Jackson sprains ankle as the team loses second straight.
Sunday, December 12, 2021: Two wise old proverbs seem contradictory. One of them says, “Absence makes the heart grow fonder.” The other tells us that “Familiarity breeds contempt.” With those two conflicting thoughts battling around in our brains, it might be tough to make sense of the interactive dynamic between the Baltimore Ravens and the Cleveland Browns.
One franchise used to be the Browns moved and became the Ravens. A new version of the Browns was born three years later and has existed ever since. They are already joined at the hip by this fact alone. But what has brought them even closer together was this year’s unorthodox bit of scheduling that saw the two teams play each other within three weeks late in the season. On top of that, the Browns got to enjoy a bye week in between before getting the second game at home.
With the Ravens reeling under a blustery late-autumn gale-force wind of injuries and an offense slowly grinding to a near-halt, it would seem that this would not be the best time to play another division opponent so soon, let alone this particular team. But the contempt that runs between these two teams and fan bases usually turns into the Baltimore side wishing it could take on Cleveland even more often, especially after the Browns rang up a 24-3 lead Sunday, knocking quarterback Lamar Jackson and defensive end Calais Campbell out of the game in the process.
As it turned out, two short weeks turned out to be too much of an absence to make the Ravens’ hearts grow more fond of the Browns; Baltimore, despite a furious rally, couldn’t overcome its latest injuries and recent inconsistencies. The Ravens found themselves losing their grip on its AFC North Division lead with a 24-22 loss before 67,431 FirstEnergy Stadium fans.
“We fought to the very end,” tight end Mark Andrews said. “There’s a lot of teams that would have given up in that situation.”
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As the Browns built their big lead, linebacker Jeremiah Owusu-Koramoah–the team’s top draft pick this year, ostensibly drafted to spy on opponents like Jackson–tackled the former Most Valuable Player from behind, spraining his right ankle and knocking him out for the game just one play into the second quarter.
And he wasn’t alone. Campbell, who didn’t play in the first game against Cleveland two weeks ago, had to leave in the second quarter, briefly returned, but then stayed out. Cornerback Chris Westry (pinky) left the game and returned, but receiver Sammy Watkins left the field late and did not come back. On top of that, special teamer Dylan Wallace had to get evaluated for a concussion as the Ravens’ depth continued to get whittled away, week by week. With Marlon Humphrey out for the year, it left safety Chuck Clark, as the only Week One starter in the secondary intact, along with backup Anthony Averett, who is not a starter by trade but has filled in for Marcus Peters all year.
Despite all that, Andrews’ eight-yard touchdown catch from backup Tyler Huntley brought the Ravens to within two points, and Clark recovered the onside kick, the first for the Ravens since 2001 at Green Bay, a string of 26 unsuccessful attempts. But a fourth-down pass fell four yards short, and the Browns held on for the win.
As a result, the Ravens (8-5) lost a second straight game for the first time since last November/early December when they fell to Tennessee and Pittsburgh. The Ravens also failed to register an intradivisional season sweep of the Browns for the 14th time in the new Cleveland team’s 23 seasons. The Browns (7-6) have swept the Ravens only twice (2001, 2007), and, including Sunday’s result.
Outside the division, the Ravens – who held the No. 3 AFC playoff seed when Week 14 began and the top seed two weeks ago – put themselves in danger of falling even further.
If Cincinnati beats San Francisco later on Sunday, the Bengals will take the North Division lead and relegate the Ravens to one of the three wild-card seeds.
The biggest factor that could hamper Baltimore’s efforts to reclaim the No. 1 spot it held two weeks ago – and the first-round bye that goes with it – is the fact that the Ravens have five conference losses and three within the division. Not even the fact that three of the team’s final four games are at home can help that. Current top seed New England had just one defeat to an AFC opponent going into the weekend, and there are just four games left for every team; not only that, none of Baltimore’s remaining opponents has a losing record. An even bigger obstacle for the Ravens is that two of their remaining games are against NFC teams, which count in the overall record but don’t figure towards the AFC record tiebreaker.
