction, the Ravens are now 11-2 in games played on the occasion someone’s inclusion into that hallowed group, losing only when former head coach Brian Billick (2019 vs. Cleveland) and defensive end Michael McCrary (2004 vs. Kansas City) were enshrined.
It was also the Ravens’ eighth straight October win, coming in a month that has traditionally been the team’s worst; it is likely a root cause for the team has had to fight and scratch down the stretch more often than not to grab one of the last wild-card playoff seeds.
It is the only principal regular-season month where Baltimore has a losing record, but its recent October success has raised its lifetime mark in the month to 44-52. The Ravens have not lost an October game since 2018 when it fell on the road at Carolina.
As usual, the performance of Jackson, the 2019 Most Valuable Player, and a certain subject of talk towards this year’s award, had a lot to do with the win, especially when one considers his improved passing range and mechanics.
Lamar Jackson: We don’t want to be in these (types of) games. We want to hit the ground running. I’m not going to say I was in the zone. I was just locked in. I don’t know (if it was the best game of my career). We got the win. That’s all I care about.
Jackson (37-for-43, club-record 442 yards, four touchdowns, two sacks, 140.5 rating) had shone brightly under the Monday-night lights before with eight touchdown passes, no interceptions, and a 111.9 rating in four previous starts on the revered prime-time showcase that is now in its 52nd season.
With Jackson rallying the Ravens from a 22-3 deficit, it marked his biggest career comeback to date and one that was tied for the team’s third-largest. Jackson capped it off with touchdown passes to stellar tight end Mark Andrews (147 yards, 11 receptions, two touchdowns) of five and four yards, the latter with 39 seconds to go. Two-point conversions were needed in both cases, and Andrews, whose grandmother passed away last week, caught them as well as part of a game that he dedicated to her.
Jackson, who accounted for 504 of the Ravens’ 523 total yards, became the first quarterback in league history to complete 85 percent of his passes in a 400-yard game. At 86 percent, it was the highest completion rate in a 40-pass game in NFL history.
“You’re not giving up,” Harbaugh said after the game. “First of all, we’ve got Lamar Jackson… It’s one of the greatest performances I’ve ever seen.”
The Colts lost the overtime coin toss, and Jackson, working against a thinned-out Colts secondary, drove the Ravens 68 yards in ten plays – finding Andrews for a 14-yard gain along the way – before rifling in a tight-window throw to Brown (125 yards, nine catches, two touchdowns) at the goal line of the east (tunnel) end zone.
But earlier, the Ravens had a lot of trouble finding their rhythm in this game, punting after each of their first four possessions for the first time since Jackson became the starter midway through the 2018 season. Baltimore missed on all five third-down plays in the first half and gained a mere 36 yards in the first quarter as the Colts managed to use their running backs as effective receivers. Colts quarterback Carson Wentz struck first, finding Jonathan Taylor on a simple screen that went 76 yards for the game’s opening points. It was the longest screen-pass touchdown in the NFL in four years; Indianapolis had only scored three first-quarter points all year before that play.
But despite the Colts’ seeming ease in putting together long drives early in the game, they got nothing out of them, turning the ball over at one point when rookie edge rusher Odafe Oweh got his second forced fumble of the year, one that Brandon Williams recovered. Not only that, injuries were starting to rear their head again; left guard Ben Cleveland had to leave the game with a knee problem, and wideout Sammy Watkins departed with a hamstring issue. Later in the game, guard Kevin Zeitler left with an undisclosed ailment.
The Colts held a 10-3 halftime lead, holding the Ravens to their lowest first-half total of the Jackson era. Worse yet, Wentz had seemingly exposed reserve corner Anthony Averett, who had allowed a mere 41 passer rating so far this year but got picked on relentlessly throughout the night and got outfought by Michael Pittman on a leaping 43-yard touchdown early in the second half.
But Jackson found Brown alone for a 43-yard touchdown into the west end zone to begin the comeback. Suddenly, the breaks were going Baltimore’s way.
A potentially disastrous Jackson fumble near the Colts’ end zone was returned for a 99-yard touchdown, but it was called back due to a forward lateral. Later, a Colts field-goal try that could have made it a two-score game was blocked by Calais Campbell, the eighth of his career.
Kicker Rodrigo Blankenship, fighting a hip injury, had another chance to win it for the Colts, but he pushed a 46-yard try wide left, forcing overtime.
The Ravens rounded into healthier and more consistent form behind Jackson’s arm, and while the engine driving the train is still the running game, Baltimore could only rush for 86 yards, breaking the 43-game NFL-record-tying streak of 100-yard games.
The Ravens were attempting to gain sole possession of an NFL record they had shared with the Pittsburgh Steelers, who had a 43-game streak of their own between 1974-77. But that proved somewhat irrelevant. The team took sole ownership of the AFC North Division lead, with Cleveland and Cincinnati (both at 3-2) one game behind.
With Baltimore home for a four-game-in-five-week stretch, the Ravens can add to their gaudy home win total next week against the AFC West Division-leading Los Angeles Chargers, the team that eliminated them in a 2018 Wild Card Weekend game (Sunday, October 17, 1 p.m).
The Ravens seem better prepared to entertain their fans for this extended stretch with a roster that is, slowly but surely, getting healthier. In recent weeks, nose tackle Brandon Williams, defensive tackle Justin Madabuike and linebacker Justin Houston have all come off the COVID-19 reserve list; only outside linebacker Jaylon Ferguson remains there. Cornerback Jimmy Smith also appears fully recovered from an ankle ailment; he has returned to the occasional nickel/safety role, playing inside much more often than he did earlier in his career.
Also, seldom-seen receivers Miles Boykin and Rashod Bateman – the latter being the team’s first-round pick this year – have finally recovered from respective hamstring and groin problems and have been practicing as their three-week window of eligibility towards a possible return continues to progress. Bateman should make his season debut next week, while Boykin was activated for Monday.
Even with a league-high 15 players on injured reserve, the Ravens had six players who started the first four games on offense and seven more on defense–an incredible amount of stability for a team as banged-up as this one has been. It’s just that few would have given running back Ty’Sonn Williams and Averett much of a chance of being among that first-string core group.
While both have turned in respectable performances, Williams was supplanted in the backfield corps in the Denver game by former Pittsburgh Steeler standout Le’Veonn Bell, signed to a practice-squad contract as the season began. For Monday’s game, Williams was again activated while Bell remained on the practice squad.
As far as the offensive linemen tasked with blocking for them, another leak in the dam sprung up when tackle Alejandro Villanueva–who has had to play both right and left sides this year due to ailments incurred by Ronnie Stanley and Tyre Phillips–missed two practices with a knee injury. But he suited up against the Colts.
As it turned out, all hands had to be on deck for another tense, spine-tingling finish. It couldn’t hide the team’s occasional inconsistency and sloppiness, but the Ravens will certainly address their problems as they prepare for the Chargers.
The bottom line is that it was a spectacular homecoming, one that only required purple-clad princes instead of a singular king or queen. It’s that kind of environment that truly makes a house – even a noisy one – a home.
