BALTIMORE — The Ravens tried their best to maintain a singular focus during Sunday’s 27-13 win over the New York Giants, but tight end Mark Andrews had to be honest.
They couldn’t help but keep an eye on how Cleveland and Indianapolis were faring, needing a loss from only one to propel Baltimore into the AFC playoff field with a week to go in the regular season. By 4:15 p.m., the Ravens were all smiles with both wild-card contenders going down to provide the help that had eluded them in previous weeks.
“Man, I was watching the [out-of-town] scoreboard probably the whole game. ‘Oh, I’m just checking on it,’” said Andrews as he smiled. “But I checked my phone after, and people were talking about it. Obviously, that’s good for us. Hopefully, we take advantage of that.”
Dropping a 13-play, 82-yard hammer on the opening drive afforded the opportunity to soon multitask as the Ravens possessed the ball for more than eight minutes to begin the game. Baltimore ran nine times for 41 yards, Lamar Jackson completed his first three passes for first downs, and Marquise Brown caught the fourth for a 6-yard touchdown and a 7-0 lead.
It was that easy and an emphatic message that the Giants were going to be in for a long day.
“It was important. I know they have a good defense. They’re well-coached. They have a plan,” head coach John Harbaugh said. “For us to be able to take the ball down the field, really what it was was execution — just very good execution. We completed some big passes. Lamar was really on point. Guys made plays throughout the game.”
After the defense forced a three-and-out, the offensive dominance continued on the second drive as 54 rushing yards led to a touchdown and another five-plus minutes of ball control. The Ravens had a 14-0 advantage before the overwhelmed Giants had even collected their first first down of the afternoon.
The first quarter was all but over with Baltimore possessing the ball for more than 13 minutes. It might as well have been the game right there as the Ravens continue to rediscover that 2019-like aura in which opponents must start fast if they want to have any shot.
“If we get [Jackson] the ball back, their defense had just been on the field for eight minutes,” said outside linebacker Matthew Judon about the impact of that opening touchdown drive. “They don’t want to see their offense go three-and-out and our offense go right back out there. The style that our offense runs is downhill.
“That was supposed to be a physical team, and we just leaned on them.”
New York entered Week 16 with the NFL’s sixth-ranked rush defense after holding the run-heavy Browns to just 3.5 yards per carry last Sunday, but the Ravens ran for 249 yards — the third time they’ve rushed for at least 230 yards in the last four contests — and averaged an impressive 6.2 yards per carry. Jackson, Gus Edwards, and J.K. Dobbins each rushed for over 75 yards as the Giants had no answers for the edge runs that have become the staple of Greg Roman’s revamped ground game.
Gashing below-average defenses like Dallas, Cleveland, and Jacksonville is one thing, but running the ball at will against the Giants illustrated how this offense is firing at the right time. That dynamic rushing attack and a stabilized offensive line have led to more passing lanes for Jackson, who’s produced at least a 101.8 passer rating in each of his four games since returning from the reserve-COVID-19 list. The 23-year-old continues to look more and more like the 2019 league MVP every week, which bodes very well for a team that entered the season as a Super Bowl favorite rivaling defending champion Kansas City.
Of course, the Ravens haven’t yet punched their ticket for the playoffs as an AFC North trip to Cincinnati remains. In case the 4-10-1 Bengals upsetting Pittsburgh last week and registering their first road victory of the season at Houston on Sunday weren’t enough, the excruciating memory of the 2017 finale and “fourth-and-12” should have the Ravens on high alert.
That team entered the season finale with an estimated 97-percent chance of securing a playoff berth before Tyler Boyd’s 49-yard touchdown catch and wins by Buffalo and Tennessee sent the Ravens home in shocking fashion. Several football analytics outlets have the current Ravens’ postseason odds hovering around 90 percent as they need only a road win over the Bengals or a loss from Cleveland or Indianapolis next Sunday to qualify for the expanded seven-team field.
That unfinished business is why the Ravens don’t want to read too much into a December renaissance that’s catapulted them back into the Super Bowl contender conversation after their chances appeared all but finished less than a month ago.
“I don’t want to start overthinking,” said Jackson, who’s thrown for eight touchdowns and rushed for four over the last four games. “I just want to keep the laser sharp focus we have going right now and just focus on the task at hand. We don’t want to [say], ‘Oh yes, we’re doing this right. We’re doing this wrong.’
“Just keep building. Just keep stacking wins.”
In the same way the Ravens were peeking at the out-of-town scoreboard on Sunday, the rest of the AFC playoff field is surely taking notice of their December awakening. And very likely hoping to avoid them come January.
