ExtremeRavens Posted October 7 Posted October 7 The Ravens outlasted the Cincinnati Bengals, 41-38, in an absurd, miraculous overtime fireworks show that seized pole position for NFL game of the year. Here are five things we learned from the game: The greatest games transcend analysis We’ll get to the defensive shenanigans, the misbegotten clock management, the gut-twisting turnover that probably should have sent the Ravens home defeated. That stuff matters when we assess where the Ravens stand as an aspiring championship contender. It matters a whole lot less when we try to capture the ridiculous wonder of what we watched Sunday afternoon as two bitter rivals trafficked in the sublime and the preposterous for more than 60 minutes of football. Be honest; how many times did you think the Ravens were cooked? Certainly after Ja’Marr Chase caught a simple pass on the sideline and eluded four defenders to sprint 70 yards and make it 38-28 with 8:54 to play. Probably as Joe Burrow drove his offense into Baltimore territory with a chance to build his lead and the two-minute warning fast approaching. Certainly, again, after the Ravens had to settle for a game-tying field goal, leaving Burrow more than enough time to answer back with a game-winning score. For sure after Lamar Jackson looked away for a fraction of a second and dropped a shotgun snap to hand Cincinnati the ball in reasonable field goal position in overtime. Somehow, the Ravens — with a healthy assist from those impish football gods overseeing this battle — spit in the eye of each doomed scenario. Burrow torched the Baltimore defense for most of the second half, but Jackson kept answering, keeping the Ravens within shouting distance. When he dropped a snap, picked it up, scrambled urgently away from two defenders and winged a touchdown pass to tight end Isaiah Likely, he might as well have left the stadium to walk on the surface of the nearby Ohio River. Even so, Jackson would have run out of chances had his defense not finally answered the bell. With the Bengals up three and driving, Marlon Humphrey stepped in front of Chase for an interception. The Ravens could not answer with a go-ahead touchdown. Justin Tucker, with his legion of fans fearing a faith-shattering miss, steered a 56-yard attempt left to right and perfectly through the uprights: 38-38. Justin Tucker’s 56-yard field goal in the fourth quarter was his longest made kick of the season. (Carolyn Kaster/AP) Burrow had more than 90 seconds of game time to answer, but another Ravens defensive star, Nnamdi Madubuike, stepped up with a sack, and the Bengals had to accept overtime as their reward for an afternoon of brilliant offense. It seemed the fates rode with them when Jackson could not handle Tyler Linderbaum’s on-target snap (he was still furious with himself amid the postgame celebration). The Bengals didn’t have to move an inch to put their generally clutch kicker, Evan McPherson, in range for a game-winner. But a bad snap and hold undid him. Given a seemingly impossible reprieve, Ravens running colossus Derrick Henry, bottled up most of the day, busted through Cincinnati’s tired front for 51 yards. Tucker finally closed out the insanity with a 24-yard field goal, the equivalent of a tap-in to win the Masters. We don’t normally spend a lot of words on play-by-play in this space, but when the Ravens wiggle off the hook that many times, in increasingly heart-stopping fashion, how can we not take a few extra paragraphs to relive the details? This was an important win for AFC North positioning and for putting their 0-2 start further in the rearview and for proving they could play from behind. More than all that, however, it was a spectacularly entertaining game. Sometimes, that is the main thing. Ravens vs. Bengals October 6, 2024 | PHOTOS The Ravens’ offense can win a game without dictating its flow This seemed like a matchup in which nosing ahead would be everything. In their previous two victories over the Dallas Cowboys and Buffalo Bills, the Ravens had stampeded from the gate, outrushing their opponents by a combined 413 yards as they built insurmountable leads. On paper, it seemed they might do the same against a porous Bengals defense that ranked 25th against the run coming in. The Bengals had other ideas, frequently loading the box with eight defenders and daring Jackson to beat them over the top. The Ravens averaged just 3.1 yards per carry in the first half and fell behind. The game would be played on Cincinnati’s pass-happier terms. Jackson, who had attempted all of 33 passes against Dallas