The Ravens’ season-long high-wire act (4-1 in one-score games, 2-1 in overtime) has nearly resulted in losses to teams on both the high and low ends of the league hierarchy. Against Miami, things should come more easily, but that’s far from a sure thing. That said, with so much at stake, Baltimore can’t afford to stumble Thursday night.
WHAT: Week Ten, Game Nine at Miami Dolphins
WHEN: 8:20 p.m. (ET); Thursday, November 11
WHERE: Hard Rock Stadium; Miami Gardens, Fla. (65,326)
RECORDS: Ravens, 6-2; Dolphins, 2-7
LIFETIME SERIES (regular season): Ravens lead, 8-6, with the Ravens having won three straight and seven of the last eight overall meetings; Miami hasn’t beaten the Ravens since 2015. In Miami, the Ravens are 4-5, including two overtime losses and defeats in the first four games before winning four of the last five South Florida meetings. This will be the teams’ third prime-time clash; each team has won once. There have been two wild-card playoff games between the teams, both in Miami; the Ravens were winners in each.
BALTIMORE TV & RADIO: WBFF-TV, Channel 45; NFL Network (Joe Buck, Troy Aikman, booth; Kristina Pink, Erin Andrews, sidelines), WIYY-FM, 97.9 (Gerry Sandusky, Obafemi Ayanbadejo, booth)
REFEREE: Ron Torbert
About the Dolphins
—The Miami Dolphins, now playing in their 56th season, started as an American Football League expansion franchise in 1966, owned by lawyer Joe Robbie and entertainer Danny Thomas. When the AFL began in 1960, Ralph Wilson wanted to establish his AFL team in Miami but opted for Buffalo instead and became the revered longtime owner of the Bills. Stephen Ross is the team’s principal owner, but it has a number of celebrity minority owners, such as tennis star Serena Williams and singer Jimmy Buffett.
—The Dolphins have made the playoffs once in the past 13 years (2016), but in team history, they have 23 postseason appearances, tied with Kansas City for the tenth-most among current franchises. The team has 13 division titles and ten wild-card appearances, and an overall postseason record of 20-21.
—The Dolphins are 5-2 in the AFC Championship Game and 2-3 in the Super Bowl, winning Super Bowl 7 over Washington in Los Angeles – capping the NFL’s only modern-day undefeated season – and Super Bowl 8 over Minnesota in Houston. However, the Dolphins haven’t appeared in a Super Bowl since losing to San Francisco in Super Bowl 19 at Stanford. The team also lost Super Bowl 6 to Dallas in New Orleans and Super Bowl 17 to Washington in Pasadena’s Rose Bowl.
—Miami has only three retired numbers (Bob Griese, 12; Dan Marino, 13; Larry Csonka, 39), but it can boast of ten primary Hall of Fame inductees. All told, 17 members of the Hall have been with the Dolphins organization at one time or another. Including Calvert Hall graduate and short-term executive George Young, best known for his work with the New York Giants.
—When the Baltimore Colts were part of the NFL, that team played the Dolphins 29 times, including once in the AFC title game, because both were members of the AFC East from 1970-1983. The Dolphins won 20 of the 29 meetings, including the 1971 conference championship, a 21-0 shutout that put Miami into Super Bowl 6 and denied the Colts a chance at back-to-back championships. Before the Colts moved out of Baltimore, the Dolphins won the last seven meetings and 12 of the final 13 games between the two.
—Since the Ravens came into the league, they have lost only once at home to the Dolphins, a 1997 game at Memorial Stadium that featured Dan Marino’s second appearance on 33rd Street; he played there as a rookie in 1983. The Dolphins have never won at M&T Bank Stadium since it opened in 1998. As for games in Miami, the Ravens lost on their first four visits there but have won four of the last five regular-season games there, as well as two Wild Card Weekend games.
