Baltimore goes to 7-2 with the lopsided win, tough schedule lies ahead.
SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 10, 2019, CINCINNATI, OH: “Trap Game.” For years, fans have argued about the exact definition of the term. But, for most, the meaning is clear. It’s when a contending team plays a highly-inferior squad the week before it plays a contender. The question then becomes: “Is your team good and focused enough to avoid falling into the trap?”
Well, on Sunday in Cincinnati, the Baltimore Ravens were good and focused. They bludgeoning the winless Bengals, 49-13, before 45,918 fans at Paul Brown Stadium.
The victory, the team’s fifth straight, kicked off the season’s second half and upped Baltimore’s mark to 7-2.
The toughest part of its schedule resumes next week with a home game against the AFC South-leading Houston Texans Following that game, the gauntlet continues as the Ravens make their first-ever visit to play the NFC champion Los Angeles Rams. Tough enough? No. There’s a home date against the NFC West pace-setting San Francisco 49ers and a trip to Buffalo. Whew!
But, first, the Ravens needed to dispatch the Bengals (now 0-9), who (with Sunday’s loss) became losers of a club-record-tying 11th straight game over two seasons. Trying to turnaround this losing team was a tall order for rookie Ryan Finley, who started over benched veteran Andy Dalton–a player who had contributed mightily to a string of previous Baltimore losses (8 out of 10) in the Queen City.
This time the Ravens left town happy–not only with a win–but with a season sweep over the Bengals. A big reason is the player that Baltimore had over center–Lamar Jackson, now considered by many national NFL observers as a candidate for Most Valuable Player, an award no Raven has ever won in the team’s 23-season history.
On Sunday, Jackson completed 15 of 17 passes for 223 yards and three scores, and he ran for 65 yards on seven carries and another touchdown–a 47-yard ankle-breaker. Jackson was so efficient that one of his two misses was a clock spike. What’s more, he posted his second perfect passer rating of the year–a Ravens’ first–as he also became the youngest quarterback in league history to do it even once. Jackson’s sixth straight game of 60 or more rushing yards also ties the league record set by Michael Vick.
The even better news is that Jackson was only part of the Ravens’ multi-faceted running game, one that has averaged a league-best 204 yards per week and has put up over 31 points per game this season, which is another league-high. That average, helped by an offensive line that has started every game together, has the Ravens on pace to score just over 500 points for the season. That’s quite an accomplishment for a franchise that had broken the 400-point barrier only once in its history (409 points in 2014).
In the current pass-dominated era, eight to ten teams routinely score 400 or more points per season. That’s never been true for the Ravens, though–until this year. And, on Sunday, Baltimore scored on its first three possessions, including a league-high sixth opening-drive touchdown, and got two defensive scores, to boot–Marcus Peters’ 89-yard interception-return score and Tyus Bowser’s 33-yard fumble-return touchdown. Those two plays gave the Ravens a league-high five defensive scores this year.
A matchup with a good running team is usually bad for the Bengals, but having to play the best ground game is disastrous for them. Before Sunday, Cincinnati’s rush defense ranked 32nd and last in the league, allowing 177 yards per game, while it’s ground attack had only been able to muster 59 yards per contest. And despite the presence of workhorse back Joe Mixon and dual-threat runner Giovani Bernard, the Bengals could not muster much of a running game against the Ravens’ second-ranked rush defense that was allowing just 83 yards per game going into Sunday. Cincinnati finished with 157 on the ground, with most of it coming at garbage time.
The Ravens, on the other hand, kept chugging away. Jackson found his usual array of targets for big plays. Tight end Mark Andrews had two touchdowns among his team-high six catches. Marquise Brown–in his second game back from injury–also contributed a score.
No. Cincinnati didn’t set a trap, and neither did the Ravens fall into one. Instead, Baltimore brushed aside these Bengals. In the weeks ahead, it will hunt bigger game than tigers.
