“The next half will dictate how we’re going to do,” Billick would tell them. They would either go out and fight and try to get back into the game, or they would lie down and die. Billick said it wasn’t about winning or losing – it was just the second game of the year. A 1-1 start would not bury a playoff-hopeful team. It was about competing and not quitting.
“I told them that what they do in the second half – win or lose, it doesn’t matter – will define who they are,” he said.
The Ravens got the ball and marched 68 yards down the field in just four plays, scoring on a 23-yard touchdown pass from Banks to rookie wide receiver Travis Taylor just 1:29 into the second half. After Banks hit veteran tight end Ben Coates with a two-point conversion, the lead had been reduced to a manageable, 23-15. After another Hollis field goal of 34 yards – another gut check and victory in the red zone for the Ravens’ vaunted defense – Banks led another impressive 10-play, 76-drive down the field, finally hitting fullback Obafemi Ayanbadejo on a five-yard strike to cut the lead to 26-22 with a full quarter of football remaining.
The fourth quarter would prove to be the most exciting 15 minutes of football in Ravens’ history.
With 10 minutes remaining in the game, Ravens linebacker Jamie Sharper forced and recovered a Stacey Mack fumble on the Jaguars’ 12-yard line. Two plays later, Banks hit wide receiver Jermaine Lewis with a 12-yard touchdown pass to lift the Ravens to a 29-26 lead. Lewis had been on the sidelines the play before receiving an IV for fluid replacement and now was gripping the ball in the end zone.
On the Jags’ following possession, safety Kim Herring intercepted a deflected pass at the 36-yard line, and four plays later Matt Stover hit a 44-yard field goal to push the Ravens ahead 32-26.
Brunell answered with a nine-play, 51-yard drive that stalled at the 31-yard line. Hollis added a 48-yard boot to cut the lead to 32-29 with 3:53 remaining.
Banks couldn’t move the team on the ensuing possession, and after a Kyle Richardson punt, Brunell got the ball on his own 39-yard line with 2:42 left in the fourth quarter.
Just after the two-minute warning, the Jags had the ball on the Ravens’ 40-yard line and history was on their side. Every time Brunell had been in this position – 10 consecutive times since their franchise’s birth in the swamp dating back to the Modells’ days in Cleveland in 1995 – he had found a way to enter the end zone and exact the dagger for the opponent, both the Browns and the Ravens.
This time would be no different. On the first play after the warning, Brunell attempted an eight-yard out for wide receiver Keenan McCardell, just attempting to move the chains and work the clock. Instead, the ball was deflected and popped up into the air and into the hands of teammate Jimmy Smith, who shed a tackling attempt by Duane Starks and ran 40 yards unabated into the end zone to put the Jaguars ahead, 36-32.
With 1:45 remaining in the fourth quarter, the Ravens found themselves in familiar territory against the Jaguars. They were losing again and the crowd, however loyal, sensed doom.
I was watching the gruesome demise yet again from the south sideline, and before the Ravens could get the ball back on the ensuing kickoff, I turned to ESPN broadcaster and former Billick quarterback disciple Sean Salisbury and said, “I don’t think this is Tony Banks’ strong suit. Has he ever led a team 75 yards down the field to win in a two-minute drill?”
Salisbury just shook his head in disbelief. “Well, here’s his chance,” he said.
Billick, meanwhile, had no doubts. He had seen Banks run a two-minute offense during the 1998 season against his Minnesota Vikings at the TWA Dome when the strong-armed quarterback was leading the St. Louis Rams.
“He marched down the field on us and ran out of time on the 1-yard line,” Billick recalled. “Damn near beat us that day, so I knew he could do it. I had faith in him.”
Again that day against the previously indefatigable Jaguars, Banks circled the wagons.
He hit little-used wide receiver Billy Davis on passes of 19 and 15 yards. He used the sidelines properly and avoided needlessly burning timeouts. He hit Ayanbadejo on a 12-yard pass. All of this in just under a minute. The Jaguars defense, fatigued on a warm day, was wilting, but Banks would need to find the elusive end zone this time. A drive that stalled at the foot of victory wouldn’t be good enough.
With 48 seconds remaining and the ball on the 29-yard line, Banks hit Shannon Sharpe on a crossing route near the 10-yard line. Sharpe, moving forward with great inertia, broke three tackles and carried a swath of bodies across the goal line. It was almost like a scene out of a cheesy football movie in Hollywood.
The Ravens took the lead, 39-36. The crowd roared. Sharpe walked to the edge of the end zone and thumped his chest.
“That’s what we brought him here to do,” Billick would say. “It was a forbearer of what we would need in the playoffs.”
It should be pointed out that even though the Ravens would finish the season with a parade and a World Championship, for many fans this would be the zenith of their fandom and their emotion at PSI Net Stadium. It was, without question, the defining moment for personal seat license holders who had been waiting nearly five years for this kind of victory. As Scott Garceau would frequently say on the team’s broadcasts, “The crowd was going Raven wild!”
“All I could think about was that I felt like I was back in college because that crowd was nuts,” fourth-year center Jeff Mitchell told me two weeks later at The Barn on my radio show. Mitchell knew about crazy crowds from his days in the Southeast Conference and playing his home games at The Swamp in Gainesville for the Florida Gators. “And as frustrated as Brunell was, that’s the best feeling in the world. I know it’s just as satisfying for everybody else, but it just took me back. And when they started stomping at the end of that game, I thought the whole thing was going to come down. The stadium was shaking.”
Brunell and the Jaguars would get the ball back with 41 seconds remaining but would not get the miracle of days past. Despite an incredibly gaudy effort from the Jaguars’ offense – a whopping 421 yards in all, including 386 yards by Brunell and one of the greatest single days of receiving in NFL history by Smith (15 catches, 291 yards and three touchdowns) – they would suffer their first defeat at the hands of the Modell franchise.
The Ravens’ defense – and the secondary specifically – was dreadful. But a win is a win.
The Ravens were unbeaten at 2-0 and headed to Miami for a nationally televised game with the Dolphins.
