With a playoff slot clinched (11-3 overall, AFC #1-seed), a major road test awaits vs. the 49ers (the NFC’s top team) in a nationally televised clash on Christmas night.
EverBank Stadium, Jacksonville, FL, Sunday, December 17, 2023: When the NFL decided to expand to Jacksonville in the mid-1990s, many thought offering a franchise to a city not seen as a metropolis was strange. Be that as it may, it’s not half as odd as the Jaguars’ all-time performance against the Baltimore Ravens. Jacksonville won the first eight meetings before Baltimore took six in a row. Then, the teams alternated wins over their subsequent nine clashes before this weekend’s nationally televised game on Sunday Night Football.
If the pattern were to repeat itself, it would be the Ravens’ turn to win, and that’s what they did. The 23-7 victory before 68,021 fans was Baltimore’s fourth straight victory and eighth in their past nine games after a less-than-impressive 3-2 start.
With the win, the Ravens wrapped up the inevitable, clinching their 15th-lifetime playoff berth and the AFC’s first time to do so in 2023. It will be the team’s fifth postseason appearance in the past six years, and that frame coincides with drafting quarterback Lamar Jackson in the first round in the NFL’s 2018 Draft.
Jackson again proved to be the difference in another win, completing 14 of 24 passes for 171 yards, three sacks, a touchdown, and an interception. He racked up 97 yards on a dozen carries on the ground, pacing a 251-yard ground effort that came mostly in the second half as Baltimore slowly ground the Jaguars down with over 34 minutes of possession time.
The win-and-in scenario came to pass due to Saturday losses by the Denver Broncos and Pittsburgh Steelers (the latter team has now lost three straight). Still, ironically, the Ravens have not yet clinched the highly competitive AFC North Division crown. The Ravens are now 11-3 on the year with three regular-season games remaining. Wins in each of their last three games would bring the Ravens to 14 wins, tying the club record set in their other top-seed year of 2019, when the schedule was 16 games long instead of the current 17.
Meanwhile, the Jaguars fell to 8-6 with a third straight defeat and fourth loss in six games since their bye week, into which they went with a 6-2 mark. A two-game division lead has since evaporated, as now the Jags must hold off Indianapolis and Houston, who are also 8-6.
But this Sunday night, a concern for the Ravens was improving form in games played at Jacksonville, where the Ravens had lost on seven of their ten previous visits. Jackson allayed any fears Ravens fans may have had right from the start, finding Isaiah Likely – coming off a career-high five catches last week – for 18 yards and Rashod Bateman twice for 27 more. A swing pass to the speedy Keaton Mitchell got another first down before Jackson, the leading Ravens rusher in five games this year, scrambled for a first down at the Jaguars’ 15. From there, the drive stalled, and the visitors had to settle for Justin Tucker’s 43-yard field goal. But the Ravens’ drive had started on their own 11, a near picture-perfect exhibition of ball control and execution.
The Jaguars managed to cross midfield on their next possession against a Raven defense that came into this game with an NFL-best 49 sacks, a league-best 34 straight games with a sack (11 in a row with two or more), and a league-low 19 touchdowns allowed. The drive, accomplished with a fourth-string left tackle and third-string left guard due to injuries, set up kicker Brandon McManus for a 50-yard field goal try to tie the game. But the day-long rains and subsequent gusty winds caused conditions that caused the kick to drift to the right, striking the right goalpost and bouncing away.
A relatively even first quarter ended with the Ravens holding a 3-0 edge.
It was the start of a frustrating half for McManus, the former Denver Broncos kicker, who also hooked another game-tying effort, a 55-yarder, wide left early in the second quarter. He had missed only four field goal attempts all year, but his total rose to six with those misses, one more than Tucker has misfired on this season.
The Ravens were armed with good field position after McManus’ second miss, but a subsequent Jackson pass over the middle to Nelson Agholor was picked off by linebacker Raeshawn Jenkins. Two passes to Calvin Ridley and one more to Zay Jones put the Jaguars into the Ravens’ red zone. Then, on third-and-17 from the 23, quarterback Trevor Lawrence fumbled during a scramble. Ravens reserve corner Arthur Maulet recovered it, running it back to the Baltimore 40 to stymie another Jaguar opportunity.
Lawrence, who seemed to injure his ankle last week, was making his 50th straight start and had thrown three touchdown passes for a 129 passer rating the last time he had faced the Ravens. Last year, Lawrence became the most recent signal-caller to throw for 300 yards against Baltimore, but this year, he has been sacked a near-career-high 31 times due to a much-reshuffled offensive line. To make things worse, he was facing the second-ranked Baltimore defense just one week after taking on the top-ranked unit in Cleveland.
