As much as the win changed the career path of Dilfer – 12 weeks later he would be a Super Bowl Champion quarterback – it changed the course of a budding rivalry between Baltimore and Tennessee.
In the postgame celebration and speech in the Adelphia Coliseum locker room, Billick ripped out that week’s Sports Illustrated and paraded it not only in front of his players, but also in front of the NFL Films cameras.
“The streak is down,” Billick began, holding up the front of the magazine for all to see. “I got a cover of Sports Illustrated here. It says the Titans are the NFL’s best team. Maybe they are. But not today.”
Billick would later regret that speech, if only because of how public it became later in the postseason. But there’s no doubt that the seeds of a rivalry were planted in the Adelphia Coliseum turf that afternoon.
“It not a rivalry when one team is in the playoffs and winning and the other keeps losing,” Billick said. “This involved the players, the teams, the fans, everyone. Now we proved we could challenge them and the temperament changes after that.”
Emotions were high after the win and Billick had to continue to keep the team and the fans focused on the task at hand.
The Dallas Cowboys – the most storied football team in America – would come limping into PSI Net Stadium the following week for a nationally televised game with a 4-6 record but a reputation that would not be diminished by a poor season.
For the fans of Baltimore, it was their first – and maybe last – chance to see Troy Aikman and Emmitt Smith, the stars of Super Bowl past, who never played in Charm City once the Colts were snatched by Indianapolis. Despite trips every year for more than a decade into nearby Washington and Philadelphia, out on the street, it was a very difficult ticket.
The Ravens, led again by the defense, absolutely jumped Aikman and the ’Boys.
Dallas managed just nine first downs on the day and 192 yards of total offense in a 27-0 drubbing. The coin flip decided the game, as Dilfer marched the team 81 yards on the first drive and the Ravens never looked back.
Dilfer had his best game as a Raven, an efficient 18 of 24 passing with 242 yards and two touchdowns. Meanwhile, an aging Aikman threw three interceptions and the Ravens’ defense had yet another shutout to add to its portfolio, its fourth, moving them one short of the 1976 Pittsburgh Steelers’ record of five.
Meanwhile, the once-starving offense was having so much fun that Dilfer lightened up one huddle on third down, daring the rest of the guys to find the end zone with a bet.
“The game was already won but we wanted, as an offense, to prove we could get into the end zone,” guard Mike Flynn said. “Dilfer came back into the huddle and said if we got the touchdown on that play that he’d take us all out to Ruth’s Chris (Steakhouse) for dinner. Not that we needed extra inspiration – we were gonna bust our asses anyway – but it was stuff like that that made it fun for us. We were all walking up to the line talking about that steak dinner.”
On the next play, Priest Holmes hit a hole the size of Montana and pushed into “the house” with a 5-yard touchdown run, capping off the scoring.
After the game, Billick spoke of his respect for the Cowboys and their tradition and their karma.
“They have the heart of a champion and anytime you beat a champion you take a little piece of that for yourself,” Billick said.
With the Browns, Chargers, Cardinals and Jets looming, it was also the last chance for the entire nation to see the mettle of the Baltimore Ravens. It was a chance to show off.
So anonymous was the defense and its players at that point, that when Fox’s No. 1 broadcasting team of John Madden and Pat Summerall came to town, they made a myriad of errors in names, players, numbers – even teams. The word “Colts” was actually thrown around on the telecast.
Madden and Summerall came to Baltimore clueless about the Ravens. They left town believing they had just seen the most dominant defense in the NFL.
Obviously word got out to Cleveland, because when the Browns came to town the following weekend, on Nov. 26, the goal wasn’t to win, it was merely to score and survive.
By now the Browns were a beaten bunch of football players. Entering the game at 3-9 and losers of eight of their last nine, they had already lost their best player, quarterback Tim Couch for the season to an injury. Their chances of winning with either Doug Pederson or Spergon Wynn at the helm against an aggressive, dominating defense were almost nonexistent.
The Ravens began the first baby steps of becoming one of the great trash talking teams of all time that week, smelling a shutout that would allow them to have five shutouts in 13 games, effectively erasing the Steel Curtain’s 14-game standard from 1976. It would also, with three games remaining, give them a chance to perhaps have six or maybe seven, given the set of weak upcoming opponents. Many players started counting the shutouts out loud for the media all week long.
The quotes obviously hit the bulletin board back in Berea, Ohio, where the Browns trained.
The Browns came out a very determined team, playing for their own pride as well as for their community that still despised everything about Art Modell and the Baltimore Ravens.
The Ravens’ defense, it was shown early that afternoon, had obviously been caught up in their own press clippings.
The Browns, led by Pederson, came out of the box and punched the Ravens in the mouth. On their first possession they marched 86 yards in just four plays, landing in the end zone on a four-yard run by Travis Prentice.
Just 4:30 into the game, the Ravens were down 7-0 and the shutout hopes were gone.
“This was our best shot to set the record and we just had a series of poor tackling and misalignments,” Billick said. “They got after our defense pretty good.”
Worse than that, the Browns began returning the favor, trash talking the defensive line as kicker Phil Dawson was setting up to kick the extra point.
“They started talking shit real good,” said defensive end Rob Burnett. “They were saying, ‘You’re not going to shut us out today.You’re not getting the record against us.’ I couldn’t believe it. I told them they better enjoy that touchdown because that’s all they’re getting today.
“At that point it was pretty obvious that they weren’t interested in winning,” Burnett continued. “All they cared about was not getting shut out. Getting seven points was a victory for them. They were more worried about getting embarrassed by not scoring. I was like, ‘Are you kidding me?’ What a bad attitude.”
Billick didn’t need to undress the defense as they left the field, down 7-0. All he needed was one glance.
“Every one of those guys walked off the field and I could see the look in their eyes,” Billick said. “It was a look that told me and everyone else, ‘Don’t screw with us!’ They were pissed! As it turned out, (scoring on them) was the worst thing (the Browns) could’ve done.”
Indeed.
Over the remaining 55:30 of regulation, the Browns gained exactly two first downs and 26 yards of total offense. They punted 10 times, were sacked six times, fumbled twice and added an interception for good measure. It was, quite simply, among the most impressive defensive efforts of all time.
