Lamar Jackson shines in a high-profile showdown.
Monday, October 23, 2023, M&T BANK STADIUM, BALTIMORE — It’s October, the traditional time for Homecoming celebrations at high school and college campuses across America. For the Ravens, Sunday proved to be Homecoming in the truest sense, as they got to play in front of their own fans for the first time in a month in the franchise’s 441st regular-season game.
The team wasn’t taking on an easy opponent on a day when the Ravens wanted to make Ring of Honor inductee Terrell Suggs happy. The resurgent Detroit Lions were in town, a team that’s off to a great start.
However, in one of the most impressive performances in franchise history, the wide-awake Ravens dished out the reality, unexpectedly bursting out of the gate and decisively thrashing the Lions, 38-6, in front of 70,989 overjoyed and wind-swept fans.
The first real evidence of what the new Todd Monken-coordinated offense should look like in full flower added another hard-luck layer to Detroit’s mostly negative history. It put up 503 total yards and 23 first downs while gaining just over nine yards per play.
Despite going 13-3 since a 1-6 start last year, Detroit is an organization that hasn’t exactly been blessed with success in recent years, what with only three playoff berths in the previous 23 years, no postseason trips since 2016, one playoff win since their last championship in 1957 — which predated the Super Bowl era by nine years — and no first-place finishes since 1993, when it won the old NFC Central Division crown.
Conversely, Sunday’s romp marked the Ravens’ fifth straight win over the Lions (5-2) and sixth in seven lifetime meetings. Detroit has also never won in Baltimore against the Ravens; it is now 0-4.
In a game loaded with great individual matchups, the bottom line is that these two teams are part of a small group of just seven that had possessed a lead at some point in each of their six games this season. Both teams, the No. 3 playoff seeds in their respective conferences going into Week Seven, were also prone to hot first-quarter starts, with the Ravens outpointing their previous foes by 41-6 and Detroit doing so to the tune of 48-10.
Sunday, it was Baltimore that struck first, and it did so early and often. It pounced on the visitors with stifling, three-and-out defense and four brutally efficient scoring drives that averaged eight plays and 79 yards, gaining an apocalyptic 12.1 yards per play in the process.
Quarterback Lamar Jackson’s first-half numbers (17-for-21, 255 yards, two touchdowns, 149.0 rating) were the best of his career to date, and he compiled them by hitting eight different receivers and not getting sacked once. The yardage number surpassed anything he had done over an entire game so far in 2023.
The Ravens took the ball after winning the toss — a rarity these days, but conditions were breezy — and got a Jackson 46-yard pass to rookie Zay Flowers to put the ball inside the Lions’ red zone. On fourth-and-1 from the Lions’ 7, Jackson faked a handoff and rolled around the left end for the game’s first points with less than five minutes had elapsed.
Flowers made his big catch by finding a seam in the middle of the Lions’ defense, and following a Detroit three-and-out, Rashod Bateman did the same while making two catches for 36 yards on the next drive. Jackson then put on a ten-second scrambling clinic before finding Nelson Agholor — again, on a pass over the middle — for a 12-yard touchdown and a 14-0 bulge. It was the Lions’ biggest deficit of the season to date, and it would get even larger.
Another three-and-out meant that Jackson could continue in his sharp rhythm, hitting Odell Beckham, Jr. (49 yards, five catches) for 20 yards and, on third-and-11, completing a sideline pass to Flowers (75 yards, four catches) for 22 more near midfield as the first quarter with 12 minutes of Ravens’ possession, a 194-6 yardage edge and nine first downs to none for the Lions. Those lopsided numbers would only grow before halftime: 355-97 in yards, 18-4 in first downs, and a 20-minute-to-10 possession edge.
Even bulky fullback Patrick Ricard got into the act, rumbling 29 yards with a short pass as the second quarter opened. Tight end Mark Andrews (63 yards, four catches, two touchdowns) completed the 92-yard drive by going over the middle, catching a pass, and running into the end zone for an 11-yard score and a three-touchdown Raven bulge.
The ground attack took over next, with Gus Edwards (64 yards, 14 carries, touchdown) and Justice Hill combining for 49 yards of carries before Andrews got open for a pass that put the ball on the Detroit 2. From there, Edwards plowed in for a jaw-dropping 28-0 advantage.
