MIKE BURKE Allegany Radio Sports
Ravens, Lamar roll on as latest new thing; the defense is kind of a thing, too
Right now, the best professional football team in America works and plays in Maryland, and we‘ll spare ourselves any cracks about the one that trains and headquarters in Virginia, plays in Maryland, but calls itself Washington.
The Baltimore Ravens have won nine in a row and are on top of the AFC playoffs standings, the AFC North, every power ranking that every person with a computer has compiled and have even been mentioned at the Vatican, as Pope Francis was recently gifted a Lamar Jackson jersey by visiting members of the Baltimore Archdiocese.
So now that the Vatican is covered (and what supreme pontiff wouldn’t want to rock the No. 8?), unless you have been living under a rock yourself, you have no doubt heard the name of super freak (in a good way) quarterback Lamar Jackson ringing in the air almost since the opening kickoff of the NFL season. And, as he has all season, Jackson delivered for the Ravens in Sunday’s 24-17 win over the Buffalo Bills with a performance that wasn’t nearly his best of the year, but gains high quality points when you consider it came against a high-quality Buffalo defense.
Jackson completed 16 of 25 passes for 145 yards and three touchdowns, with one interception — his first thrown pick in eight weeks. He also rushed for 40 yards to become just the second quarterback to gain over 1,000 yards in a season, leaving him 23 yards short of the NFL record 1,039 set by Michael Vick in 2006.
For the second straight week (San Francisco last week), Jackson had difficulty completing passes down field against a stingy defense, although the play that began to separate the Ravens from the Bills was a 61-yard TD to tight end Hayden Hurst in the third quarter that increased Baltimore’s lead to 17-6.
Even when he seems to be contained, and even when he is victimized by drops, which Ravens tight ends committed early on Sunday, Jackson finds ways to make plays, particularly on the run-pass option as witnessed by the 3-yard flip he made to Nick Boyle for the Ravens’ first TD on Sunday.
The same, however, could not be said for Buffalo quarterback Josh Allen, who was treated as rudely by the Ravens defense as some guy from the old neighborhood nobody liked growing up would have been.
Allen, the No. 7 overall pick out of Wyoming in the 2018 NFL draft (Jackson was No. 32) completed 17 of 39 passes for 146 yards and a touchdown. Yet he missed open receivers down field for much of the day. Had he been more accurate, the Bills might have been able to get off to an early lead.
Though in fairness to Allen, the Bills could not handle the Baltimore defensive front, nor did it appear they could figure out what to do to contain it. The Ravens went after Allen like he owed them money and sacked him six times, registering 12 quarterback hits on the day in keeping him constantly under siege. And as Jackson battled to find results against the Buffalo defense, the Ravens pressure and the late play of defensive backs Marlon Humphrey, Jimmy Smith and Marcus Peters pushed Baltimore to the top of the AFC playoff standings.
It was Peters, in fact, who made the play at the end, batting the ball away from Bills receiver John Brown at the Baltimore 2 when the Ravens sent a “zero” blitz on fourth-and-eight from the 16.
The Ravens have now won nine in a row, which in itself is impressive. Yet consider seven of those nine wins have come against a Murders Row stretch of opponents: at Pittsburgh, at Seattle, home over New England and Houston, at Los Angeles over the Rams, home over San Francisco and at Buffalo.
That’s saying something, and so, too, is Baltimore being a perfect 4-0 against what is generally considered to be the best division in the NFL, the NFC West.
The win over Buffalo clinched another playoff spot for John Harbaugh’s team and, technically, a tie for the AFC North title. That title can be sealed on Thursday night when the Ravens host the New York Jets. Lamar Jackson is deserving of every accolade he has received, and he has seemingly been receiving them every week. He and running back Mark Ingram have been at the heart of a refreshing run-first offense that provides a mixture of old-school ball control and new-wave college, as the club has even sported an all-Heisman backfield (Jackson, Ingram and Robert Griffin III).
But what goes hand-in-hand with a ball-control offense is a nasty defense. And while it’s not your father’s Ravens’ defense with Ray Lewis in the middle of it, and while it is anything but a finesse defense, this Ravens defense grabs your notice with its overall team speed and ferocity.
This unit seems to play with a fast anger. And it certainly appeared Josh Allen had done something to get on its wrong side on Sunday.
Mike Burke writes about sports for Allegany Radio and Pikewood Digital. Contact him at [email protected] or on Twitter @MikeBurkeMDT.