What’s more, those two games are against two of the tougher teams in the top-heavy NFC, helping to give the Ravens the fourth-toughest remaining schedule coming into the weekend. The first of those is coming next week at home against the Green Bay Packers (Sunday, December 19, 4:25 p.m.).
Even with a battered roster – the Ravens, at one time or another this year, have placed nearly two dozen players on injured reserve, including a key player in four of the last five weeks – Baltimore will have to figure out a way to handle the usually-dominant Packers, who have one of the easier stretch runs, in a fashion that resembles how it has handled Cleveland over the years, as tough a task as there is.
With Jackson slowed by illness and ineffectiveness over the past month–weighing his throws more heavily towards Andrews and getting rushed from all sides– leading to numerous sacks, tipped passes, and interceptions, the Ravens have managed to average just over 15 points per game over their last four contests, tallying a total of 61 points.
The offense hasn’t been helped by the fact that just three members of that unit had started every game this year, offensive linemen Alejandro Villanueva, Bradley Bozeman, and Kevin Zeitler. But even that unit has had trouble opening running lanes and protecting Jackson.
Jackson’s 37 sacks were the most in the league going into the weekend. That total includes last week’s career-high seven-sack performance at Pittsburgh. He had also thrown at least one interception in four straight games, and his 13 pickoffs were tied for second-most in the league. What also hasn’t helped has been slow starts; the Ravens had been held to just nine points and no touchdowns in the first quarter of their last six games before Sunday’s clash with Cleveland. Baltimore went 3-3 in those games to dim the luster of the team’s five-game winning streak. Going into Sunday, the Ravens’ most recent first-quarter trip to the end zone came when Latavius Murray romped practically untouched for 14 yards into M&T Bank Stadium’s east (tunnel) end zone to kick off a 34-6 rout of the Los Angeles Chargers.
On this Sunday, not only did the Ravens have another slow start, but the rested Browns got off to a fast one, scoring 17 unanswered points and forcing Baltimore to punt on each of its first four possessions. The Ravens gained only 35 yards in their first 13 plays from scrimmage.
The Ravens, who committed eight pre-snap penalties last week at Pittsburgh, were called for four pass-interference calls early in Cleveland; one was declined. But the flags would lead to Evan McLaughlin’s game-opening 43-yard field goal. The Ravens committed ten penalties on the day and, with only 26 minutes of possession, lost the latter stat for only the second time all season, the first coming in the narrow Week Three win at Detroit.
Cleveland quarterback Baker Mayfield, who found himself briefly on the sidelines with a possible concussion before being cleared, then found Donovan Peoples-Jones for 34 yards to set up Jarvis Landry’s nine-yard catch-and-run score, in which he beat pursuing corner Tavon Young to the pylon for his first touchdown of the year.
The Raven defense is in the same predicament as the offense, in that it, too, has only three players that have started every game in 2021.
In the second half, the Ravens rally began with Rashod Bateman’s 20-yard catch that set up a Tucker 42-yard field goal. But a subsequent drive ended when former Atlanta first-round pick Takkarist McKinley got the second Browns fumble recovery of the day; Cleveland had just three all year coming into this game.
When Tucker hit a 55-yard field goal, and McLaughlin hit the goalpost on his next attempt – the 41-yarder was the shortest miss of his career – momentum seemed to be turning Baltimore’s way. Andrews caught passes of 13 and 20 yards on the next drive, then Bateman adjusted well to an underthrown ball and got 36 down to the Browns’ 1. From there, Latavius Murray plowed in from one yard out to cut the lead to 24-15, as a two-point conversion pass was intercepted by Grant Delpit; the two-score deficit remained.
Huntley doggedly continued to rally the visitors, barely missing Marquise Brown on a long pass towards the end zone and then finding Bateman (103 yards, seven catches, first career 100-yard game) for 30 on fourth down before the touchdown toss to Andrews and the successful onside kick. In this game, Huntley went 4-for-4 on fourth-down passes, the best by any quarterback in the league all year.
But, the way it turned out, the familiarity these two teams share bred contempt only from Baltimore, quite the opposite of the usual result. For the Browns, a mere two-week absence from lining up against the reeling Ravens made their hearts grow fonder.
