On their best day, the Ravens must perform with very little margin for error. With a rookie quarterback at the controls, a run-heavy offense around him and a stout, aging defense that often needs to be great, that’s just life for this team.
For the second straight week, the Ravens are digesting the mistakes that have meant the difference between being a shockingly undefeated squad and another .500 club.
On Sunday at M&T Bank Stadium, in a penalty-packed, wrestling match against the Tennessee Titans that was as brutal to watch as it must have been to play in, the home team fell to 2-2, thanks to a handful of those moments.
Pick your least favorite.
Quarterback Joe Flacco delivered some killers, especially when it was time to read some underneath coverages, and the rookie threw two interceptions, and nearly a third.
How about kicker Matt Stover? He missed a 45-yard field-goal at the end of the first half and is now 0-for-3 outside of 40 yards this season.
I’ll start with that the Ravens’ undisputed strength. The defense, which came into Sunday’s 13-10 loss as the top-ranked unit in the NFL, then played exactly like that for about 55 minutes, cracked just enough to give away a 10-6 lead and surrender the contest to the undefeated Titans.
Baltimore fans no doubt still are enraged by the questionable roughing-the-passer call on linebacker Terrell Suggs. He inadvertently struck a glancing blow to the head of Tennessee quarterback Kerry Collins with less than six minutes to play, thus turning a third-and-10 incompletion at the Titans’ 20-yard line into a first down at the Titans’ 35.
Sorry, that terrible call is not what did in the Ravens. Last I checked, the Titans, behind Collins, a 14-year veteran who looked awful through three quarters, marched 65 yards in 10 plays after getting assistance from referee Bill Carollo.
Last I checked, Collins carved up the middle of the Ravens defense on that huge drive by using tight ends Bo Scaife and Alge Crumpler to complete 6-of-nine passes for 61 yards, including the game-winning, 11-yard strike to Crumpler.
The Ravens’ defense, which now has allowed just three touchdowns in 16 quarters, is not the problem — at least not yet, as its secondary continues to fight injuries.
But the defense failed to deliver the hammer at crunch time. They didn’t get any pressure on Collins, who took every check-down option the Ravens gave him, unlike the young fella running the Baltimore attack.
The Ravens don’t want to force Flacco to win games if they can help it. They also are trying to keep the University of Delaware product from losing games, either.
Six days after he lost a fumble, leading to a recovery and return for a touchdown that was the pivotal moment of a 23-20 overtime loss in Pittsburgh — a game the Ravens were controlling in the second half on the road — the rookie did it again.
Flacco did complete 12 consecutive passes during one stretch of an 18-for-27, 153-yard day, he also whiffed big time. Midway through the second quarter, Flacco scrambled to his right and somehow failed to see safety Michael Griffin cutting in front of Ravens receiver Demetrius Williams. The same way he failed to see linebacker David Thornton, who should have had a first-quarter interception in the right flat, before he juggled the ball going out of bounds.
Flacco left the fans gasping with his biggest gaffe of the day on the Ravens’ next-to-last possession, down 13-10. Once again, he rolled right away from pressure. Then, throwing awkwardly off his back foot, he floated an easy interception into the waiting hands of cornerback Nick Harper.
“I think sometimes, with young quarterbacks, their vision isn’t quite what you want it to be,” Ravens coach John Harbaugh said.
Flacco said: “Both [interceptions] happened out of the pocket. When I get out of there and I don’t have anything, I’ve got to throw the ball away and just be smart about it. Live to punt, live for the next down. If we take care of the ball, it’s probably a different story today.”
When the rookie is right, he’s right.
