Baltimore takes a seesaw battle in OT, 37-31.
M&T BANK STADIUM, BALTIMORE, Sunday, December 10, 2023. As any sick person will tell you, the right prescription will make you better quickly. The NFL bye week, a concept launched in 1990 and reconfigured a few times since, is meant to be the perfect tonic for teams that need to get healthy or merely relax before taking on the season’s next set of challenges.
For the Ravens, their medical insurance plan provided incredible value Sunday, even as they risked catching plenty of colds in Sunday’s rain-soaked, rollercoaster-driven 37-31 overtime victory over the visiting Los Angeles Rams in Baltimore’s annual post-bye game in front of 70,492 fans.
Eerily, the score was the same as a 1996 overtime game at Memorial Stadium that ended with ten seconds left on a Vinny Testaverde touchdown pass to Michael Jackson against the then-St. Louis Rams, also by a 37-31 score.
This year’s Ravens (10-3) weren’t really ailing that much to begin with; they are now winners of three straight and seven of their last eight games. Sunday’s victory also clinched a 14th season of double-digit wins, taking up half of their 28-season existence. It is also the fifth such season in the last six years. But the team turned in a rather uneven effort, with the win serving as a tribute to persevering against a pesky opponent in the Rams. Two ties and seven lead changes punctuated what had to be one of the NFL’s best games of the year.
The Raven’s offense, which had been inconsistent all day, finally clicked as Lamar Jackson directed a 13-play, 75-yard drive, culminating in a 21-yard touchdown pass to Zay Flowers with 1:16 to go. Flowers also caught a two-point conversion pass to boost the lead to three. But Matthew Stafford drove the Rams downfield to set up Lucas Havrisik’s 36-yard game-tying field goal that sent the game to an extra session.
It was the Ravens’ second extra session of the year, both at home. They lost in September to Indianapolis, 22-19, for a ninth defeat in their last 13 overtime games before Sunday. On Sunday, overtime began with an exchange of punts before Wallace avoided several tackles along the left sideline in front of the Ravens bench to put the game away at the 7:42 mark. He was in the game only because regular returner Devin Duvernay had been hurt earlier.
The win provided a list of distinctions in the Ravens’ history. The pre-bye win over the Los Angeles Chargers, the Ravens’ ninth of the current season, already clinched the franchise’s 17th above-.500 finish. The team also continues to move closer to its 15th postseason berth, as opposed to 13 seasons that saw them sit out the playoffs. Baltimore is also holding a wider AFC North Division lead than they did before the bye week due to losses by teams below them. The Ravens were returning from an idle period that was scheduled in December for the first time since Baltimore had back-to-back scheduled December off-weeks in 2000 and 2001. In the latter season, the Ravens and all NFL teams were forced to take Week Two off due to the league’s postponement of that entire week of games after the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Those games were moved to the first week of January, one week after the regular season had been scheduled to be completed.
The Ravens returned from the 2000 bye to wallop the then-San Diego Chargers at home and clinch their first-ever playoff berth on the way to the team’s first of two Super Bowl titles.
When the Ravens were first launched in 1996, they were aligned – for the sake of continuity, having taken Cleveland’s spot – in the old AFC Central Division with the Jaguars, playing them twice a year from 1996-2001 and losing their first eight consecutive meetings to a Jags franchise that went to four straight postseasons over the same period. The present-day AFC North was created – with the Ravens and Jaguars separated, the latter moved to the new AFC South – as part of the 2002 realignment when the expansion Houston Texans joined the NFL, bringing the league to its current 32-team lineup.
Sunday’s game against Los Angeles was on this year’s schedule partially because of a scheduling oddity, in that Baltimore was the second of three teams coming off its bye to play the Rams this year; Washington and Dallas are the others, and the Rams take on the Commanders at home next week. What also couldn’t have helped the Rams was the stormy East Coast weather system that went through the area and playing in the 1 p.m. (ET) window, which is tough on a West Coast-based body clock.
