The Ravens overcame an early 17-3 deficit to come back and beat the Minnesota Vikings, 34-31, in overtime in Week 9.
RSR staff react to the win here.
Derek Arnold
This team is determined to put us all in an early grave – but, unlike the Vikings, they at least win the nail-biters they insist on playing. Down 17-3 early, then 24-10 just after the half, they continued their string of “it ain’t pretty, but it’s us” wins.
I was shocked the Vikings opted to tie the game at 31 near the end of regulation, rather than going for two and the lead. But, that’s why Mike Zimmer is likely on the way out. What didn’t shock me was the porous Ravens defense giving up several big plays with the chance to close the game out, allowing the Vikings to tie it, after seemingly clamping down following Minnesota’s first two touchdown drives.
Shout out to Patrick Queen. After the Ravens tied the game at 24, he shot the gap to tackle Dalvin Cook for an eight-yard loss, ruining the Minnesota drive basically by himself. The Vikes went 3-and-out, and the Ravens marched the field to take their first (ill-fated) lead of the day.
I don’t much know what to make of this team. I don’t know what to make of the AFC, or the NFL for that matter. After “announcing themselves as true contenders” two weeks ago in Baltimore, the Bengals have lost to the Jets and gotten stomped by the Browns. The Bills lost to the JAGUARS today, the 6th biggest upset of the last 31 years, per Darren Rovell.
The Ravens head to Miami in four days. Let’s just set expectations now: it’ll be ugly.
Stack wins, any way possible.
Ben Dackiw
Yeah I got a noise complaint during this game. I regret nothing.
At some point, this team will have to play 60 full minutes. This week was not the week.
Tyre Phillips is not the solution at RT. He looks out of place.
Lamar needs to come into these game with more composure. He wasn’t good in the first half.
The defense might finally be jelling. There were a few breakdowns, but open field tackling looked solid all game.
We will se you, Thursday.
On to Miami.
Chad Racine
It’s hard to win a game when losing in all three phases. It’s amazing the Ravens even made it close let alone won. In the end the Ravens again found a way to win and never gave up.
Rashod Bateman continues to look impressive and Patrick Ricard had quite a day. Lamar can make an incredibly accurate deep pass and then miss a short screen far off the mark. The defense in the first half looked like they were lost.
The Ravens still have plenty of work to do to become the team they need to be to be.
Darin McCann
This was just so… Ravens.
The Ravens shook off a slow start, the gift of several big plays to the Vikings offense and some general ineptitude to come back and steal a win that could come in quite handy at the end of the season.
This team has warts. Big end-of-a-witche’s-nose-kind-of-warts.
But they also have resiliency and some explosive players that always keep them alive. Let’s ride.
Kevin McNelis
THIS TEAM IS NOT GOOD FOR MY HEALTH.
This game followed a similar arc to the Colts matchup. The early going looked like it was going to be a runaway for the Vikings, as Jefferson’s early house call reiterated the issues with our secondary. The kick return to open the half certainly didn’t help. Lamar and the Ravens defense kicked it into another gear in the second half, but guys… you know you don’t HAVE to try to play hero ball if you don’t let the other team put you in a hole to start, right?
So many aspects of this game drove me insane. Inconsistent protection. Careless penalties. Defenders straight up falling asleep on their assignments. Officials missing a blatant OPI on a game-tying score from Adam Thielen. Another heap of injuries to key players. But a win’s a win.
Let’s PLEASE not make Thursday’s matchup against the Dolphins this close.
Rob Shields
This was a very good game. If you look at the stat sheet, you would think the Ravens dominated the game. They had 36 first downs and Minnesota only had 13. Minnesota had 318 total yards and the Ravens had 500. The Ravens ran 37 more plays. The Ravens had 247 yards rushing, compared to 131 for Minnesota. Jefferson and Thielin combined for five catches and 75 yards (69 of those yards to Jefferson). Minnesota had 107 yards worth of penalties.
However, Minnesota had four big plays, intercepted Lamar twice and sacked him three times. That kept them not only in the game but they had multiple double-digit leads in this game. Lamar started off 10-20 throwing the ball but he ended up 17 for his last 21 and had a 66% completion percentage for the game and one of those INTs I felt was more on Freeman than Lamar.
Speaking of Freeman, he looked very good today and showed that he can challenge the perimeter of defenses. That is something we had not seen from the running backs this year. Also, LeVeon Bell looked impressive. He showed patience, as he normally does and ran very well in between the tackles.
Minnesota came in as the #11 DVOA team and had solid rankings in both offense and defense and the Ravens did reasonably well for most of the game but they have got to stop with the defensive issues with the big plays. Tackling was improved today.
The news that Elliott tore his bicep and pectoral muscle and is done for the year is a big loss though. The margin for error keeps getting slimmer for this team.
Nikhil Mehta
As John Harbaugh said earlier this season, it ain’t pretty, but it’s us. The run game looked phenomenal and the Brown-Bateman one-two punch is the most excited I’ve ever been about wide receivers in Baltimore. Wink Martindale came up with some great adjustments in the second half to force Cousins into more difficult throws, and the defense as a whole just played a lot better.
Lamar Jackson remains the biggest cheat code in the NFL, even when he’s not at his sharpest. Winning this game in the second half is a huge gut check for a team that was expected to look a LOT better coming out of the bye. They took Minnesota’s biggest punches and just refused to go down. That’s how you win in the NFL.
At this rate, Lamar for MVP and Harbaugh for COTYÂ don’t seem particularly far-fetched.
Oh, yeah, and Justin Tucker is still the GOAT.
