Ravens:
In the first “complete” game in almost 2 years, the Ravens demolished the Fins. It was quite clear that the scouting report on Miami indicated that the zone coverage schemes had lots of seams, and Flacco exploited them as we pushed the passing game hard, to set up the occasional run play. The hurry-up (relatively speaking) offense puts Joe in a more comfortable zone, and wore out the Miami defense throughout the game.
Bigger question, can this work Monday night against the Pats. Answer is Yes, it can, and it will have it. Running in unfamiliar territory, the Ravens will need to outpace the Patriots in a shoot out. Tom Brady (who is no Ryan Tannehill), will torch our secondary like there is no tomorrow, and they will carve out lunch chunks of real estate by dinky passes. This could be a long night, but with the extra preparation, we could make a decent game of it.
Looking at the playoff picture, the Ravens advertised “toughest remaining schedule in the NFL,” and we need to win 3 of the final 4 games to take the division, but 2 of those wins have to be against Pittsburgh and Cincinnati. New England is currently a tie-breaker behind Oakland for top seed. This game means something to both teams, but hopefully it means more to us.