A fifth Ravens drive appeared to stall around the Lions’ 30, but Detroit pass-rush ace Aidan Hutchinson was called for a third-down roughing-the-passer penalty. But the Lions finally caught a break, as Hutchinson pounced on a Hill fumble to finally stop the Ravens. However, after the Lions reached the Ravens’ 36, an intentional grounding call and holding penalty again kept them off the scoreboard, resulting in their largest halftime road deficit in 32 years. Because of that, Detroit had to go for it on every fourth-down situation from that point.
As the second half began, the Lions drove to the Ravens’ 6, but on fourth-and-goal, linebacker Roquan Smith broke up an end-zone pass to stop the drive. Not even bad field position stopped the Ravens; they would drive 94 yards in a lightning-fast four plays the next time they had the ball.
Edwards took a dump-off from Jackson and took it 80 yards to the Lions’ 11. Two plays later, Andrews went in motion and flared out to the right flat for an 11-yard scoring catch that extended the lead to 35-0.
Safety Geno Stone, playing in place of the injured Marcus Williams, got his NFL-leading fourth interception on a desperation end-zone pass to keep the shutout going through three quarters. But Lions rookie running back Jahmyr Gibbs ended the Ravens’ bid for their first shutout since 2018 with a 21-yard rushing score around left end for his first NFL touchdown. A subsequent two-point conversion pass was complete, but Stone smothered the receiver short of the goal line.
With 9:30 to go, kicker Justin Tucker — author of game-winning 61- and 66-yard field goals against the Lions eight years apart, the latter an NFL record — booted a 32-yarder to complete the scoring.
Backup quarterback Tyler Huntley went in for Jackson with just under five minutes remaining, ending Jackson’s day with a 21-for-27 completion rate, 357 yards, three touchdowns, a 155.6 rating, and no sacks. He also ran nine times for 36 yards and another score.
The Ravens had to rely on a defense facing its biggest test of the season so far, considering what kind of teams it had previously faced.
Up until opposing Lions starter and former top overall pick Jared Goff on Sunday, the Ravens’ second-ranked pass defense had not faced any fully healthy quarterbacks at or near their prime. Despite secondary play featuring better coverage and tackling than in recent memory, the Ravens had taken on two backups, a rookie, a second-year player, an aging veteran, and a partially injured starter in Cincinnati’s Joe Burrow.
No doubt, a schedule like that had helped the Ravens accumulate a co-league-high 24 sacks (with a league-best 11 players with at least one), post the league’s fourth-ranked scoring defense and No. 2 overall unit, allowing less than 15 points per game, and just five offensive touchdowns in the process, one via the rush.
It sounded like the kind of defensive resume the Ravens would often post with Suggs, the franchise’s all-time sack leader with 132.5. Baltimore is now 13-2 when inducting someone into its Ring of Honor, and it was fitting they welcomed Suggs when the team played Detroit, an opponent against which he was ejected in a 2005 game at Ford Field.
Meanwhile, Goff had directed the league’s fourth-best scoring offense (28 points per game), one that had produced 20 or more points in each game all year and 15 in a row, and a league-best 29 pass plays of 20 or more yards. What also helped was a 33:17 possession-time average, the league’s third-best.
The Ravens’ defense romped across their newly re-sodded home grass field to the tune of five sacks and an interception while holding Goff to a 68.4 rating. The Lions could also only manage 84 rushing yards.
On the other side of the ball, the Ravens had to contend with a Lions defense that had not allowed a 100-yard rusher all season and could boast the league’s top-ranked run-stuffing unit, allowing only 64 rush yards per game. The Ravens ran for 146. All of that helped Jackson lift his career record against NFC teams to 16-1, which includes an unblemished 8-0 at home.
The Ravens also avoided being shut out for a 343rd consecutive game, the fifth-longest streak in NFL history and 77 behind the all-time record of 420 set by San Francisco (1977-2004).
But on a day when solid execution and chunks of yardage were the order of the day, points were the least of the Ravens’ worries. One could say the national anthem was the game’s turning point. It was also the moment that the Ravens’ happy Homecoming was ensured, even as another long road trip stared them in the face.
Now it’s back on the road for the AFC North-leading Ravens (5-2), just back from London. Another long trip awaits when they travel west to face the Arizona Cardinals on Sunday, October 29, in a late-afternoon game with kickoff scheduled for 4:25 Eastern time.