However, it is fair to point out that Los Angeles is one team that has managed to prosper despite those disadvantages, going 14-5 and winning six of its last eight on the East Coast under head coach Sean McVay. That stretch includes a one-point win in Baltimore three years ago, 20-19 when a late Ravens two-point conversion try was unsuccessful.
Sunday’s result was the Ravens’ fifth win in their last six meetings with the Rams, and it gives Baltimore a 6-3 lifetime advantage over a franchise that used to be part of the long-ago Western Conference alongside the Baltimore Colts. These days, NFC teams in Baltimore generally have a rough time in Charm City; Seattle and Detroit can testify to that, as each was demolished by the Ravens earlier this season.
Jackson is now 19-1 for his career against the other conference, with a five-touchdown pass road effort against the Rams in his 2019 Most Valuable Player Season on his resume. Jackson has also upped his December/January regular-season record to 15-3. Yet another factor: the Ravens franchise has historically had a great deal of post-bye success.
Following bye weeks, the Ravens are now on a three-game winning streak and have taken seven of their last eight post-bye games, losing in that stretch only in 2020, when they fell to the Pittsburgh Steelers at home. Under head coach John Harbaugh, the Ravens are now 13-3 coming out of the off-week, the fourth-best among active coaches with at least four such games, trailing only Buffalo’s Sean McDermott, Tennessee’s Mike Vrabel and Kansas City’s Andy Reid. In the team’s entire history, Baltimore is 20-8 in its first game after a scheduled bye. Those records don’t include two unscheduled byes, the aforementioned 2001 bye because of 9/11 and the one that took place seven years later, the Ravens saw their Week Two game at Houston wiped out due to Hurricane Ike. That forced them to take an early bye – playing the game against the Texans on their previously scheduled November off-week – and play 18 consecutive weeks, a streak that ended with an AFC Championship Game loss at Pittsburgh.
That stretch was just as strenuous as Sunday’s game against the visiting Rams (6-7), a Super Bowl-winning team two seasons ago with potent skill-position talent on offense but one that still saw its three-game post-bye winning streak snapped.
A little-known fact coming into the game was that Stafford had not played in rainy conditions in six years due to his playing for the indoor-based Detroit Lions and in the mostly sunny locale that is the Rams’ home. In his lifetime, he had only played six rainy-day games before Sunday, losing in five of them while throwing ten touchdown passes and 12 interceptions. As a counter-argument, Stafford, bolstered by a healthy run game, had only been sacked once during the Rams’ three-game win streak, but the Ravens’ NFL-best pass rush (47 sacks coming into Sunday) got to him twice and pressured him numerous times. To deal with that, Stafford leaned on running back Kyren Williams right from the start, a good move considering he has a career-high ten scrimmage touchdowns this season.
That started an entertaining first half that saw four lead changes, marred by four Baltimore defensive penalties. That gave the Rams a decided first-half rushing advantage (85-37) and two-thirds of the possession time. Those numbers manifested themselves early; the Rams handed Williams the ball on four straight runs that gained 28 yards into Ravens territory. The drive was further assisted by a face-mask call by Ravens rookie Tavius Robinson that set up the visitors on the Baltimore 20.
All told, nine straight run plays – the first time the Rams had started a game like that in 19 years – put the ball at the 9, but from there, three straight passes, including one to standout rookie Puka Nacua in the end zone, fell incomplete. Havrisik, a slumping kicker who had missed two field goals and a conversion in recent weeks, got the game’s first points with a 27-yard field goal to cap a six-minute, 13-play drive.
Justin Madabuike did manage to take down Stafford on the Rams’ next drive for his 11th sack of the year and his franchise-record tenth straight game with at least a half-sack. He is the first Raven since Terrell Suggs in 2017 to have a double-digit sack season.
