“It felt like a championship fight that day,” Burnett said. “We were as confident as anyone and the fans sensed that. They knew that we were going to win and that they could help us.”
For Denver, it was the first postseason game they had played since winning Super Bowl XXXIII in Miami two years earlier. After a year hiatus from the playoffs, they came into the game with a seven-game winning streak in January.
The Broncos were playing with second-string quarterback Gus Frerotte, who the Ravens had once tangled up as a Redskin signal caller in 1997, filling in for the injured Brian Griese.
From the first possession, the Ravens’ defense again showed no mercy.
The fans and the swirling wind caused Frerotte to burn two early timeouts and the defense dictated his play.
Frerotte could manage just 177 yards of offense on the day, with 68 of those coming on the Broncos’ only real drive of substance, in the second quarter, which ended with a 31-yard field goal from Jason Elam. It would be as close as the visitors would come to the goal line – they never crossed the 50-yard line again – on New Year’s Eve.
Dilfer (9 of 14 for 130 yards) made good on his promise to win the game via the offense, but it was again the running of Jamal Lewis (30 carries, 110 yards) that was the difference.
“They had nine guys up front on virtually every snap of the game,” Billick would later say of the Denver defense. “We knew they were going to do it, they didn’t hide it and we still ran the ball. Jamal would either bounce off people or make them miss. They just didn’t tackle well. Our offensive line dictated the physical nature of the game.”
Defensively, it was as stiff of a challenge as the Ravens would face all season.
The Broncos entered the game with the NFL’s second-ranked offense, with multiple-game, 100-yard rusher Mike Anderson in the backfield and a pair of Pro Bowl wide receivers in Ed McCaffrey and Rod Smith.
Frerotte was pestered all day by the rush, getting sacked five times, including three by recently snubbed former Pro Bowler, Michael McCrary.
The play that sealed the Broncos’ fate as losers that day came with just over four minutes remaining in the first half, and the Ravens ahead, 7-3.
Dilfer dropped back from his own 42, looking right for a screen pass to Jamal Lewis. In the flat, Lewis bobbled the ball two feet into the air and nearly into the hands of Broncos’ cornerback Terrell Buckley. Instead of a sure interception return for a touchdown, the ball went through Buckley’s hands and landed in the waiting palms of Shannon Sharpe, who began to ramble down the right sidelines – in front of the bench of his former teammates – for 58 yards and a touchdown. Five Broncos defenders had a chance to catch Sharpe, but wide receiver Patrick Johnson laid out safety Billy Jenkins in the secondary and Sharpe waltzed into the end zone untouched.
It appeared to be one of those divinely inspired plays that teams of destiny always seem to have on their path to a championship.
Instead of a 10-7 lead, the Broncos were in the hole, 14-3 at halftime.
Lewis, who had a 1-yard plunge for a touchdown earlier in the second quarter, added a 27-yard touchdown run in the third quarter as the Ravens trounced the Broncos, 21-3, sending themselves on the road to Tennessee for a playoff game on the banks of the Cumberland River the following Sunday.
When the Ravens left the field that day at PSI Net Stadium, it would be their last chance to reach out and touch the home fans of Baltimore.
It was time to put the purple jersey tops on mothballs. If there were to reach their final destination of Tampa and Super Bowl XXXV, the Ravens, wearing those silky white uniforms, would have to be road warriors.
