ARLINGTON, Texas — The focus of the week was clear, and the Baltimore Ravens didn’t hide from it. As the beleaguered offensive line worked through drills in Friday’s practice, coach John Harbaugh stood about 5 yards away and watched its every move.
Harbaugh is typically locked into special teams work at this point of practice, but his attention was needed elsewhere. He called over Daniel Faalele, Roger Rosengarten and Ben Cleveland, three guys who have been at the forefront of the ongoing offensive line debate, at different points for talks. Harbaugh also got hands-on with Rosengarten, mimicking pass rushes against the rookie. Harbaugh even smacked Rosengarten’s hand away during one rep.
After Harbaugh departed, running back Derrick Henry headed over to work with the linemen. He followed their blocks against the air and offered words of encouragement after different plays. There was a clear message to all of this.
“I was letting them know, ‘I believe in you. We’ve got to do this together,’” said Henry, who started his news conference by mentioning all of his offensive linemen and fullback Patrick Ricard by name. “It’s not an individual thing — we’re all tied in together. It’s not going to be perfect, I’m going to make a mistake and be wrong when they did their job right and vice versa. It’s a long season, so there’s going to be adversity. As long as we stick together and believe in one another, then we’ll be good.”
The Ravens’ had-to-have 28-25 victory over the Dallas Cowboys Sunday at AT&T Stadium didn’t silence any of the questions that grew quite loud amid the team’s 0-2 start. Even after not allowing quarterback Lamar Jackson to get sacked and paving the way for 274 rushing yards, the inexperienced offensive line will remain a question mark until performances like Sunday become the norm rather than the exception.
Harbaugh’s group still has a penalty problem with 13 more infractions leading to 105 free yards for the home team, which clearly needed the help. The Ravens have a fourth-quarter problem, too. A week after squandering a late 10-point lead to the Las Vegas Raiders, Baltimore watched Dallas cut a 28-6 deficit with under 10 minutes to play to three with less than three minutes remaining.
Yet, Sunday at least featured a Ravens’ response to a season that was flirting with disaster just three weeks in. Jackson had the final say in putting the Cowboys away with a gutsy 9-yard completion to Zay Flowers on third-and-6 to pick up a key first down with 2:36 remaining. Jackson’s 10-yard run two plays later allowed the Ravens to get in long-awaited victory formation.
3rd and 6… Money throw by Lamar Jackson 🎯
📺: #BALvsDAL on FOX
📱: https://t.co/waVpO909ge pic.twitter.com/8bOnIqCj1Z— NFL (@NFL) September 22, 2024
Jackson challenged his teammates at halftime to keep the pressure on the defensively troubled Cowboys. The Ravens then took the opening kickoff of the second half and needed just five plays to go 70 yards and get in the end zone. They then held on for dear life.
“To be honest, every game is a big game for us, because we’re trying to get somewhere. We’ve got to win these games to get to the playoffs, man, and win these playoff games to get to the Super Bowl,” said Jackson, who completed 12 of 15 passes for 182 yards and a touchdown and rushed 14 times for 87 yards and a score. “It starts with the game that’s in front of us. So, the 0-2 start, we didn’t want that to happen.”
The Ravens are not an outfit that concedes anything, but they surely understood what was at stake. Since 1999, there have been 129 teams to start 0-3 — and only one of them made the playoffs. The Ravens started the week with an acknowledgment of the sense of urgency that was required.
Their practices were more focused and more detailed. Players got on each other when there were problems with execution. Even the walk-throughs lacked the lightness that typically accompanies such practices.
“When you’re 0-2, it’s like, ‘Guys, we really need to lock in,’” Ricard said.
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Defensively, the Ravens added extra meetings to the week to take accountability for the breakdowns they suffered in the first two games and try to get things fixed. However, there was also a general understanding with the group that it needed to avoid getting tight and putting too much thought into the big picture. The focus needed to be solely on winning one game.
In the final team meeting before the Ravens flew to Texas Saturday, the players surprised Harbaugh by wearing T-shirts with pictures of their head coach. It was an early birthday gesture for Harbaugh, who turns 62 on Monday. It was also a reminder to their longtime coach, who was catching much of the criticism for the 0-2 start, that they were in this together.