Jackson led the Ravens downfield on a patented late-first-half drive highlighted by a heavily rushed, sidearm-flicked 14-yard completion to Odell Beckham, Jr. at the Jaguars’ 30 just before the two-minute warning. Third-string tight end Charlie Kolar then gathered in his second catch of the year down to the 2, but left guard John Simpson was called for a personal foul, pushing the offense away from the goal line. Undaunted, Jackson ended the 13-play, 60-yard drive when he zipped a bullet down the right seam to Likely (70 yards, team-high five catches, touchdown) for a 16-yard touchdown with 1:12 to go before halftime for a 10-0 Ravens lead. Cleveland tight end David Njoku had burned the Jaguars badly the week before in a narrow Browns win, and the Ravens surely noticed that during the week’s film study.
Ravens tight ends have now scored eight touchdowns this season, tied for the second-most in the league.
The half ended with more Jaguar frustration; with no timeouts, a long pass was completed to the Ravens’ 5, and a subsequent toss was also caught, but receiver Parker Washington couldn’t get out of bounds, and the half ended. It marked only the second time in the Jaguars’ 29-season history the team had taken four straight drives inside the opponents’ 40-yard line and gotten zero points for their efforts.
The Ravens, encouraged by a half they won by shutout even though they were slightly outgained and out-possessed, wanted to do the “double-up” as the third quarter began, backing up their late-first-half score with yet another dent to the Jags’ hopes. But a false-start call and a sack of Jackson forced the Ravens to punt.
Jacksonville soon discovered it could strike more easily against the Ravens with the big play rather than methodically driving the ball downfield. Ravens corner Brandon Stephens, who has done a fine job on most opponents’ top receivers this year, got caught looking inside. In contrast, recently healthy Jags receiver Jamal Agnew drifted outside and was wide open for a 65-yard catch-and-run touchdown with 7:15 left in the third that cut the Ravens’ lead to three. It was the longest TD pass in Lawrence’s nascent career.
The Ravens had run for only 47 first-half yards, so they went to the ground game to regain control of the line of scrimmage and the game. It didn’t have immediate payback, but it set a very key sequence in motion. Jackson ran for one first down and Mitchell for two to get into Jaguars territory before Jordan Stout strategically punted the hosts back to their own 10-yard line. Tucker had appeared on the field when the fourth down was reached, but the punt option had already been chosen. The gambit worked, as a subsequent short Jaguar punt set up the Ravens at their own 42-yard line as the third quarter wound down.
Mitchell ran twice for 28 yards before Likely bailed out a nearly-sacked Jackson by outfighting two defenders to make a leaping catch for 26 yards to the nine-yard line as the quarter ended. Then, on the first play of the final period, Gus Edwards (58 yards, 16 carries, touchdown) walked in untouched from a yard out to make it 17-7.
But the revived running game would soon be without Mitchell (left knee), who left the game soon thereafter following a nine-carry, 73-yard effort.
But even as left tackle Ronnie Stanley also had to depart with a possible concussion, the Ravens could still rely on Edwards, Jackson, and Justice Hill to apply the final, telling blow. They wore down the Jags’ fourth-ranked run defense (92 yards per game allowed before Sunday) in a ten-play, 69-yard jaunt that ended with Tucker’s 26-yard field goal – his 104th in 104 career attempts inside 30 yards – that gave Baltimore a 20-7 bulge midway through the fourth.
On top of everything else, the Ravens’ pass rush – dormant most of the night – finally got to Lawrence in the form of Justin Madabuike (sack, forced fumble, four QB hits), notching his 11th straight game with a sack, matching what Cincinnati’s Trey Hendrickson did in 2021. Lawrence fumbled the ball, and Patrick Queen recovered it for the visitors at the Jacksonville 19.
The play by Madabuike, who had a season-high seven tackles last week, set up Tucker’s 34-yard three-pointer. The Raven lead grew to 16 points at 23-7 with just over six minutes left, and when two Lawrence end-zone passes went incomplete three minutes later, the deal was sealed.
In the end, all was normal: Jackson had a sixth road win in seven tries this year, a fifth straight Sunday-night win, and a 15th December win in 18 tries. It was the culmination of another four-quarter Raven-esque effort and another victory to stack with the rest. This year, it is something that doesn’t feel strange at all.
Now the team heads West to face crafty QB Brock Purdy. innovative head coach Kyle Shanahan, a team with loads of speed/depth on both sides of the ball, and a roster brimming with confidence. The 49ers are seen by most league observers as the NFL’s most complete team–with the Ravens not far behind–and this Christmas Day contest might be a Super Bowl preview.
The nation is sure to watch this Monday Night Football clash, slated for 8:15 p.m. and televised on ABC/ESPN.