and Buffalo, was up to the task, completing 16 of 23 for 242 yards and three touchdowns when the Ravens were trailing, per Pro Football Focus. So were his receivers, who often face more questions about why they’re not getting the ball than about what they do when they have it. Zay Flowers led the team with seven catches for 111 yards. Rashod Bateman made an eye-popping full-extension catch to set up his own touchdown in the second quarter. All three tight ends popped off the screen. Charlie Kolar presented an effective downfield target on early downs. Likely scored twice. And Mark Andrews emerged from his game-plan cocoon to make vital catches when the Ravens needed to keep moving in the fourth quarter. Charlie Kolar, middle, caught three passes for 64 yards against the Bengals despite usually being the team’s third receiving option at the tight end position. (Carolyn Kaster/AP) Jackson had expressed great confidence in his targets all summer and through the recent lean-target weeks. When he needed them, they posted. This had to be a sobering watch for defensive coordinators who were already popping antacids at the thought of having to deal with Henry’s ageless power-speed combination and Jackson’s once-in-a-generation elusiveness. The Ravens arrived in Cincinnati with a league-best offense built on ground force. The Bengals sought to counter their greatest strength and gained an upper hand. The Ravens turned to the air out of necessity and matched their (elite) season average of 6.8 yards per play, scoring 41 points in the process. We saw the Ravens thrive on coordinator Todd Monken’s script on their opening touchdown drive — 32 rushing yards from four ball carriers, a chunk gain off play-action, a sharp, quick throw to Justice Hill to neutralize pressure. They had to adjust from there and kept rolling. In other words, we might be watching a legit great offense. The Ravens lost control of the game with a series of forehead-slapping mistakes A special teams miscue put the Ravens in a bad spot in the second quarter when Tylan Wallace, filling in for injured returner Deonte Harty, failed to field a punt and let it trickle down to the Baltimore 2-yard line. A mysteriously unblocked Sam Hubbard dropped Henry for a safety on the very next play. Next up in the parade of follies: clock mismanagement. Harbaugh called timeout when they faced third-and-10 with less than a minute to go in the first half. Jackson threw incomplete on the ensuing play, leaving the Bengals time to drive for a touchdown, knowing they would also get the ball back to start the second half. Why didn’t the Ravens, facing low-upside field position, simply let the clock run down (or at least force Cincinnati to blow a timeout to stop it)? “At that point in time, I just felt like l, ‘Let’s go for it here and see if we can get it done,’” Harbaugh said of his reasoning. “Was it a little over-aggressive? You could probably already argue that — looking back I probably would argue it. I felt like we needed it, and I thought we’d have a chance to get it.” Ravens coach John Harbaugh questioned his own clock management at the end of Sunday’s first half. (Carolyn Kaster/AP) The Bengals led 17-14 at the break, and when they got the ball back, Ravens linebacker Roquan Smith could not pull in a deflected pass for an interception that would have immediately swung the momentum back to Baltimore. Instead, Burrow hit Tee Higgins to convert on third-and-14 and made it count with two more third-down completions to set up another touchdown. In less than six minutes of game time, the Ravens went from in control to down 10. None of it needed to happen. These errors did not lead to defeat but did force them to play from behind the entire second half. If they had lost, that stretch of ragged playing and coaching in the second and third quarters would have been the reason the game slipped from their grasp. Potent as they are, the Ravens still need plenty of refinement. Defensive coordinator Zach Orr could not find the right formula to flummox Joe Burrow After Burrow torched them twice in 2021, the Ravens became his antidote the past two seasons. Former defensive coordinator Mike Macdonald kept him continuously off-balance with shifting coverages and simulated pressure. He seemed disinclined to look downfield, even with Chase and Higgins as big-time targets. That wasn’t the case Sunday. Orr got him early when he blitzed safety Kyle Hamilton on third-and-long. But from early in the second quarter to late in the fourth, Burrow settled into an impeccable rhythm. The Ravens sent extra pass