The offense picked up on that momentum thanks to speedy rookie running back Keaton Mitchell, who broke through for two good runs to the Baltimore 46. From there, a play-action fake to Mitchell led to tight end Isaiah Likely being wide open on the left sideline and gathering in Lamar Jackson’s pass for a 54-yard touchdown – Likely’s first of the year – that put the home team in front late in the first quarter, 7-3.
It gave Baltimore a first-quarter point differential in 2023 of plus-68, which leads the league. The defense has allowed just 25 points in the opening frame this season. But that same defense committed another major penalty as the second period began, which would cost the Ravens dearly.
Safety Marcus Williams was flagged for roughness on ex-Ravens receiver Marcus Robinson, putting the ball in Ravens territory. Veteran standout Cooper Kupp – who has had under 50 receiving yards in six straight games – then got wide open and took a Stafford pass 27 yards to the 3. On third-and-goal, Kupp got free from Williams and gathered in a six-yard Stafford touchdown pass in the corner of the east end zone to restore the Rams’ three-point advantage.
The Ravens answered right back with a five-play, 75-yard drive that included a Zay Flowers catch – adding to his franchise rookie record – that picked up a first down near midfield and a subsequent 54-yard strike into the west end zone to wide-open ex-Rams wideout Odell Beckham, Jr., who scored a game-winning touchdown for the Rams against the Ravens two years ago. Baltimore led the back-and-forth affair, 14-10. That score also marked only the second time in Jackson’s career he has had two touchdown passes in the same game of 40 or more yards, an answer to those who doubted his downfield throwing ability.
Stafford, getting more comfortable in the unfamiliar conditions, then volleyed back, hitting Nacua for 35 yards, then trying to find him again while Kyle Hamilton was interfering with him, the third defensive penalty of the day. Roquan Smith then was flagged for a face-mask call on rookie tight end Davis Allen’s first NFL touchdown; he was in for injured/inactive veteran tight end Tyler Higbee. The nine-play, 75-yard drive put the Rams back in front, 17-14.
Ravens receivers had been getting open through double-moves on the Rams’ secondary, but Rashod Bateman ran a straight go-route, and Jackson’s long pass was intercepted by ex-Pittsburgh safety Akhello Witherspoon and ran back to midfield as the visitors made a bid to extend their lead. They did when Havrisik booted a 51-yard field goal to give the Rams a six-point edge.
Justin Tucker made sure the Rams would have a mere three-point halftime lead with a 31-yard field goal to conclude the busy first half. Tucker, a kicker who has prospered in any and all conditions through his 12-year career, then connected from 47 yards early in the third quarter to tie the game at 20-all after the Ravens ran five times in a seven-play drive in an effort to boost their paltry first-half rushing total.
But an error from an unlikely source gave the Rams the lead back. Ravens center Tyler Linderbaum threw a shotgun snap past Jackson and into the end zone; the quarterback kicked it over the back end line for a Rams safety, the second straight game Los Angeles had scored in that fashion after sacking Cleveland’s Joe Flacco in the end zone last week.
Tucker caused the day’s fifth lead change and gave the Ravens a one-point edge, 23-22, with a 33-yard kick with just over 11 minutes to go. But the Rams answered again for a sixth, going 85 yards in eight plays – including a great diving catch by Nacua – and scoring on Robinson’s five-yard touchdown with 4:41 remaining. A two-point conversion pass was incomplete, and Los Angeles led 28-23 before the wild finish capped off a wet and wild day.
At the finish, the Ravens finally knew they had recovered from their bye-week rest in a refreshed, invigorated manner and an exhausted one. Injuries to safety Kyle Hamilton (knee) Duvernay do bear watching. But, truth be told, when you scrutinize the big picture, there hasn’t been much keeping them bedridden all season.
And if they are not feeling sick after Sunday’s conditions, they will likely never be.
The true four-game schedule homestretch, with the first three games against current division-leading teams, now begins with a national TV game on the road at Jacksonville’s EverBank Stadium against the Jaguars (Sunday, December 17, 8:20 p.m.)