—This will be the third prime-time meeting between the teams. Miami won at home in 2000 in a rain-soaked 19-6 Sunday-night game on Dan Marino Night, and the Ravens won a Thursday-night home game over the Dolphins by a 40-0 blowout in 2017.
—The Dolphins abandoned their longtime home at the Orange Bowl and moved into what is now Hard Rock Stadium in 1987; the stadium has had eight different names due to shifting corporate naming-rights deals. Baltimore was involved in the first baseball game at the facility when the Orioles and Dodgers played a 1988 Grapefruit League game there. Hard Rock Café assumed naming rights in 2016.
—Hard Rock has hosted six Super Bowls, and the Orange Bowl hosted five before it was demolished to make room for loanDepot Park, the home of MLB’s Miami Marlins, which opened in 2012. The eleven Super Bowls hosted in Miami are more than New Orleans, but the latter will get back into a tie by hosting Super Bowl 59 in February 2025.
—Hard Rock Stadium has not only hosted six Super Bowls, but a Pro Bowl, two World Series, four national-championship college football games, the World Baseball Classic, numerous soccer matches, and a WrestleMania event. It was built due to Dolphins owner Joe Robbie complaining that his Orange Bowl rent would be quadrupled, so he privately financed the new stadium for $115 million. It was the first multipurpose stadium in the United States that was funded entirely through private funds. Several renovations have taken place over the years; most recently (2015), roof coverings were extended over the seats to keep fans shielded from the area’s constant rains.
—A typical glance at a salary-cap-era roster: Miami has only two of 53 active-roster players over 30 years of age, and 46 players are aged 28 and younger. Seventeen players were undrafted, while an additional 22 players were selected by Miami. The team has eight rookies and first-year players, and the latter designation is for players on injured reserve or practice squad for their entire rookie season.
—The Dolphins have scored a mere 18 touchdowns through nine games this season – only five of them coming from the running game – while allowing 26 on defense, with 17 of them via the opponents’ air attack. Miami’s offense has been terribly out of balance, with 192 running plays and 382 pass plays (including 23 sacks allowed). Miami throws the ball at the fifth-highest rate in the league. Meanwhile, the Dolphins’ opponents haven’t done much better, running the ball on 235 occasions and passing it on 376 (including 17 Dolphins sacks allowed).
—Miami is currently in a home-game-heavy portion of its schedule; this game will be the second of five home games in seven weeks, interrupted only by a trip to New York (Jets) next week and the team’s December 12 bye, one of the last teams around the league to get its week off. Miami played in London earlier this year, losing in overtime to previously-winless Jacksonville. The game against the Ravens is the first of Miami’s two prime-time games this year, the other coming later this season at New Orleans on a Monday night. Miami is 4-6 in Thursday-night games.
—Miami began the 2021 season by justifying the optimism that surrounded the team with a 17-16 win at New England. But the Dolphins soon disintegrated after that, losing seven straight games, including all four to teams with winning records at kickoff, before last week’s home win over Houston. Two of the losses were by two points, and another was by three. Miami has scored 17 points in each of its two wins, the New England game and last week’s 17-9 error-filled game against Houston.
—The Dolphins have gotten off to better starts than the Ravens, outscoring opponents by 55-29 in the first quarter. The plus-26 first-quarter differential is the NFL’s fourth-best. But the Dolphins are getting outpaced in the second, 70-22, and in the fourth, 89-54. The team’s overall point differential (minus-87) is the league’s fourth-worst behind Houston (-130), Detroit (-110), and the New York Jets (-107).
—Miami has forced 13 turnovers on defense, a surprisingly high number for a team that sports a subpar minus-5 turnover ratio (Baltimore is not much better at minus-3). The Dolphins have seven fumble recoveries from five different players and six interceptions from five different teammates. However, all that good work has been offset by 18 turnovers on offense, the league’s second-most behind Kansas City (19). Miami has lost nine of its 15 fumbles, and its quarterbacks have thrown nine interceptions. There were nine turnovers alone in last week’s sloppy game between Miami and Houston, with the Dolphins committing five of them (three fumbles, two interceptions).
