Baltimore stages last-minute comeback; wins 16-13 without Jackson and Brown to go 7-3 on the year.
Sunday, November 21, 2021, Chicago: On the surface, a 6-3 record looked as pretty as a clear, sunny day. But in fact, the Baltimore Ravens had storm clouds forming around them since before the 2021 season began. Season-ending injuries to a half-dozen starters, an inconsistent offense, and a defense allowing big play after big play had blotted out the sunshine that a gaudy, first-place record had provided. And with threatening clouds like those, there was no more fitting place for the Ravens to be on Sunday than Chicago’s Soldier Field.
Going into Sunday, Chicago is one of three franchises the Ravens had never beaten on the road in regular-season play in team history – New England and Minnesota are the others – and the weather has played a part in that.
In 2005, a game-long rain shower and a long, laborious afternoon ended in a 10-6 Bears win. Eight years later, a tornado warning stopped the game for two hours, turning a normal three-hour contest into an overtime one lasting more than five. These teams haven’t even been able to avoid lousy Charm City weather, either, as a 2009 blizzard pushed back the kickoff time three hours.
But this Sunday, the sun finally and figuratively broke through as the Ravens defeated the host Bears, 16-13, before 60,679 fans. Before kickoff, more clouds had gathered around the Ravens when quarterback Lamar Jackson was deactivated due to a non-COVID illness that kept him out of two practices this week. He and wideout Marquise Brown–among a scant few who had started each game this year–missed out for the first time. The same was true for cornerback Anthony Averett, the durable but frequently picked-on cover man, supplanted by tall, rangy Chris Westry, who signed with the team this offseason from Dallas.
Westry had been picked on in the drive preceding the Ravens’ final push to victory. On 4th and long, backup QB Andy Dalton hooked up with Marquise Dalton on a 49-yard TD pass that put the Bears up just after the two-minute warning. But then, 2020 undrafted quarterback Tyler Huntley (26-for-36, 219 yards, interception, six sacks, for a 76.0 rating) drove the Ravens 72 yards on five plays before Devonta Freeman scored the game-winning touchdown–the Ravens’ only trip to the end zone all day–with 22 seconds left, putting the Ravens up, 16-13, which proved to be the final score.
The play that put Chicago ahead was reminiscent of Dalton’s fourth-and-12 scoring toss four years ago to Tyler Boyd as Cincinnati knocked the Ravens out of the playoff chase. In truth, Dalton (8-8 career against Baltimore) was the one who resurrected the Bears when Justin Fields had to leave the game with a rib injury. But Huntley was just as clutch on the game-winning drive, finding the much-maligned Sammy Watkins with a third-and-13 pass in the face of pressure. Watkins made the catch at the Bears’ 3. Then, Freeman followed Patrick Ricard’s block into the end zone to cap the drive.
Without Jackson, not to mention coming off a 1-2 stretch, it was going to be hard to score points and keep their chins up enough to pull off a win, even against a subpar team like Chicago. Jackson is the league’s only player to have been ranked in the league’s top eight in both rushing and passing yardage. Not only that, he has been personally responsible for 82 percent of the Ravens’ total yardage. But led by debut starter Huntley–author of only 15 career pass attempts in regular-season play–the Ravens were able to show off their depth and outlast the Bears to maintain the AFC North Division lead and push their record to 7-3. Meanwhile, the Bears lost their fifth straight game to fall to 3-7.
“It was great that Coach Harbaugh gave me a chance,” Huntley said. “I was an undrafted free agent.” Reportedly, Jackson sent Huntley a text before the game urging him to ‘do your thing’ and was the first to congratulate his successful backup after the game.
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t could be symptomatic of a watered-down league or a testimony to the Ravens’ trademark resilience. Still, despite the problems that have plagued this team, the Ravens are off to a start of 7-3 or better for only the fifth time in team history, having done so in 2004, 2010, 2011, and 2020.
The Ravens erased the memory of their stunning loss at Miami ten days ago by racking up their 16th win in their last 18 games against teams with losing records. It was also the Ravens’ 90th-lifetime road win against 115 losses and the team’s 64th November triumph, which breaks a tie with December for the franchise’s most successful month.
Now the Ravens enter the most challenging portion of their schedule, loaded with five of their six annual intradivisional games. Not one opponent the rest of the way sports a losing record. Next week, the first of those games will be the fifth and final prime-time game (at home) against the Cleveland Browns (Sunday, November 28, 8:20 p.m.). The Ravens and Browns will play each other twice in three weeks, a rather unorthodox bit of scheduling reminiscent of the Canadian Football League. The second of those two games–to take place in Cleveland on December 12–will kick off with the Browns coming off a bye week.
Talking of bye weeks, Chicago had two weeks to prepare for Sunday’s game with Baltimore, and Fields was coming off a season-high 291 yards in his last game. But dealing with a resurgent Fields was the least of the Ravens’ problems. The Ravens’ final injury report of the week listed a season-high 13 players. It was the third double-digit Friday injury report of the year, following a ten-man list in Week 3 before the win in Detroit and 11 preceding the Week Four win in Denver.
But the Ravens got a big break Friday when it was announced that Bears pass-rush ace Khalil Mack, who had missed the Bears’ last two games before the bye, would have season-ending foot surgery. That good news was, of course, countered by the horrible news that Jackson would not play on Sunday.
And despite playing without Mack, the Bears were still able to muster a pass rush against Huntley, ending the game with six sacks, including 3.5 by veteran Robert Quinn. Conversely, while the Ravens hurried Fields into many line-drive throws that missed their mark, they could only reach him twice. That said, the third sack (Bowser’s second of the day, this time against Dalton) came on the game’s final play.
That final score–16-13–belied the larger storyline that he was going to be a very low-scoring affair–6-0 Baltimore at the half and 7-6 Chicago at the end of three. Then, in a flurry that could not have been imagined, the two teams scored 16 points in the final 3:41 of the game, 14 of those coming in the last 1:41.
Birthday boy Justin Tucker (32) connected on field goals of 35 and 27 yards to give the Ravens a 6-0 halftime lead. Dalton, who replaced an injured Fields, tossed a wideout screen to Darnell Moddy that turned into a 60-yard touchdown. It was the Ravens’ eighth play this year that 50 or more yards. Later, Jaylon Ferguson, a healthy scratch in recent weeks, partially blocked a Chicago punt that helped set up Tucker’s 46-yard go-ahead field goal that made it 9-7, Ravens, with 3:41 left in the game. Two back-and-forth TDs closed out the scoring.
Let’s face it: the Ravens are not a perfect team by any means, but this is not the first time that this team has found a way to win–when winning seemed implausible. “From the jaws of….,” as they say. But let’s not quibble with how. For the Baltimore Ravens and their fans, today’s weather in Chicago was sunny … very sunny, indeed.
