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Ravens redux
By Dan Patrick
Watching game film is routine in the NFL. And Brian Billick ought to watch a lot tape of his own team from last year. Because this year's Baltimore Ravens are a lot like last year's Ravens: great defense, good running game and good-enough-to-win quarterback play. That wasn't the plan for 2002, and the defense isn't as great as last year. How far the Ravens go in this year's playoffs will come down to how much Billick and his staff can duplicate last year's championship formula.
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It's almost like this team was a new science project Billick has been working on. He's finally realized that he already had the formula. |
After two pressure wins in a row, it's easy to say that the Ravens are back. Maybe so. But the defending Super Bowl champs had to win their 16th game just to make the 2002 playoffs. They won, but in a rather blasé effort against a Minnesota Vikings team that couldn't wait for the end of their worst season in memory.
Sunday's win in Miami was much more of a statement. The Ravens held Miami to three points, and that was courtesy of a fumble by Jermaine Lewis on the opening kickoff. They also held the Dolphins to 151 total yards, the second-worst mark in Miami history.
The Ravens' offense was its usual self to the 10th power. They ran the ball 50 times for 226 yards against a very good defense that was playing at home. Baltimore's two touchdown drives were both over 90 yards long. The difference-maker came in the second drive when QB Elvis Grbac, from his own 10-yard line, hit Travis Taylor with a 45-yard strike on third and 1. Grbac kept the Ravens rolling and scored a few plays later. The Dolphins, who expected the run all day and still couldn't stop it with any consistency, never recovered.
Still, how big a win was it? All playoff wins are big, but do the Dolphins look like an 11-win team? I wonder. They seemed to quit in the second half. To me, these two performances don't mean the Ravens are back to last year's level. But the blueprint is there for future success, just like it was last year: defense and running game. The Ravens' 423 rushing yards in the last two wins tells you all you need to know. Forget that Billick is an offensive guru who would love to open up his offense. He wants to win more.
It's almost like this team was a new science project Billick has been working on. He's finally realized that he already had the formula. It isn't complicated. And they worked it last year to perfection.
Billick did not shortchange himself on the new project, believe me. He let QB Trent Dilfer go as a free agent despite Dilfer going 11-0 last year (including the playoffs and Super Bowl). He brought in Elvis Grbac, who would be throwing be ball downfield more than Dilfer. The Ravens would not be one-dimensional on offense.
Losing RB Jamal Lewis in training camp was a blow, but Baltimore has used a committee of Terry Allen (who is 33 and has two surgically repaired knees), Moe Williams and Jason Brookins (and others) and got the job done on the ground. The key was that in the six games this year in which the Ravens had more passing attempts than running attempts, they were 1-5. They tried to add some passing punch to their offense, but Grbac was not appreciably better than the guy he replaced.
|  | | Brian Billick and the Ravens ask that QB Elvis Grbac do just enough to win. |
And against the Dolphins, Grbac had a very Dilfer-like 133 yards passing, going a quiet 12-of-18 in the air. And 45 of those yards were on the one play to Taylor. So now, in the playoffs, Billick is asking Grbac to do the same thing he asked Dilfer: just enough to win.
The one difference is that Grbac is a bit more reliable when it comes to that one big pass play. But they still aren't going to ask him to go for it much more than they asked Dilfer.
Last year at the Super Bowl, Brian Billick told me he would rather win 16-0 than 35-31 because the former is not a close game score. But he also said that if you're guaranteeing me the win, I'll take an offensive shootout.
So you know where his heart is. Luckily, he's smart enough to coach with his head. He knows what he has to do to repeat.
Yesterday, Ravens TE Shannon Sharpe said the team has gotten rid of the October, November and December Ravens. These are the January Ravens. And that may be all the Steelers can handle next weekend. After all, despite how he'd like to do it in his heart, Brian Billick is 5-0 in the postseason. Send this story to a friend | Most sent stories |
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