“I’m not becoming a run guru, but our profile right now is that we can run the ball pretty well and play good defense,” Billick said at the time. “We’ll take this defense, but my pedigree on offense is the pass. From BYU to the 49ers, to San Diego State to Utah State, and most of my years with the Vikings, I’ve favored the pass – and I still do. If I could, I’d pass every play, but that’s not practical and that’s not what we do best at the moment. However, if we’re going to win big this season, we’ll need more ‘explosives’ of offense.”
Just 53 seconds into the second quarter in Cincinnati, the Ravens got blessed relief, a touchdown reception by lightly-used wide receiver Brandon Stokley. Dilfer dropped back to pass from the 14-yard line, hit Stokley at the 11 and the youngster from Louisiana raced past cornerback Rodney Heath into the corner of the end zone. The Ravens’ broadcast team called it “going where no Raven has gone for 21 quarters.”
Ravens’ guard Edwin Mulitalo said, “I didn’t care if it was a Cincinnati dude down there, I was picking up somebody to celebrate.”
One small step for Stokley, one giant leap for the Ravens’ offense and its morale.
“I don’t even like that play,” Billick would later say. “But Matt (Cavanaugh) has a lot of faith in it. That play takes so long to develop and if anything goes wrong there and we take a hit, we could get knocked out of field-goal range. But it worked. We’re geniuses!”
Perhaps the real genius was re-instituting Stokley into the framework of the offense.
Upon his arrival in 1999, Stokley was anticipated to be the Ravens’ answer to Wayne Chrebet. A skinny, white kid at wide receiver with deceptive speed and sure hands, he was catching everything during training camp and into the regular season. He actually caught the first touchdown pass of the Billick era in Baltimore against St. Louis on Sept. 12, 1999. It was the only pass he caught that season, as six weeks later he suffered a dislocated shoulder and was out for the remainder of the year.
Stokley returned for training camp in 2000 and really struggled with his confidence and his ability to hold onto the ball, which was his greatest asset coming out of Southwestern Louisiana, where his father Nelson, was the head coach.
“I love that kid,” Billick would later say. “He had to calm down a little because he was pressing too hard early in the year. He’s the son of a coach and he understands the game. He’s sat at the dinner table and talked football and he understands the pressure and he’s lived with it. That kid was a gym rat – I’ll bet he had the key to every gym at every school he’s ever been at.”
But Stokley, while in no danger of getting cut in training camp, had to get his confidence back in 2000 and the catch in Cincinnati that ended the Ravens’ slump was what the doctor ordered.
“We took a leap of faith with the kid,” Billick said. “(Wide receivers coach) Milt (Jackson) and Matt (Cavanaugh) absolutely love the kid. I kept getting after them in training camp saying, ‘When is the kid going to finally show up?’ He looked good in practice and worked hard, so we put him in there, and Matt called that horrible play and it all works out.”
Dilfer wound up throwing two more touchdown passes that day in Cincinnati – one after a near sack and incredible scramble out of the pocket – both to Shannon Sharpe for 18 and 19 yards, respectively.
Not coincidentally, it was Sharpe who took on a greater role of leadership that week, when the team was at its lowest ebb. Sharpe was the team’s media spokesman and constant conscience in the clubhouse, always critical in a fair way but always encouraging the team and the offense that it could score and it could win.
“You can’t find a player like that in the league right now,” said offensive tackle Spencer Folau. “Shannon has proven it year after year in the league with his work ethic. When he talks, you listen. Even the coaches listen. You know he’s got the two rings and he knows what it takes. He was a real force for us during the slump and especially the week before Cincinnati.”
Sharpe, as usual, was very blunt with the media in regard to the team’s extended scoring dry spell.
“We’re obviously not doing enough,” Sharpe said that week about the three-game skid and the five-week touchdown drought. “We lack consistency for the moment. You learn more from a loss, and we have to learn this week. We’re not a very good offense right now. But, we do have the talent. We have the ingredients to be good, but the cake is not ready yet. We all need to be better, and I’ll start with me.”
His former teammate in Denver and current linemate in Baltimore, Harry Swayne, also stepped up to find a mirror for the blame.
“It’s like a hex on us,” Swayne said at the time. “It’s like spirits come down to spook us. They say, ‘Not today.’ It’s almost like it’s unbelievable. We know we can get to the red zone. When we get there, it’s like ‘What could keep us out this time? Most of the time, it’s us.”
But it – “The Drought,” “The Slump,” “The Dust Bowl” as referred to by owner Art Modell – was finally over.
The Ravens cruised to an easy 27-7 win as the defense again exerted its will on the Bengals, allowing just one score on a six-play, 15-yard drive that was set up by a 27-yard punt return from Craig Yeast. All told, the Bengals managed just 11 first downs and 174 yards of offense.
This is the part of the story where if Brian Billick were reading you this book aloud, he would stop you and say:
“Incidentally, we didn’t lose again.”
