Third straight win brings Baltimore to 6-2. Seahawks next.
Sunday, October 29, 2023, Phoenix, AZ: While many fans throw the phrase “trap game” around loosely, Sunday’s game for the Baltimore Ravens fit the description. The Ravens were facing a bottom-feeding Arizona Cardinals team on the road after whipping a very good Lions team the week before and playing a strong Seattle outfit next week.
Luckily, the Ravens avoided falling into a trap with a grind-it-out 31-24 win over the Cardinals before 63,064 State Farm Stadium fans, many of whom were wearing purple and cheering for the visitors.
The Cardinals showed a feistiness and resiliency that has impressed league observers all season long in what turned out to be Baltimore’s second straight win over the Cardinals and sixth in eight lifetime meetings. The Ravens are now 3-1 in games played in the Valley of the Sun, and their overall record is now tied for the best in the AFC. With the win, Lamar Jackson is now 17-1 lifetime against the NFC.
All season long, the Ravens’ defense has displayed its usual trademark stinginess as the Todd Monken-coordinated offense had tried to find its rhythm. That outcome seemed to have been discovered following the Detroit win as Baltimore’s overall yardage output rose from middle-of-the-pack offense to ninth. Furthermore, going into Week 8, Baltimore was one of only five teams to have top-ten units in both scoring offense and defense, and Jackson came into Sunday as only the second quarterback in league history to complete 70 percent of his passes in six of his team’s first seven games of a season.
Sunday, Jackson completed 18 of 27 passes for 157 yards and a touchdown, playing to a 94.2 rating on a day when Arizona’s defense was up to the task. Both teams had just nine first downs at the half, and neither team could gain as many as 140 yards as numerous chances went by the wayside. Even the Ravens’ much-ballyhooed rushing attack was held to 28 net yards over the first two quarters, and the team was held to a mere 268 yards on a day when Jackson incurred four sacks after being taken down just once in the previous two games.
The Cardinals also played stout defense against the run–not their trademark style, given that they had allowed a 100-yard rusher in four of their last five games–as Gus Edwards was held to 80 yards on 19 carries. However, he did score three touchdowns that were sorely needed for the Ravens to shake themselves loose of the dogged Cardinals. A big reason was the second-half play of the Ravens’ top-ranked scoring defense, a unit that is also the second-ranked unit in the red zone, the second-best in the league against the pass, and the number-two overall defense.
Despite their record and injuries to their top quarterback (Kyler Murray), receiver (Zach Ertz), and running back (James Conner), the Cardinals still managed to run for 129 yards against the Ravens, and they got into the end zone three times against Baltimore. Their aggressive, nothing-to-lose mindset on both sides of the ball diluted the Ravens’ ability to execute at the level it did last week against Detroit when they scored four touchdowns on their first four possessions.
The defense committed two costly penalties on the Cardinals’ opening drive–a third-down illegal-contact call on safety Kyle Hamilton and an end-zone pass-interference flag on Marlon Humphrey against former Raven Marquise Brown. Those flags set up the one-yard quarterback plunge by ex-Cleveland and Pittsburgh backup Josh Dobbs, which gave Arizona its first opening-drive touchdown this year and the first allowed by the Ravens after 16 games. The seven points also surpassed the first-quarter total allowed by the Ravens so far this year (six, the league-low). It was also only the seventh defensive touchdown Baltimore had allowed in 81 opponent drives and just the third rushing score yielded by the Ravens, second-fewest in the league.
But Jackson put his magic to work when the Ravens got the ball, finding tight end and Arizona native Mark Andrews for a key third-down catch, then connecting with Rashod Bateman for a 29-yard diving grab. A subsequent pass-interference penalty on an Odell Beckham, Jr. route put the ball on the Cardinals’ 8, and Andrews caught a five-yard touchdown two plays later to complete the 75-yard, ten-play drive and tie the game at 7-all. Andrews’ sixth touchdown, scored in front of his Scottsdale (AZ) high school coach, was his sixth of the year, tops among all NFL tight ends.
The defense then asserted itself as the second quarter began. Nose tackle Michael Pierce knocked down Dobbs’ fourth-and-one pass near midfield one play after the newly healthy Odafe Oweh nearly sacked him for a huge loss. The Ravens took over on their own 44, but the Ravens could not take advantage of the break as Justin Tucker’s 53-yard go-ahead field goal try hit the left upright, his third miss of the year. Pierce continued his frenzied first half by stuffing a fourth-and-1 run up the middle, but once again, the Ravens couldn’t move the ball and were forced to punt.
Dobbs again got victimized by the defense when his high throw for Michael Wilson was intercepted by corner Brandon Stephens (statistically, the most targeted cover man in the league) for his second pickoff of the year. Justice Hill took a swing pass 24 yards to the Cards’ 19 before Andrews set up first-and-goal with a fine catch and run to the 6. Two plays later, Edwards got his third rushing score of the year, a one-yard plunge with 20 seconds left before halftime, to give the Ravens their first lead of the day, 14-7, at the intermission. The Ravens had a lead at the break for the seventh time in eight games in 2023.
Once again, Pierce made himself known early in the second half, registering a sack-fumble of Dobbs to stop an Arizona drive. That play made Pierce the league-high 12th different player to record a sack this year for the league’s most prolific pass-rush unit. Still, the defense had to be called upon one more time in a field-position game that the Ravens were winning.
Late in the third quarter, with the Cardinals backed up inside their own 10, Dobbs’ sideline pass was picked off by safety Geno Stone, his league-high fifth of the year and third straight game with an interception, to set up the offense at the 23-yard line. From there, Edwards got his second touchdown on a seven-yard jaunt around the left end to finally take advantage of a turnover and give the visitors some breathing room at 21-7.
The Ravens were perfectly positioned in this blue-collar struggle, and they took advantage of it with a six-rush drive that took valuable time off the fourth-quarter clock and ended with 9:27 left as Tucker’s 48-yarder gave the Ravens a three-score lead and a 17-point margin.
Dobbs managed to draw the home team closer with a 17-yard touchdown pass to Trey McBride with 6:24 remaining, and Dobbs ran in the two-point conversion to make it 24-15. Baltimore then killed off most of the clock and forced the Cardinals to burn their timeouts as they kept the ball on the ground and went over the 100-yard team rushing mark for a league-high 24th straight game. The Ravens did throw it once, on a third-and-7, but Beckham was interfered with in the end zone.
That led to Edwards’ third touchdown of the game with 2:46 to go. The game was not over, though. The pesky Cardinals persisted as Brown got into the end zone at the 1:14 mark left. AZ proceeded to recover Matt Prater’s onside kick, and Prater hit a field goal to make it a seven-point game with 26 ticks left. But then Baltimore ran out the clock, thereby avoiding being trapped in the desert.
Now, after four road games in a five-week span that included long flights to the east (Europe) and west (Arizona), the Ravens will close out the season’s first half by taking on the Seahawks in the first of three straight home games with the Browns and Bengals to follow. Sunday’s kickoff is scheduled for 1 p.
