“This will be a great wake-up call,” cornerback Marlon Humphrey said. “There will be so many different things to look at.”
Thursday, November 11, 2021. No one will equate playing a child’s game for an exorbitant salary to the sacrifices made by our nation’s military. But the correlation between our troops’ toughness and heart and the ability to play and watch a mere football game is easy to make.
For only the fourth time in 26 seasons, the Baltimore Ravens played a game on Veterans’ Day, one that naturally falls in the middle of the NFL’s Salute To Service month observance; the Ravens previously played on November 11 in 2007, 2010, and 2012, losing the first two of those games. But just as the freedoms that govern our country allow us to live our lives in a relatively unencumbered fashion, the slumping Miami Dolphins probably felt freer and more secure with themselves than at any time this season after Thursday night’s 22-10 upset win over the Ravens before 65,948 Hard Rock Stadium fans.
Ironically, it was the third time in Ravens franchise history the team had played in a prime-time game that ended with that very same uncommon score. The Ravens lost a Saturday-night game in Tampa Bay in 2001 and won another Saturday game in Los Angeles in 2018 against the Chargers; both games also ended 22-10.
As Miami won a second straight game to go to 3-7, the Ravens (6-3) were denied a chance to raise their record to 7-2 for only the fourth time in team history. Baltimore began with 9-2 records in 2006 and 2012 and also reached 7-2 while ripping off a club-record 12-game winning streak in 2019 after starting 2-2.
Indeed, many observers predicted the same kind of stem-to-stern walloping the Ravens handed out in Week Six (October 17) in a home win over the offensively-potent Los Angeles Chargers. The latter famously flew into Baltimore late on Saturday and appeared to be sleepwalking through the game. Despite that, it was still up to the Ravens to execute a game plan, and they did to the point where the Chargers were never in the game. The same was anticipated to be true against Miami, a team against which the Ravens have now won four straight by a combined score of 137-16.
But the Dolphins flooded the line of scrimmage. They played man-up Cover Zero in the back end, completely overmatching the Ravens’ offensive line, not allowing short passes as Minnesota did last week, and using solid back-end coverage to shut down longer throws.
As usual, head coach John Harbaugh made himself accountable, not willing to single out any of his players. “They’re blitzing us, and we just didn’t handle it,” he said. “We just played poorly, and it starts with me.”
Not only that, the Dolphins’ defensive backs blitzed the Ravens more than any opponent had this season. And despite having nearly 32 minutes’ worth of possession time, the Ravens were a paltry 2-for-14 on third-down plays and had to punt eight times. Baltimore allowed four sacks of quarterback Lamar Jackson, who led the team with an anemic total of 39 rush yards, playing to a below-average 73.5 passer rating.
Meanwhile, Miami did little better statistically, going 3-for-13 with eight punts. But it got big plays at the right time against a Baltimore defense that has shown a propensity for allowing them. Wideout Isaiah Ford hauled in a 52-yard catch to set up an early Dolphins field goal, one of six plays of 50 or more yards the Ravens have allowed over their last three games as coverage busts and poor tackling continue to inflict fatal wounds on this team.
Even the good plays the Ravens made had consequences. Justin Houston’s 100th career sack (the 37th player in NFL history to reach that milestone) forced the Dolphins to bring in Tua Tagovailoa, who promptly moved the hosts’ offense much more efficiently than Jacoby Brissett, whose knee was hurt on Houston’s milestone sack.
Early in the third, Tagovailoa found rookie wideout Jaylen Waddle for a 35-yard catch that set up a field goal that pushed Miami’s lead in this unwatchable contest to 9-3. Later, he found Albert Wilson for 64 yards to set up his one-yard plunge that put the game away.
The Ravens did show a few glimpses of their newly-found comeback ability, driving 99 yards in nine plays – a franchise record that can only be tied – with the help of two roughing-the-passer calls and a defensive holding penalty. Jackson’s five-yard touchdown pass to Mark Andrews brought Baltimore within 15-10 in the fourth quarter.
Andrews has the league’s longest current streak of 19 straight games with three or more caches; he had 63 yards on six catches. Rookie Rashad Bateman and Marquise Brown also had a half-dozen catches each. But even with the Ravens’ entire wideout corps together for the first time, it didn’t seem to help. The injured prodigal son, Sammy Watkins, had missed the last three games, but All-Pro corner Xavien Howard stripped him of the ball, picked it up, and ran 49 yards for a touchdown that gave the Dolphins the working margin they needed.
It was a night where so much went wrong. Kicker Justin Tucker even found himself hanging his head after a 48-yard field-goal miss went wide right, snapping a string of 14 straight successful attempts. It was only his second miss of the season.
The Ravens were going for their seventh win in their last eight Thursday-night prime-time games. The loss also came during Baltimore’s fourth of five under-the-lights appearances of the year, even though late-season, late-afternoon games often start after the seasonally early sundown.
Even though the Ravens have put themselves through some high-wire acts this year against less-than-stellar teams, they haven’t always stayed steady on the tightrope. The defeat at Miami was only their second in their last 17 games against teams with losing records at kickoff. It was also Baltimore’s fifth road loss in their last 20 games away from Charm City.
The Ravens now have a ten-day mini-bye but will head back on the road to Chicago to take on the Bears (Sunday, November 21, 1 p.m. It is also one of two games the Ravens will play this year against teams coming out of their bye week; the second game against Cleveland will be the other.
Thursday’s game could very well have been a continuation of the Ravens’ just-concluded stretch of four home games in five weeks, one in which Baltimore won three of those games, falling only to Cincinnati just before the bye. But by the time the Dolphins’ perfectly-executed game plan made the Ravens look foolish, the game had been decided. It would not be the Ravens once again planting their flag in the South Florida soil to claim it as their own.
As any veteran will tell you, not every battle can be won, not even those in which you may have expected to triumph.
