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Five things we learned from the Ravens’ 56-19 win over the Miami Dolphins

childs walker, baltimore sun
·13 min read

The Ravens left no doubt they’re the NFL’s best team or that Lamar Jackson is a strong favorite to win his second MVP, earning the AFC’s No. 1 seed and some much-needed rest with a 56-19 shellacking of the Miami Dolphins.

Here are five things we learned from the game.

The Ravens are the best team in the NFL and mature enough to know how little that means at this stage

There was euphoria, sure, epitomized by 61-year-old John Harbaugh boogying through the postgame locker room like it was Studio 54.

He and his team had earned a moment to take in their achievements: 13 wins, including 10 in the past 11 games, a string of double-digit thumpings against playoff-bound opponents, capped off by thrashings of the top team in the NFC and the second best in the AFC.

They had less than six full days to recover from an intense, brutal victory over the San Francisco 49ers, yet with injuries mounting by the quarter, they somehow surpassed it against the Dolphins, who had just as much to play for as they did.

“I don’t know if I’ve seen a more impressive performance in a game,” said Harbaugh, normally loath to reach for sweeping comparisons. “I’m not sure I’ve seen a more impressive performance in a season to date.”

The “to date” part was important and helped explain why the Ravens, especially quarterback Lamar Jackson, did not give in completely to ecstasy after vanquishing the Dolphins and securing the AFC’s No. 1 seed for the postseason, which won’t begin for them until the third weekend in January.

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The Ravens have come far enough — and this quest really goes back to Jackson’s first great season in 2019 — to know how far they still must go before they rest.

“We’ve got to finish this season the right way,” Jackson said. For him, that means not thinking past the next play, much less the next opponent.

“We have a lot of work to do in front of us,” Harbaugh said. “It’s a mature football team, and they understand that.”

The Ravens’ every-week toughness and resourcefulness were on display again Sunday, when they faced an opponent talented enough to embarrass them and steal their first-round playoff bye.

Both teams arrived to their most important game of the year beat up. The Ravens played without their most versatile defender, Kyle Hamilton, their most reliable cornerback, Brandon Stephens, and the rock of their offensive line, Kevin Zeitler. The Dolphins didn’t have their Robin to Tyreek Hill’s Batman, Jaylen Waddle, their most rugged runner, Raheem Mostert, or their starting right guard, Robert Hunt.

The Ravens’ toll quickly worsened when cornerback Marlon Humphrey hobbled off on an injured calf in the first quarter. They were almost out of defensive backs to stop Tua Tagovailoa and Hill, only the league’s most productive passing connection.

But nothing seems to daunt this team, which pulls from a deeper bag of answers than any other in the NFL. Jackson responded to Tagovailoa’s opening touchdown drive with one of his own, missing just three times all afternoon and throwing five touchdown passes without a hint of a turnover. Harbaugh turned riverboat gambler in the waning moments of the first half, so confident in his offense that he went for it on fourth-and-7. Tight end Isaiah Likely paid off the risk with a one-handed touchdown catch, because the Ravens are on that kind of roll right now.

If we doubted the fairy dust in the air at M&T Bank Stadium, Justice Hill confirmed it with a 78-yard kickoff return to start the second half.

Perhaps fans fretted when the Ravens led 35-13, nearly the same advantage they squandered against the Dolphins last season, to start the fourth quarter. This is not the same team, however. The Ravens extended their margin rather than fritter it away.

The Ravens hinted they could become this good a team by hammering the Lions in Week 7 and the Seahawks in Week 9. They have left no doubt over the last week, destroying the 49ers and Dolphins by a combined 89-38.

Not even the regular season fever dream of 2019 concluded with such a flourish. Does that mean the Ravens are equipped to write a happier ending in the playoffs? Just know that it’s all they’re thinking about.

The Ravens needed their offense to carry this one. Lamar Jackson answered with the finest performance of an MVP season.

The Ravens began their first drive under a black cloud. A wide-open Rashod Bateman could not get a firm handle on Jackson’s slightly overthrown deep ball. Then, offensive pass interference wiped out a 23-yard pass to Hill.

