Ravens’ defense lets down again, team falls to 2-2.
M&T BANK STADIUM, BALTIMORE, Sunday, September 29, 2019. The 2019 Baltimore Ravens is a team that’s doing things that are unaccustomed to its fans. Besides the obvious absences of dynamic players like Ray Lewis, Ed Reed, and Terrell Suggs, fans are also witnessing much-welcomed and long-overdue youth and speed on both sides of the ball, a robust offense complete with lots of yards and points, and pass-catching targets that are actually making an impact.
Until Sunday, one element had stayed the same: a fast start in September. But the Ravens turned in a flat, sloppy effort on offense and saw its defense concede yards and points too easily in a 40-25 loss to the visiting Cleveland Browns in front of 70,686 bewildered fans.
Baltimore’s all-time September record fell to 50-32 as this year’s 2-0 start turned into a 2-2 mark with a second straight loss. That September record works out to a .609 winning percentage–the Ravens’ best in any of the regular season’s four principal months. As a result, Baltimore is now at or above .500 after September for the fourth straight year and the 16th time in the last 19 seasons. But with the Browns also at 2-2, the team from the North holds a temporary tiebreaker edge.
It’s not likely that the franchise’s preseason domination has anything to do with that, even though there could be some emotional carryover. But one thing can’t be disputed: September and the season’s first quarter are now over.
In the past, the implications have been ominous, and this year, it appeared the Ravens’ annual October slump arrived early.
Browns’ quarterback Baker Mayfield capitalized on blown coverages and sloppy tackling to throw for 342 yards. In that effort, he followed Arizona’s Kyler Murray and Kansas City’s Patrick Mahomes who, in consecutive weeks, also broke the 300-yard barrier. It’s the first time in seven years that the Ravens had allowed three straight 300-yard passing performances.
But on the surprising side, the Ravens–the only NFL team that had not turned over the ball through three weeks– committed three miscues, including two Lamar Jackson interceptions. That broke Jackson’s club-record streak of 248 straight passes without a pickoff and a team run of 259 plays without a turnover.
To make matters worse, the Ravens’ offense and special teams that started the season so well saw too many miscommunicated routes, dropped passes, a muffed kickoff, and an astonishing wide-open catch out of bounds by Chris Moore–with nobody from Cleveland around him.
Nick Chubb motors for a TD (photo, WTDN.com)
On top of that, Cleveland got the first, first-quarter touchdown against the Ravens all year. Later, the Browns salted away the game with a 16-point fourth-quarter–after getting blanked in that period (31-0) over the season’s first three weeks. That burst allowed Cleveland to win its second straight road game at the start of a season for the first time since 1994.
In the past, the Browns had never usually been good enough to take advantage of another team’s problems. But when it was announced before the game that nose tackle Brandon Williams would miss the game with a knee injury, Cleveland’s Nick Chubb ran for 165 yards on 20 carries and three touchdowns–including an 88-yard score on a simple right-side toss in which three Ravens defenders overran the play.
Worse yet, that score came just after the Ravens had driven 75 yards on 14 plays, scoring on Jackson’s nine-yard touchdown pass to Mark Andrews. A two-point conversion cut the Browns’ lead to 24-18 midway through the fourth quarter.
A small note of consolation came by way of containing Odell Beckham, Jr., who was held without a catch through three quarters for the first time in his career. Marlon Humphrey shadowed him all over the field in a move that surprised analysts and fans who are used to seeing Ravens’ corners anchored to one side of the field.
While OBJ was held in check, opposite wideout Jarvis Landry was not. He was targeted ten times and caught eight for 167 yards before having to leave the game with a concussion in the fourth quarter.
The Ravens now face their historically worst month, October, in which they are a middling 36-52 (.409). This year, the month features just one Ravens home game for the sixth time in the team’s last eight seasons. Tough road trips are in store to Seattle and Pittsburgh.
By not beating the Browns, the Ravens blew a chance to assure themselves of a two-game division lead over three division rivals going into October. The winless Pittsburgh Steelers and Cincinnati Bengals square off against each other Monday night.
On the other hand, if Cleveland had lost this game, it would have felt like wearing an iron boot. The Browns are in the middle of a torturous schedule that sees them play an improved San Francisco team, Seattle, and New England–- two of those teams on the road–over the next few weeks. The real possibility existed that the offseason’s most talked-about team could have started 1-6.
Instead, it is the talked-about Ravens that disappointed.
The Ravens’ October gauntlet begins with an always-highly-anticipated trip to Pittsburgh where they will play the Steelers at Heinz Field (Sunday, Oct. 6, 1 p.m.; WJZ-TV, WIYY-FM). The Ravens can take solace in the fact that they have won six of their last ten trips to Pittsburgh, including a 2014 wild-card playoff game.
And a win is what this team needs.
