Opinion: Ravens caught in unrelenting storm of a season as problems pile up
32 things we learned from Week 10 of the 2020 NFL season
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This November, Jackson’s effectiveness was affected by the soggy conditions and it was the Ravens who were a step behind. One of the New England touchdowns, for crying out loud, came when Baltimore was fooled by a gadget play that ended with a wide receiver (Jakobi Meyers) throwing a strike to Rex Burkhead, who slipped out of the backfield.
The Ravens, meanwhile, had too many issues handling wet footballs, including two shotgun snaps from Matt Skura that went awry in the third quarter and provided some optics of their woes.
blew out the Ravens in September, showing signs that they may be even better than they were in winning Super Bowl LIV. Not with the Tennessee Titans, who upset a Baltimore team that earned the No. 1 seed in the AFC with a 14-2 record in 2019, coming to town next weekend.suffered a season-ending ankle injury earlier this month. Now tight end Nick Boyle is finished for the year, too, carted off on Sunday night with a knee injury. Plus, nose tackle Brandon Williams left before the half with an ankle injury and never returned.
With the middle of the Ravens’ defensive line depleted, the Patriots ran 39 times for 173 yards.
Derrick Henry, who bulldozed Baltimore for 195 yards in the January divisional playoff game, must be licking his chops for a crack at a defense that could be missing some pieces. On Sunday night, Harbaugh didn’t indicate the extent and timeline of Williams’s injury, while it is feared that Campbell could miss several weeks.
There are tough breaks for the Ravens. Yet they won’t get sympathy from other teams in the next-man-up environment of the NFL.
The best teams (like Pittsburgh, when it fell into a first-half hole at Baltimore in Week 8), find a way to overcome adversities. Yet faced with another stiff test, a Baltimore defense that entered the game allowing the fewest points in the NFL couldn’t measure up.
In other matchups over the course of the rivalry with the Patriots, the Ravens passed litmus tests with flying colors. They twice beat Belichick and since-departed Tom Brady in playoff games at Gillette Stadium.
Now, though, they leave with some regrouping to do.
During the nationally televised game Sunday, NBC put up a graphic showed how the teams fared since the Ravens drubbed then-undefeated New England, 37-20. It illuminated that the Patriots came in with their worst record over a 16-game span ever during Belichick’s 20-plus years reign. And that No. 1 scoring defense distinction that the Patriots had when they met last year belonged to Baltimore this time around.
Never mind. Defensive stats didn’t help when the Patriots chewed up time in crunch time, leaving Jackson with little more than a minute (and no timeouts) to operate with.
Time is even tighter now with the Ravens caught in a storm that is not over yet.
Follow USA TODAY Sports’ Jarrett Bell on Twitter @JarrettBell.