These miscues turned out to be anything but ill omens. If anything, they set the stage for Jackson to reveal just how far he has come as a big-game performer. He had made himself MVP favorite by outdueling the previous betting choice, Brock Purdy, on Christmas night. That game established the Ravens as the league’s best team. This one meant more to their playoff fate. Faced with the task of outpacing the league’s top-scoring offense with a No. 1 seed on the line, Jackson played better than he had against the 49ers.

“He played a perfect football game in terms of the passing game,” Harbaugh said.

“I was like a little kid at the movie theater,” linebacker Roquan Smith said of watching Jackson this day. “Only I didn’t have any popcorn.”

This was a shot across the bow of anyone who ever said Jackson could not throw beautiful, and beautifully timed, balls from the pocket, to anyone who said he would shrink from a grand stage. He still has to do it in the playoffs to silence those who scoff at his raw passing statistics or say he’d be no MVP without an elite defense. But those who’ve watched Jackson through every game and every practice the last six seasons know this is a man in control of his world.

“That’s the type of game I like,” he said when asked about offensive coordinator Todd Monken’s plan. “He was dialing it up, being aggressive, but he was letting me be the decision-maker.”

Letting me be the decision-maker. It’s what Jackson always wanted. He talked about becoming a Tom Brady — less jaw-dropping athlete than master of all he surveyed — as early as his rookie year. This is what he and his mother meant when they insisted to high school and college coaches that he was a quarterback.

The Ravens hit their previous efficiency peak of 9.1 yards per play in a 38-6 demolition of the Detroit Lions. But that was October. Given the stakes, their 9.1 per play against the Dolphins said a whole lot more about where Jackson stands as he prepares for a defining postseason. He’s going to win that second MVP, but he and his teammates know it’s side candy. Jackson often turns conversations back to February. Only one game is played that month, and it’s the one he promised to win when the Ravens drafted him.

It’s remarkable to think that just nine months ago, Jackson said he wanted to leave Baltimore, to renew his quest with a different team. Imagine the hole at the heart of this franchise if that had happened. Instead, we’re watching a pantheon Baltimore athlete strive for the summit.

“The things he does, no other player in the NFL can do, and he’s underrated at many aspects still,” left tackle Ronnie Stanley said. “He’s taken complete control over the offense.”

Adaptability sets this Ravens defense apart

There was no way the Ravens could stifle this fleet of an offense for 60 minutes. The question was, could they answer each Miami haymaker with one of their own, as they had six days earlier against the 49ers? Tagovailoa is the quickest draw in the league, releasing the ball in 2.37 seconds on average, so the Ravens were not going to reach him as regularly as they did Purdy. They did not have Hamilton and Stephens, who had direct hands in three of their five interceptions against the 49ers.

But the ease with which Miami initially cut through the league’s top scoring defense startled the eye.

The Dolphins put the Ravens on their heels from the game’s first snap, starting with a quick flick to devilishly quick rookie De’Von Achane, who sliced through a half-dozen would-be tacklers for 23 yards. Hill popped open wherever he pleased. The entire right edge of the Ravens’ defense crumbled on a 45-yard Achane gallop to set up a field goal on Miami’s second drive.

The Ravens had allowed 4.5 yards per play through 15 games. The Dolphins averaged 9.7 in the first quarter.

The initial story, however, is not the final story with a defense coordinated by Mike Macdonald. Over and over this season, we’ve seen the Ravens adjust after a disastrous drive or a dodgy half, even against the NFL’s very best offenses.

“Are you going to fold?” Smith said. “Or are you going to stand up to it?”

The Ravens stood up. After sprinting out of the gate, the Dolphins finished the game at 5.7 yards per play, almost a full yard below their season average. The Ravens picked off Tagovailoa twice, sacked him three times and held him to his lowest passer rating of the season. Hill caught a modest six passes for 76 yards, 41 below his season average. This wasn’t the defensive masterpiece we saw against the 49ers, but the Ravens, down three seemingly indispensable starters, kept coming.

Smith did not point to any grand tactical adjustment when explaining the in-game turnaround, though surely some of Macdonald’s tweaks will become apparent when we review the all-22 film.

“We just had to settle down,” the Pro Bowl linebacker said. “Do what we do.”

