OWINGS MILLS, Md. — Every week, a TV mounted at the entrance of the locker room at the Ravens’ training facility shows old games between Baltimore and the upcoming opponent.
It’s usually little more than a decorative footnote for anyone who enters, but the 2011 matchup that played during Wednesday’s media availability should serve as a lesson for a 5-2 team receiving high praise after its most dominant victory of the season and preparing to face a 1-6 Arizona team going nowhere fast.
Twelve years ago, the 4-2 Ravens were on their way to a division championship and an AFC title game appearance as the 1-5 Cardinals traveled across country to M&T Bank Stadium for a 1 p.m. kickoff. Though Baltimore would win 30-27 on a Billy Cundiff field goal as time expired, the final score only told part of the story as Arizona took advantage of two turnovers and a special-teams lapse to jump out to a 24-3 lead in the second quarter. Order was eventually restored in the second half, but it’s another reminder that anything can happen in the NFL — even when you’re riding high and clearly the better team.
Of course, these Ravens faced that reality in an overtime home loss to Indianapolis that followed the impressive Week 2 win in Cincinnati last month. It happened again in Pittsburgh in Week 5 as Baltimore failed to build on its 28-3 blowout victory in Cleveland the previous Sunday.
“The thing about a one-win team [is] they’re hungry for that second win,” said cornerback Marlon Humphrey about the dangers of a letdown. “They’re going to come out [and] play hard. We just have to play a little bit harder.”
On paper, the Cardinals are at least a couple steps down from the Steelers and Colts, but don’t tell that to the Dallas Cowboys, who fell 28-16 in Week 3 after looking dominant in their own right over the first couple games of the season. Still, Arizona has been moving in the wrong direction ever since that upset win, losing each of its last four games by two or more scores and a combined 60 points.
In the same way they weren’t buying the hype surrounding the upstart Detroit Lions last week, the Ravens need only to focus on the task at hand, which is stacking on their most convincing win of the year and not reveling in being anointed one of the NFL’s elite teams by many. After all, it was only a week ago that we were questioning the identity of this offense after Baltimore went a combined 2-for-9 inside the red zone against Pittsburgh and Tennessee.
With a long way to go in the 2023 season, you’re still only as good as your next game, no matter how much fun the previous one might have been.
“That feeling was incredible, but we know the type of league that this is,” tight end Mark Andrews said. “It’s any given Sunday, so every game’s different. It’s not going to feel the same as it did last week, but if we go out there and do our job and continue to get better, we’re going to become the team that we need to be.”
Still room for offensive improvement
Any coach will tell you a team is never as great as it looks in a lopsided victory or as bad as it looks in a blowout defeat, so why did Hall of Fame quarterback and NFL analyst Kurt Warner ruffle so many purple fans’ feathers earlier this week?
While offering praise for superstar quarterback Lamar Jackson “making up for it” with his sensational play that earned him AFC Defensive Player of the Week honors, Warner said he still saw a passing offense that was “disjointed” and “clunky” against the Lions. He expanded on that criticism with a video breaking down spacing and timing issues that continued to show up against the Detroit defense.
Offensive coordinator Todd Monken and the Ravens probably can’t bank on Jackson staying this hot against pressure in the pocket — even September was a different story in that department — and will need to tighten up the overall passing operation, but this past Sunday was a reminder of how much a quarterback playing at an elite level makes up for imperfections. The reality that there’s still much room for improvement should be a positive for a team that just scored a season-high 38 points against a quality opponent.
Having an MVP-caliber quarterback goes a long way.
Statistical shades of 2000?
The seven touchdowns allowed by Baltimore — six by the defense — tie the 2000 Super Bowl team for the fewest allowed through seven games in franchise history.
The league’s top-ranked scoring defense has allowed a touchdown on just 7.5% of opponents’ drives and just 1.1 points per drive, best in the NFL in both categories.
And for those quick to point out that the Ravens haven’t exactly played the most intimidating slate of quarterbacks thus far, the 2000 defense faced Kent Graham, Mark Brunell (twice), Jay Fielder, Scott Mitchell, Tim Couch, and Brad Johnson through seven games. That historic defense pitched three shutouts over that stretch.
It’s a much different NFL from 23 years ago, of course, but Mike Macdonald’s defense has been doing some special things.