—The Dolphins are usually involved in games that feature a lot of penalty flags. Miami has committed 56 accepted penalties (eight more than Baltimore), while their opponents have been punished 64 times. At least on the offensive line, Miami has been relatively clean, with a mere ten false starts and seven holding calls, and the team has not been called at all for illegal contact or any personal fouls. Individually, only two Dolphins have committed more than three penalties, led by tackles Austin Jackson (six, two false starts, two holds) and Liam Eichenberg (four, including three false starts). However, since Brian Flores became the coach, Miami’s 222 penalties are the league’s fourth-fewest.
—Through Week Nine’s Sunday games, the Dolphins were ranked 30th in total offense (32nd and last rushing with just 75 yards per game, 23rd passing, 28th scoring at 17.2 points per game). The Dolphins have been held under 100 team yards rushing seven times in nine games. Miami is averaging 28:22 of possession per game, the league’s fifth-lowest figure, but the third-down conversion rate is 12th-best, and the red-zone touchdown percentage is ranked 13th. However, Miami is averaging only 18.8 first downs per game, the fifth-worst figure in the league.
—Miami is currently ranked 30th in total defense (17th vs. rush, 30th vs. pass, 27th scoring at 26.9 points per game allowed). The Dolphins’ red-zone defense ranks a respectable 11th in the league. Still, Miami is allowing a conversion rate of nearly 49 percent on third-down plays, the league’s second-worst, bottomed only by Washington. Miami is allowing 22.9 first downs per game, the league’s fifth-worst figure.
—Third-year head coach Brian Flores, a 40-year-old father of three, is the 13th head coach in Dolphins franchise history. He was one of a wave of six new coaches (plus two veteran coaches in new places, Adam Gase and Bruce Arians) around the NFL in 2019, having come from the dynastic New England program, where he spent 15 years in a variety of roles and helped the team win seven AFC championships and four Super Bowls (39, 49, 51, 53).
—Most recently, Flores was the Pats’ linebacker coach and defensive play-caller before getting the Miami job, holding the potent Los Angeles Rams’ offense to just three points in the lowest-scoring of the 55 Super Bowls to date. Flores is 17-24 in charge of the Dolphins, getting to within one game of .500 in Week One before the team’s recent seven-game losing streak that was snapped last week against Houston.
—Currently, Flores is the eighth consecutive Dolphins full-time head coach to have posted a losing record (interim coach Todd Bowles was 2-1 in 2011). The last Dolphins coach to have a winning record was current college football television analyst Dave Wannstedt (43-33 from 2000-2004). Notable assistants on Flores’ staff include quarterbacks coach and former Cleveland Browns starting quarterback Charlie Frye and ex-Navy assistant Mike Judge (quality control), who was in Annapolis from 2008-18.
–-Former Alabama quarterback Tua Tagovailoa, the fifth overall pick in the 2020 draft, has been beset with injuries this year, missing Weeks Three through Five with broken ribs and sitting out last week’s game against Houston with a broken finger. Last year, he started nine of his ten games, throwing 11 touchdown passes with five interceptions and an 87.1 passer rating; he was sacked 20 times. Tagovailoa has seven touchdown passes, five interceptions, seven sacks, and an 86 passer rating this season. It is unknown whether he will be available to face the Ravens; he has never made a start in a prime-time game.
—If Tagovailoa can’t play, the Dolphins will again turn to well-traveled backup Jacoby Brissett, who is in his sixth NFL season from NC State and joined Miami this year as an unrestricted free agent. Thursday night will mark his fifth start of the year. Brissett spent his rookie season in New England and the next four years in Indianapolis. He has completed 64.4 percent of his passes this year with five touchdowns, but with four picked off. Brissett has been sacked 16 times and has played to a passer rating of 79. He was sacked four times and threw two interceptions in last week’s win over Houston. In four previous Thursday-night games, Brissett has four rushing scores and no interceptions, and in two games against Baltimore, Brissett had completed 47 percent of his passes with one score and a 77.5 rating.
