Two-point failure puts team out of the playoffs with division-leading Bengals up next.
Sunday, December 19, 2021, M & M&T BANK STADIUM, BALTIMORE – The term “home stretch” never carries such meaning or relevance as it does now. It’s no secret that the Ravens have one of the toughest finishing schedules in the National Football League with Green Bay, Cincinnati, the Los Angeles Rams, and Pittsburgh. It’s also well-known that Baltimore will have to run that gauntlet with a roster riddled with COVID and conventional injuries.
But suppose there’s anything that could soften the blow. In that case, it’s the fact that three of the Ravens’ four remaining games are being played in front of what head coach John Harbaugh has called “the purple wall of noise” at M&T Bank Stadium, generally regarded by many national observers – along with Kansas City, Seattle, and New Orleans – as one of the loudest and most intimidating home-field crowds in the league.
Going into Sunday, the Ravens had posted a 143-62-1 all-time home record, the league’s fourth-best since 1996, a good trump card to play when facing a healthy, consistent, complete team like the Packers. Naturally, that includes a 5-1 home mark in 2021, the only loss coming to Cincinnati. Not only that, Baltimore had won 13 in a row against the opposite conference, sweeping the NFC West in 2019 and the NFC East last year. It’s the league’s longest current streak and only four off New England’s record, set between 2005-09. A Ravens win Sunday would complete a four-game whitewash of the NFC North, so the home crowd would have to make a difference again.
On this Sunday, a crowd numbering 70,815 fans witnessed another Herculean effort by its team, one that resulted in a 31-30 loss on yet another key two-point conversion that failed–the third straight game in which that has happened–and resulting in a third straight loss for a second consecutive season.
A goal-line pass to tight end Mark Andrews that was broken up by ex-Maryland safety Darnell Savage with 42 seconds left, and the Ravens (8-6) fell out of the AFC North lead, ceding it to the Cincinnati Bengals, who minutes earlier had defeated Denver, 15-10. Baltimore became the first team since the two-point conversion came into the NFL in 1994 to try multiple two-point attempts when down by one in the fourth quarter, according to the Elias Sports Bureau. Green Bay clinched the NFC North Division title with its NFL-record 29th first-place finish with the win.
The Ravens, who were on top of the AFC playoff field three weeks ago, now find themselves on the outside looking in, partially because the team has five conference losses. Another factor is that seventh-seeded Buffalo, also at 8-6, has a 3-2 record against common opponents, edging out Baltimore’s 3-2.
“I thought our chances of winning there was better than overtime,” head coach John Harbaugh said. The coach found an ally in Andrews, who became the first Ravens tight end ever to surpass 1000 receiving yards in a season. “That was the decision,” he said. “Anyone who second-guesses that is wrong.”
The team is well aware that it is caught in a December stretch run filled with crucial games against tough opponents. Perhaps this category’s most relevant Ravens game comes next week at Cincinnati against the Bengals (Sunday, December 26, 1 p.m.). After not having won the AFC North since 2015, the Bengals have resurrected themselves by getting younger and faster receivers, a better pass rush, and a franchise quarterback in Joe Burrow, who had a spectacular day in a 41-17 win in Baltimore just before the Ravens had their bye week.
With no practice time all week after suffering an ankle bone bruise, it came as little to no surprise that Lamar Jackson missed Sunday’s game for the first time in his Baltimore career. Harbaugh announced after Sunday’s loss that Jackson would likely be ready for next week’s game in Cincinnati but that he has confidence in Huntley if he is needed again. On top of Jackson’s injury, several more players were added to the COVID list during the week, including corners Jimmy Smith and Chris Westry, safety Chuck Clark and wideout Sammy Watkins.
The Jackson injury denied nationwide observers a chance to observe the two winningest quarterbacks in the league since Week 11 of the 2018 season going head-to-head. Since that point, Jackson has accumulated a 37-12 record as a starter, the AFC’s best and second-best leaguewide only to the 38-13 posted by Green Bay’s future Hall of Famer, Aaron Rodgers, who hadn’t faced the Ravens since a 2013 Charm City visit in which he engineered a narrow 19-17 win.
But Huntley filled in marvelously. Using an imaginative scheme that attacked all field quadrants, Huntley completed 28 of 40 passes for 215 yards and two touchdowns. He was sacked once and played to a 99.5 passer rating, a similar effort to last week’s in Cleveland, in which he nearly rallied Baltimore from a 21-point deficit.
But Sunday, it was a 31-17 hole in which Huntley and the Ravens found themselves with 9:26 to go. Even worse, the injury bug had reared its head again, with cornerback Tavon Young (concussion), tackle Tyre Phillips (left leg), and returner Devin Duvernay (leg) all having to leave the game. From that point, however, the Ravens drove 75 yards in 12 plays, getting a key fourth-down conversion catch from Andrews (136 yards, ten catches, two touchdowns). With the ball at the 3, Huntley went the rest of the way himself to cut the Packer lead to seven points at the 4:47 mark.
A poor Packer punt – part of what has made Green Bay the league’s worst special-teams unit – gave the Ravens the ball near midfield with 2:24 to go and all three timeouts left. Huntley (team-high 73 rush yards, two touchdowns, four total scores) ran for 15 yards, then found Andrews for passes of six and 12 yards before an eight-yard quarterback draw brought Baltimore to within one.
The doomed two-point pass to Andrews followed, Green Bay recovered the inevitable onside kick – it was against the Packers that the Ravens pulled off their last successful onside before last week’s in Cleveland – and Rodgers and the visitors left with their 11th win in 14 games while holding on to the NFC’s No. 1 playoff seed.
“It’s more meaningful to me that I got to play a game for the Baltimore Ravens,” Huntley said. “We came out and fought against a great football team.”
The Ravens, the NFL’s leaders in time of possession average going into Sunday (by one minute over second-place Green Bay), used that trait to their advantage, running 32 plays for 188 yards over their first three possessions. The first drive ended on downs, but the other two ended in touchdowns.
Andrews dove for an eight-yard score in the back of the east end zone and outleaped two defenders, including Savage, for a nine-yard score in the corner of the west end zone as four straight scoring drives by the two teams resulted in an early 14-all tie. But Rodgers would throw for 268 yards, a 132.2 rating, and three touchdown passes on the day, tying Brett Favre for the Green Bay franchise touchdown pass record (442). His 5-for-5 drive set up AJ Dillon’s two-yard touchdown run; it was the first rushing score Baltimore had allowed in five weeks.
Later, Rodgers converted again with a two-yard scoring catch by Davante Adams (44 yards, six catches). He would complete nine straight first-half passes to seven different receivers. Adams scored by beating reserve corner Robert Jackson to the pylon as Jackson was one of many backups who struggled within a reconfigured secondary.
Top running back Aaron Jones only had five first-half touches, but he got six on the first drive after halftime, capping it off with the go-ahead touchdown. The Ravens tried to answer by going for it on fourth-and-1 in manageable field-goal range, but backup left guard Ben Cleveland false-started, forcing a Justin Tucker field goal that left Baltimore four points short, 21-17.
Green Bay assumed control of the game at that point, getting a touchdown catch from Marquez Valdez-Scantling – Robert Jackson was the victim again – on an 11-yard score that boosted the lead to 11 points. Early in the fourth quarter, a Mason Crosby field goal made it 31-17, setting the stage for another frantic finish.
By then, the Ravens’ partisan crowd seemed as exhausted and physically spent as the players. But those noisy fans have to be flexible and in good enough shape for an eventful home stretch–for despite this team’s troubles, the homestretch has just begun.
