More MMQB: How dolphins survived bills | Ten Tips: Galen Hurts dismisses his doubts | Draft Notes: QB Predictor Seat in the first round | Jaguar cars can be real | 0-3 Raiders may wonder what it might be | MMQB Awards for Best Performance in Week Three
The Ravens grabbed 27th on their own with 5:40 left in Sunday’s showdown at Foxborough, leading 31-26, and in a spot where most teams, even the most explosive NFL teams, tend to slip into a four-minute attack simply run the ball and drive out of town with the win.
But Baltimore wasn’t about to do that, not after what happened last week against Miami.
At first, Lamar Jackson fired a deep pass to his left for a tight end Mark Andrews, who was going down a corner road, and just passed him. On the next shot, the second and tenth, Jackson made a pass down that sideline to second-year receiver Rachod Pittman, who overdid the sticks and raced for a 35-yard gain that took the ball into the Patriots area.
The Ravens will score five plays later, but it’s almost over by the point — or as far as the critical touchdown can be in the fourth quarter.
There were bigger things at work for the John Harpo group.
“We talked about it – after that match happened, we talked about it Monday and Tuesday,” Jackson told me from the locker room after the match. We said to each other, ‘We can’t let anything like this happen again. When we top, expect to win the match, finish it, close the match, four quarters. We just didn’t do what we were supposed to do. So it’s best to keep our heads up and focus on the next opponent, and that’s what we did today.”
Jackson continued, “Basically, Albert, we just keep our foot on the gas and play football, how do we do. Don’t give up, because it’s the NFL.”
If the Miami experience, watching 35-14 bullets disintegrate into a 42-38 loss in less than a quarter of the time left an imprint, then consider the aggressiveness of Harbaugh and his crew late into Sunday’s game trying to close a wound. The touchdown that ended, a nine-yard run by Jackson himself, stopping off the right guard of the options guard, ended up sending the Ravens out for a 37-26 win over the Patriots.
But, again, the impulse that got Baltimore there was deeper than that.
First, I acknowledge the obvious, that the crows need a healing moment after having to hear Dolphins play all week—”we have to stay aggressive because that’s what happened,” Jackson said. “We started running the ball and looking for it, like We’ve got the lead, let’s get it out of there. But that didn’t happen or all went well. So we wanted to keep our footing on the gas, throw the ball, and let our playmakers catch and do what they’re doing.”
Second, he showed new confidence in Jackson’s ability to throw the ball, which is another thing that, at this point, looks good.
With three games, Jackson threw for 749 yards, 10 touchdowns, two picks and a quarterback rating of 119.0, all while working behind a streak substituted through injury and with a skill set still developing. On top of that, more of his plays are coming out of the pocket, in Dropback, than ever before.
“I feel more comfortable,” Jackson told me. “My guys do a great job opening up, and our streak gives me great protection. So all I have to do is give birth to the baby. That’s it.”
It happened consistently on Sunday, with Jackson throwing for 218 yards, four touchdowns and picking, rushing for another 107 yards and another touchdown on 11 cars. He led the Ravens in scoring 69, 75, 75, 44 and 73 yards. And even if he doesn’t admit it much afterwards – “It’s a football game at the end of the day. I don’t really look at the history of what’s going on, who played it and who was there; I just want to go out there and win” – and that’s what happens in Foxboro that matters too.
He gives the Ravens a tie-breaking opportunity in the AFC race and, as always with Bill Belichick’s defense, he should be a good confidence maker in a well-developed attack.
And what is not? Well, I asked Jackson about the status of his contract, and it’s clear that every afternoon he has like Sunday will cement his case on that front. But for now, he swears he left her behind and won’t revisit her until his season is over.
He said, “I play football now.” “I said what I said about it, respectfully, but I don’t really dwell on the business side. Now, I’m out playing football.”
And on Sunday, he played exceptional football in the afternoon his team needed, and now, he hopes, will be a springboard for everyone out there.
