Week 12 - Baltimore Ravens

29-42 at Cincinnati

This game interested me for a number of reasons. First, I wanted to see how Jamal Lewis got his 113 rushing yards. Second, I wanted to see how the Ravens could possibly score 29 points inside 4 quarters.

For Lewis, it was again not a real good start, even though he picked up 24 yards on the first drive. Despite that production, he still wasn’t running like he used to when he was making plays. But as the game went on, and after a couple of good looking runs, including one in particular that went for close to 20 yards but was called back on a holding penalty, he began to gain confidence and get those legs turning more and more. By the end of the game, he definitely looked strong, but a little fatigued. Still too often in this game, and this entire year for that matter, the offensive line has allowed a streaking defender to penetrate the line of scrimmage nearly untouched. And Lewis just usually falls down at his feet.

Kyle Boller missed a wide open Derrick Mason near the goal line on the game’s first drive. He missed him by a good 10 feet. Later in the game, on Boller’s first INT, he again showed little understanding of how to put a receiver into a position to make a play on the ball. The Bengals blitzed up the middle and left Deltha O’Neil 1 on 1 with Mark Clayton as they rolled their coverage towards Mason. Boller read this correctly, but threw the ball to the inside, too low, and too deep instead of high or short. O’Neil had good coverage on Clayton to begin with, and Boller’s throw made it an easy pick as O’Neil was able to box Clayton out and run straight to the pass. Boller had 15 passing yards in the first half.

Mark Clayton had a tough time reading the ball in the air on a couple of occasions during this game. His value as a depth threat doesn’t seem as high as it is as a catch and run guy (which he won’t get much of a chance to do in this kind of offense).

So down 0-34, how did the Ravens come back to score so many points?

Their first score was really set up by a couple of nice, hard runs by Lewis (albeit against 7 man fronts with the linebackers a good 6+ yards off the line). With the defense creeping up as the Ravens crossed the 30 yard line, Boller hit Mason on a 28 yard score. TD #2 was the first play after a TJ fumble that was recovered at midfield. Boller went deep to Heap on a corner route against a undersized corner who was all alone in what looked like some lackadaisical cover 3 defense.

The Bengals then tried to respond on their next play from scrimmage, but Palmer tried to force a deep ball in to a tight spot that was surrounded by three defenders and it was picked off. It was only after that play that the Ravens finally showed any intensity at all. They drove 30 yards and scored on a Lewis TD run that was set up this time by some smart underneath passes that the Bengals defense was giving away with a 31-14 lead in the fourth quarter.

Cincy then wised up on their next drive and gave Rudi Johnson a chance to do what he does best; driving 61 yards in almost 6 minutes to put the game away. In sum, the Ravens picked up 29 points simply because with a 34-0 lead, the Bengals primarily rushed 4 and dropped 7 deep and allowed Boller to pretend he was back in college. Lewis was impressive in the second half, but I’ll need to see him run like this over 60 minutes and against a good run D before I’m convinced he’s ready to play at his top level again.

TARGETS(catches):
Clayton- 8(2)
Mason- 7(3)
Heap- 7(6)
Lewis- 6(5)
Hymes- 1(0)
Wilcox- 1(1)
Dinkins- 1(0)
Green- 1(1)