“We weren’t trying to go 0-3,” said outside linebacker Odafe Oweh. “We weren’t going to let that happen.”
It wasn’t easy for the Ravens. It never seems to be with this group. Another missed Justin Tucker field goal, this one from 46 yards with 10:41 to play, set the Dallas comeback effort in motion. Baltimore’s defense had performed brilliantly until that point, but a Dak Prescott 1-yard touchdown run with 8:53 remaining made it a two-possession game.
Flowers’ whiff on a Cowboys onside kick led to a 15-yard Prescott touchdown pass to Jalen Tolbert. A Ravens’ three-and-out was the precursor to another Prescott touchdown pass, this one to KaVontae Turpin covering 16 yards with 2:53 to play. A seemingly endless stream of penalties helped the Cowboys throughout. However, Dallas never got the ball back.
“I thought Lamar was just phenomenal throughout the game and then took over the last drive,” Harbaugh said. “I thought the big throw at the end, the big catches at the end — Zay made that huge catch, (Rashod Bateman) had a big catch. We had some big runs at the end, too. We ran the ball well at the end, and to finish out that way was really important to win the game on offense at the end, and that’s what they got done. Didn’t really want it to get to that situation, but it did, and they came through.”
In the process, the Ravens may have re-established their identity going forward. On Sunday, they ran the ball for 274 yards and three touchdowns on 45 carries. On Baltimore’s first two touchdown drives, it had 10 runs on 12 plays. Mike Zimmer’s Cowboys’ defense never gave offensive coordinator Todd Monken any reason to deviate from the game plan.
“The offensive line allowed that to happen,” Henry said. “They came out with a mindset of moving guys off the line of scrimmage, being physical and playing the Ravens’ style of football — and I think they did a great job of that today.”
When Jackson wasn’t finding space outside or up the middle on the game’s clinching run, Henry was powering through the Cowboys’ defense. Henry racked up 151 yards and two touchdowns and also had a 23-yard reception. His backup, Justice Hill, added 33 yards rushing and 21 yards receiving.
“Whatever it takes to win a football game,” center Tyler Linderbaum said. “Today, it was just being efficient in the run game. There will be other weeks where we have to be able to drop back and throw the ball, but you certainly want to be able to run the ball efficiently, because that opens up a lot of other things.”
The Ravens probably got too conservative offensively in the fourth quarter, a criticism that Harbaugh acknowledged as fair later. But otherwise, they were able to throw the ball when they needed to, as well. A 30-yard completion to No. 3 tight end Charlie Kolar aided their first touchdown drive. A 56-yard connection to Nelson Agholor was the big play on their second possession. Back-to-back successful screen passes — a rarity for this team — were big plays in the late second-quarter touchdown drive that ended with Jackson finding Bateman for a 13-yard score.
Bateman was so wide open that Jackson threw his hands up in the air as the ball floated to the end zone. The touchdown gave the Ravens a 21-3 lead, and it was coming quite easy at that point.
TOUCHDOWN @R_bateman2 FROM @Lj_Era8!!!!!
Tune in on FOX!! pic.twitter.com/T6YX3h1dEM
— Baltimore Ravens (@Ravens) September 22, 2024
Things got exponentially harder. But as Jackson picked himself off the ground after his game-clinching 10-yard run, he was met by left tackle Ronnie Stanley, who wanted to celebrate. The two of them shared a laugh.
Jackson interrupted Harbaugh’s news conference later to bring up Faalele’s performance. Everybody understood that the first order of business was getting a much-needed win. That the offensive line played such a key role was the perfect way to end a trying week.
“My thing is for the guys is always ignore the noise, focus on ourselves,” said Stanley, referring to the offensive line. “There’s a lot of good things that those guys are doing right now. It’s easy to focus on the bad things, because they’re more highlighted, but it’s a lot of good things those guys are doing. Just reminding those guys to keep building on that and getting better and keep that high standard, because they can do it, and they’ve been doing a lot of things at a high level.”
(Photo of Derrick Henry: Ron Jenkins / Getty Images)