“Yeah, sure, we can’t ride on our high horse,” Jackson continued. “We just have to keep our feet on the gas and keep our heads up and stay focused. We got the bills coming in our stadium, strong opponent, and we have to be ready to play football again like we did today.”
A few more days like this one, and you’ll really roll.
Like Jackson, Vikings quarterback Kirk Cousins had a lesson on being aggressive from roughly week 2, but it was just the opposite – he actually needed to get some things back.
On Monday night, the Eagles jumped all over the Minnesota early, and Cousins, as he saw it, began throwing half-court shots as if they were going to close the 14-0 and 24-7 gaps on the spot. Football, of course, does not work that way. And cousins usually don’t either, which is why he’s so grateful to have received this reminder, even if it came in an unpleasant package.
“I think there was a feeling we needed to get back to it quickly,” he told me. “we [played like we] Need to kind of jump into full go-go-go mode to try to get back into the game. And the way our defense plays, getting the stops, our own teams blocking a kick, they give us a short field with a few turnovers, we didn’t really need that. There is a lot of football that goes on. It’s a long game.”
The wonderful thing is that on a Sunday with the lions in town, Cousins put the lessons of the Eagles’ loss to work right away.
He could because Dan Campbell and Detroit came out flying like the Eagles six days ago, tying the end of the first quarter and the beginning of the second quarter with landing drives from 70 and 54 yards to make it 14-0. Appropriately, Cousins fended off the attack with 11 runs that covered 80 yards, with the Vikings moving the chains six times before hitting their paycheck on Adam Thelin’s one-yard throw to cut the deficit in half.
That was just a harbinger of things to come.
“Today as a whole was a bit of a break in the day. I think we have 30 touchdowns first,” the cousins said. “So we moved the football. We’ve had it. We just didn’t get the explosives. Explosive plays tend to be how you can hit fast and how you can score a lot of points in this league when you have big plays, and we just went through…creating explosive play.
“So really until the last flight, we didn’t have much. And that’s a credit to The Lions. I think the way they defended us and the way they played made it hard for us to find them, because we were chasing them. We weren’t able to get them. But at that The final drive, we were able to have a couple that made a huge difference.”
And these two just happen to be at the end of the game—and the result of coverage designed to banish rising star Justin Jefferson, specifically, instead of just playing big. It was so much of the afternoon, with Jeff Okudah’s corner being assigned to the Vikings’ top weapon, as well as the over-the-top safety assist.
“They doubled down on Justin a little bit throughout the match at different moments, and in the last round it was part of their style,” Cousins said. And I think he definitely took Justin out of the plan and then in that last couple play, but he probably gave KJ a little bit more space. [Osborn]read more clearly for me to go to KJ”
It sure looked that way.
Down 24-21 with 1:10 left, and the ball has 36, Cousins went to work on the match Osborne was having, with former Viking Mike Hughes covered. And after sinking and dunking for most of the day, opportunities began to open up against a defense directed to stop one of the best receivers in the NFL.
“that was [just a double on Justin, it would appear—I haven’t watched the film yet but man coverage everywhere else and with the way the safety was playing, it really gave me an opportunity to work K.J. across the field,” Cousins said. “But Mike Hughes was in pretty tight coverage and K.J. kind of had to get through the traffic, and then he made a great play with the ball hitting him, and that kind of got us within striking distance.
“We were kind of off that catch in field-goal range, and my mind went to, I got to make sure I avoid a sack here because now we’re in field goal range. You don’t want to miss out on the opportunity to tie the game by taking a sack. So the next play that comes in, it’s great if you can attack and try to score and win the game, but you also can’t have a negative play that will take you out of field-goal range.”
After Osborn gained 28 yards on the first throw, and Cousins got the team to the line at the 28 and got Kevin O’Connell’s call, he knew there was a chance for more.