rushers but rarely got home. They flooded his field of vision with extra defensive backs, but again and again, Burrow picked on the right matchups or found gaps in the Baltimore zone. Befuddled Joe was gone. This was the wonderfully decisive passer who won the Heisman Trophy at LSU and led the Bengals to the Super Bowl three years ago. Burrow is a great player, and great players make any defense look bad when they’re on. But the Ravens, after playing four quarters of splendid defense against Buffalo, are back to facing harsh questions about their coverage. How could they let Chase, the most dangerous Bengal on the field, streak by them for a touchdown in the waning seconds of the second quarter? How could multiple Ravens — with safety Marcus Williams the chief culprit — take such dreadful tackling angles on Chase’s 70-yard catch-and-run in the fourth quarter? The Ravens’ defense had no answer Sunday for Bengals wideout Ja’Marr Chase, who had 193 receiving yards. (Carolyn Kaster/AP) “He was just putting the [ball] up and giving his guys a chance, and they were winning their one-on-one matchups,” Smith said. “There was definitely a call or so that maybe he got us in, but that’s part of it. He gets paid a lot of money, just like their offensive coordinator as well as our coaches. So, they’re going to make plays; this is the NFL at the end of the day. But also, at the end of the day, we have to be better at our jobs, and that goes back to each and every person doing their one-[of]-11 [matchup].” As mentioned, the Ravens averaged 6.8 yards per play on offense. They also gave up 6.8 yards per play on defense, with Burrow completing 30 of 39 passes and leading five touchdown drives. That’s the formula for a thrilling watch in October but not a sustainable one if the Ravens hope to play deep into January. Only Humphrey’s terrific read and catch on his interception and Madubuike’s sizzling charge toward Burrow on the last drive of regulation redeemed a defensive performance that would have gone down as disastrous. “It says everything you need to know about character and their ability to get the job done,” Harbaugh said of his defense. “It also says that we have a lot of work to do, and we have to continue to improve. … They made a lot of tight throws. I mean, all those stop throws were well covered in the first half. Then there were times where guys were a little more open than we needed them to be, and that’s something we have to work on. We’re not there with our pass defense yet, but they made the stops when they needed to, to get the win.” Most of the other craziness couldn’t have happened if Justin Tucker had missed The Ravens gave their all-time-great kicker a pleasant respite from his troubles in their 35-10 thrashing of the Bills and through most of the afternoon in Cincinnati. Score touchdowns every time you reach the red zone and you don’t need history’s most reliable leg. But we knew they’d need No. 9 eventually, and his moment came with the game’s tension approaching its peak. Would the “technique issue” Harbaugh described after Tucker missed from 46 yards in Dallas resurface on this most important of tries? Would he hook it left, like he had his previous three misfires? His 56-yard attempt fluttered in the Cincinnati breeze, appearing to start outside the left upright but working its way relentlessly right until it reached dead center, soaring over the crossbar with at least 5 yards to spare. Tucker did not win the game at that moment, but he kept the possibility of a win alive. He was Rembrandt, back in command of his brush. “I would have 5, 10, 20 good kicks in a row, and then one of them, I would let just get away from me,” Tucker explained of his struggles. “I wouldn’t be as technically sound, and it’s not necessarily a discipline thing. It’s not necessarily a physical thing. It just sometimes a feel thing, and while you’re working through it, you hope that you’re continuing to make kicks.” Whether the team’s brain trust would ever put it this way or not, Tucker’s make had to produce immense relief. The last thing they wanted to worry about was fixing (or contemplating the uncertain future of) one of the greatest and most popular players in team history. “Just so proud of Justin,” Harbaugh said. “That’s not an easy kick by any stretch, and he drilled it. You saw later [it was] not an easy kick — there was a lot of wind up there.” Have a news tip? Contact Childs Walker at daviwalker@baltsun.com, 410-332-6893 and x.com/ChildsWalker. View the full article Quote
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