—On the ground, Miami’s running backs have not produced much, one of many reasons for the team’s anemic offensive showing. Myles Gaskin is a third-year player out of Washington taken in the seventh and final round with the 234th overall pick in 2019, but he leads the team currently with a mere 313 yards and no carry longer than 18 yards.
—Despite Miami’s win over Houston last week, Gaskin managed just 34 yards on 20 carries; he did score his first touchdown of the year, but no carry lasted longer than six yards. Malcolm Brown has a 24-yard touchdown, but he is on injured reserve. Salvon Ahmed, in his second year from Washington, has 39 carries, the team’s second-most, but none longer than 12 yards.
—The Dolphins, with 12 receiving touchdowns from six different players, have a lot of veteran pass-catching talent on paper. Still, three standouts are currently on injured reserve: former Houston Texans starter Will Fuller, longtime Dolphin standby DeVante Parker, and Allen Hurns, late of the Jacksonville Jaguars. The current starters are Alabama-bred rookie Jaylen Waddle, taken with the sixth overall pick in this year’s draft, and seventh-year NFL veteran Albert Wilson, now in his third year with Miami after four seasons with the Kansas City Chiefs.
—Waddle, also the team’s kick returner, leads the team with 56 catches, a nine-yard average, and three scores, tied for the team lead in the latter category with Gaskin. Waddle has three games this year with eight or more catches, the most among rookies, and he has been targeted six or more times in seven of Miami’s nine games so far.
—Reserve receiver Mack Hollins has two touchdowns, as does starting tight end Mike Gesicki, a 2018 second-round pick (42nd overall) from Penn State who averages 12 yards a catch and is second on the team with 44 grabs, third-most among NFL tight ends and two more grabs than Baltimore’s Mark Andrews. Gesicki also has 20 fourth-quarter/overtime catches, the most among tight ends. Parker has 25 catches and a score, and backup tight end Durham Smythe claims 15 receptions. Second tight end Adam Shaheen has eight catches; he is primarily a blocker.
—The Dolphins’ offensive line is anchored at center by sixth-year veteran Greg Mancz, who came out of Toledo and spent his first five seasons with the Houston Texans before ending up in Baltimore’s training camp earlier this year. In late August, he was traded to the Dolphins for a sixth-round draft pick in 2022. Mancz did not practice Monday (ankle).
—Miami is going with youth at left tackle in the person of Liam Eichenberg, a Notre Dame rookie taken with the 42nd pick (second round) in this year’s draft. The right tackle is Jesse Davis, part of Miami’s 2016 undrafted class from Idaho. The guards are left-sider Austin Jackson, a 2020 first-round selection (18th overall) from Southern California, and right-side man Robert Hunt, also taken in 2020 in the second round (39th overall) from Louisiana.
—The Dolphins’ defensive line is paced by veteran Emmanuel Ogbah, now in his second year with the team after spending time with the Kansas City Chiefs. Ogbah leads the team with 15 quarterback hits, six pass breakups, and five of its 16 sacks (from eight different players); Ogbah had 2.5 sacks last week against Houston. Starting in his place against Houston last week was 2018 Ravens seventh-round pick (239th overall) Zach Sieler, who will forever be known as the final Baltimore draft pick under noted former general manager Ozzie Newsome. Sieler has 32 tackles and two fumble recoveries. Christian Wilkins (39 tackles, fourth on the team, two sacks, six quarterback hits), in his third year from Clemson, is on the other end, with Raekwon Davis, a 2020 second-round pick (56th overall) from Alabama, at the nose.
—Outside linebacker Jerome Baker, in his fourth year after being a third-round 2018 pick from Ohio State (73rd overall), is the only Dolphins second-level player still on the unit from the last time Miami took on Baltimore, back in the 2019 season opener. Baker is the team’s leading tackler with 50 total tackles, one sack, an interception last week, six quarterback hits, and three pass breakups. He is backed up by former Houston Texans starter Brennan Scarlett.