“I was breaking the huddle, sort of aware of the different options I had based on how they would play it,” he continued. “And they did a great job holding their looks all day as well and making it muddy. I just ended up reading it high to low and K.J. was the highest route and so I didn’t really ever have to progress, because I felt him get behind the defense and just kind of put it out there for him.”
And Osborn cashed in on the corner route to put the Vikings ahead for good.
That’ll keep Minnesota in first in the NFC North with the Packers and Bears, and, as Cousins said, keep them there with plenty of work to do.
“There seems to be some lessons learned and some growth that needs to happen to get our execution to the level we need it,” he said. “It’s just better to walk out of a game after a win.”
Which leaves Cousins, O’Connell and the rest of the Vikings in a nice spot.
The Colts didn’t expect to be where they were on Saturday night—at 0-1-1, needing to beat Patrick Mahomes and the Chiefs to get out of September with a win. But that’s the spot they found themselves in as Indy coach Frank Reich gathered his group at the team hotel, with less than 24 hours until kickoff.
The Colts didn’t expect to be where they were on Saturday night—at 0-1-1, needing to beat Patrick Mahomes and the Chiefs to get out of September with a win. But that’s the spot they found themselves in as Indy coach Frank Reich gathered his group at the team hotel, with less than 24 hours until kickoff.
And Reich appealed to them with a simple question.
“What’s your why?”
“Everybody’s kind of got their own why and some of that’s team-oriented, some of that’s family-oriented, whatever the case may be,” Reich said. “But at the end of the day, Albert, we have a vision of the team that we can be. We know we’re not there yet. It wasn’t the start any of us envisioned, but it wasn’t going to mar the vision of who we could be.
“It just needed resolve. You need to crawl back into it, one play at a time, one step at a time, one minute at a time.”
Reich was reprising the theme from earlier in the week. And, man, does it look like it worked, and not just because the Colts ended up upending the Chiefs at home, coming through with a monster drive—16 plays, 71 yards, 8:14 off the clock—to score the 20–17 win. It’s also because of how it happened.
First, Reich’s question sparked action from the captains during the week and on Sunday.
“Matt [Ryan]GT [Jonathan Taylor] and Quinton [Nelson]’These guys were like a force of nature in the locker room,’ said Reich. ‘Then the same in the special teams; Our leader, Zaire Franklin, is the same way. This guy is one of the best leaders I’ve ever been around. Then in defense, we got the same thing. The captains are Chuck Leonard, who doesn’t even play but is still a force of nature out there, out on the training ground, and DeForest Buckner was, once again, disoriented and then Kenny Moore.
“So these guys did a great job keeping us focused day in and day out.”
Equally important was their belief that the ponies were much better than what they showed. While Reich didn’t want to make excuses, he felt the team’s problems were explainable.
In the opening game against Texas, Indianapolis broke 517 yards of total attack and scored just 20 points, leaving the team with a tie, but not without a basis to build. Regarding the team’s second-week loss in Jacksonville, Reich said, “People will soon see that Jacksonville is legit. This is a good football team.”
It all set the stage for dumping dirt on the ponies’ graves, with the chiefs coming into town, and all that dirt ended up being dumped again in Kansas City.
Indy’s full final possession began at the 24th with 8:38 left. That 16 play, 76 yards and over eight minutes later, Ryan Gilani found Woods to put the Colts ahead with 24 seconds left.
And maybe in those eight minutes, we all got a sneak peek at who the ponies would become.
At the very least, Reich thinks his group has capacity To arrive there.
He said, “We do.” “We feel we’re taking steps in the right direction; we feel we’ve taken more steps in that direction off the season. But we’re like the other teams. There are new pieces. There are new blueprints. It’s a process. each other on that journey.”
This week showed that they were.
More NFL coverage:
• Glenn Hurts determined to dismiss his skeptics
• How Mike McDaniel, Dolphins Survived Bills
• Jaguar cars can be real
• 0-3 Raiders may wonder what it might be
• MMQB Awards for Best Performance in Week Three
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