Their perseverance had to feel especially sweet against an opponent that erased a 35-14 deficit against them on the same field 15 months earlier. That loss was exhibit A when we talked about the Ravens’ difficulties finishing off opponents. It’s a criticism that no longer holds after we’ve watched the Ravens win nine games by at least two scores this season.

Depth was every bit as important as star power to this triumph

Many of us placed Ben Cleveland on the wrong side of the bubble when we projected the Ravens’ 53-man roster in August. Even after he made the team, he could not have been more out of sight or out of mind for most of his third NFL season. He seemed headed for the same fate Sunday until Kevin Zeitler winced his way through a pregame workout, unable to plant comfortably on his right leg. Just like that, Cleveland was up, the man tabbed to stand in for the Ravens’ most dependable blocker.

Faced with this crucial opportunity in his NFL existence, Cleveland stood in as part of an offensive line that swaddled Jackson as safely as a baby’s blanket.

“I’m very proud of Ben, the way he stepped in there and handled business,” Stanley said. “Big game, and it can’t be overstated how hard it is to do what he did. He came in and played at a high level. He gave us what we needed.”

Cleveland’s name was one of those Harbaugh highlighted when he celebrated his team’s depth during his postgame remarks.

This was a day when the Ravens needed every defensive back left standing, when often anonymous professionals such as Ronald Darby, Rock Ya-Sin and Arthur Maulet had to fill the voids left by Humphrey, Stephens and Hamilton. Somehow, this threadbare secondary held the most prolific passing offense in the NFL to nine points on 10 drives after the first quarter.

“There should’ve been no dropoff,” Maulet said, expressing the mentality that animates this group. “We held each other accountable.”

Meanwhile, Pro Bowl tight end Mark Andrews, who still hopes to return from an ankle injury in the postseason, watched his young protégés, Likely and Charlie Kolar, catch three touchdown passes between them. Another investment in depth — Likely and Kolar were two of the Ravens’ six fourth-round draft picks in 2022 — that paid off.

Few other teams, maybe no other, could have started so many second- and third-stringers and blown out an opponent as dangerous as the Dolphins. This was a validating triumph for the Ravens’ front office almost as much as for the players and coaches.

Jackson said as much: “I believe Eric DeCosta does a great job of going and getting those guys who already have that Raven in them.”

The most important thing the Ravens earned is three weeks’ rest

Home-field advantage is a sweet treat for the Ravens and their fans, but the far more valuable prize was a first-round bye that will afford an extra two weeks — they will have little incentive next Sunday against the Steelers — of rest and recuperation to a roster that needs it badly.

If the Ravens needed to beat Pittsburgh next weekend or win a wild-card game the weekend after, Hamilton’s knee, Stephens’ foot, Humphrey’s calf and Zeitler’s right leg would be urgent, vital concerns. Instead, they will have time to get right, as will the many battered Ravens — including Stanley, right tackle Morgan Moses, Smith and linebacker Patrick Queen — who made it to the end of Sunday’s game.

“It’s going to be valuable, no doubt about it,” Harbaugh said.

He’s thought about how to handle the next three weeks, more specifically how to avoid the letdown the Ravens experienced in 2019, when they lost to the Tennessee Titans in the divisional round after closing the regular season with 12 straight wins. That analysis switched from abstract to pressing as soon as Harbaugh’s team finished off the Dolphins, but he said he has not decided, for example, if Jackson will play at all against the Steelers.

As much as the Ravens want to avoid the mistakes of 2019, it would be surprising if Harbaugh asks anything of his franchise player in the season finale. Why keep four quarterbacks on the roster if you’re not going to use them in a situation like this?

In recent seasons, Harbaugh has trended more and more toward resting his irreplaceable players when he can. He should not abandon this tendency for fear of four-year-old postseason ghosts.

The Ravens have reason to trust in their maturity, to believe they’re more equipped to make good use of this well-earned break than they were at the end of Jackson’s first full season.

“I think the rest is a blessing, but we also need to make sure we’re using that time to make sure our fundamentals and everything we do mentally is at a high level,” Stanley said. “I think [2019] was a big learning experience for this team. Just to get to this point, that learning experience helped us to overcome so many things. We know where we still have to go, and that memory is always going to stay with us.”