—The other two linebackers are Elandon Roberts (42 tackles, third on the team), a former New England Patriot in his second year in Miami. And Andrew Van Ginkel (36 tackles, ten quarterback hits, 1.5 sacks, four tackles for loss), in his third season from Wisconsin after being a 2019 fifth-round pick (151st overall).
—Xavien Howard, a 2016 second-round pick from Baylor (38th overall) and one of the league’s best corners, is regarded as the Dolphins’ shutdown player; he has two interceptions and ten breakups this year. Howard’s 12 interceptions since the start of 2020 are the league’s second-most, and his ten last year led the league. His seven pickoffs in 2018 tied him with two other players for the NFL lead, and he had one stretch with 11 interceptions in seven games. All told, Howard has 24 interceptions since 2017, the league-high. He had a single-season franchise-record three games with two interceptions and was named the team’s MVP while being named to his first career Pro Bowl.
—Despite Howard’s presence, Miami felt a need to further shore up the defensive back end by plucking unrestricted free agent Byron Jones from the Dallas Cowboys, who couldn’t fit under that team’s salary cap. Jones has 32 tackles, a forced fumble, and seven pass breakups this season. In his third year from Texas El-Paso, the team’s nickel/slot corner is Nik Needham after being a 2019 undrafted rookie free agent. Needham has 37 tackles, a sack, a fumble recovery, and three pass breakups.
—Former cornerback Eric Rowe is now a Dolphins reserve safety; he is now on his third NFL team but is coming off a three-year, two-championship tenure in New England. He is second on the team with 44 tackles, and he has two forced fumbles. Jevon Holland and Brandon Jones are the starting safeties; Holland (33 tackles, sack, four quarterback hits) is a rookie from Oregon who was a second-round pick this year (36th overall), while Jones (38 tackles, fifth on the team, two sacks, six quarterback hits, two fumble recoveries) is in his second year from Texas after being taken in the 2020 third round (70th overall).
—It’s not often that a team will spend a draft pick on a kicker or punter, but Miami did spend a 2018 seventh-round pick (229th overall) on New Mexico kicker Jason Sanders, and he has been the Dolphins’ kicker ever since. Sanders has hit all 16 of his extra-point tries this year (his current streak of 62 straight PATs is the league’s longest current run), as well as nine of 13 field-goal tries. He has missed one field-goal attempt between 30 and 39 yards, two in the 40-49-yard range, and one of three kicks from beyond 50 yards. On kickoff coverage, Miami is quite strong, ranking fifth in the league by allowing 19.4 yards per return; Waddle is the primary return man, averaging 18.3 yards on a half-dozen returns.
—Punter Michael Palardy, a Tennessee alumnus who is also the team’s holder on placekicks, spent his first four NFL seasons with the Carolina Panthers before defecting to Miami during the spring free-agent signing period. He has five touchbacks in 39 total punts this season, with 14 of them downed or out of bounds inside the coffin corner. Palardy is grossing 44.3 yards per punt and netting 39.1. The Dolphins are allowing 7.5 yards per return on punt coverage, ranking about in the middle of the league’s 32-team pack. Jevon Holland, a rookie from Oregon and the team’s second-round pick (36th overall), is averaging 7.4 per punt return.
Prediction
The Ravens’ season-long high-wire act (4-1 in one-score games, 2-1 in overtime) has nearly resulted in losses to teams on both the high and low ends of the league hierarchy. It would seem to come easier against a team like Miami, but in the topsy-turvy NFL, nothing comes easy, and certainly nothing is guaranteed. That said, the Ravens are held to a higher standard, not just by fans or media, but by a coaching staff that preaches fundamentals and expects results ,,, especially in a spot like this.
Baltimore 40, Miami 10
