By TARIQ KENDALL
Contributing Writer
On Thursday night, the NFL opened up the 2013 season with a rematch of last year’s divisional playoff matchup between the Denver Broncos and the Baltimore Ravens. This game was good…. For 2 quarters after that, it was the Peyton Manning show.
Ladies and gentleman if you’re reading this section of paper, then there’s probably no need to tell you that Peyton Manning is one of the greatest quarterbacks to ever play pro football, but in case you needed any more evidence of this, you got it on Thursday. Manning was, in a word, phenomenal. He dominated the Ravens’ defense throwing two touchdown passes in the second quarter, three in the third, and another two in the fourth. Now if you weren’t keeping count, that’s seven touchdown passes. The last time that was done Richard Nixon was president. By the end of the night Manning had 462 yards, and a passer rating of 141.1. I could spend the entire article trying to find the right combination of words to accurately describe the show Peyton put on opening night, but my efforts would all be in vain. The man was simply awesome.
Now where there’s good there’s bad, and where there’s amazing, there’s dreadful. On opening night, the Ravens fully embodied dreadful. It began in the second quarter with Baltimore leading 7-0, kick returner and Super Bowl hero Jacoby Jones sprained his MCL after his teammate ran into him. The foolishness didn’t stop there. After a fumbled punt left the Ravens on the Denver one-yard line, the following play left star right tackle Michael Oher with an injured ankle when right guard Marshal Yanda rolled onto him.
Tuning into this game, the thought was that NBC was broadcasting two teams that had been practicing for months leading up to this game. If that’s the case why are people running into each other? What do these ‘practices’ consist of? Who’s in charge? It became apparent to all that watched on Thursday that the Ravens accomplished nothing during their training camp. They failed to improve issues that plagued them during their Super Bowl run like their excessive penalties (they had seven that cost them 53 yards), the things that they used to lean on like solid tight ends in Dennis Pitta and Ed Dickson, and a stout defense having gone by the wayside.
Speaking of the Baltimore defense, I must talk about the spanking they received Thursday evening. The thing that got the Ravens to the Super Bowl last year was their defense. No, it wasn’t the unbreakable force that it had been in previous years, but they ranked in the top half of league in the majority of defensive stats in 2012 according to Pro-Football-Reference.com. Thursday in Denver, the Ravens defense looked gassed. They managed to hold it together in the first half with a few lapses, but come the second half, the wheels came off. The Ravens allowed 35 points in the second half, all of them coming through the air. The Ravens are a long way off from the days of Ray Lewis and Ed Reed, but if they want to be looked at as a legitimate NFL team, they have to do better than this.
Speaking of doing better, the Ravens offense did no better. They managed to spit out 27 points, but none came in the third quarter when they need it the most. The Ravens had times where absolutely nothing worked on offense. Their superstar, Ray Rice, had 36 yards on 12 carries. That’s partially because he didn’t have his entire O-Line out there. Turning to the passing game, the Ravens 120 million dollar man, Joe Flacco, had 362 yards, but he threw the ball 62 times. He had two touchdowns, but he threw two picks. It summed up to a total QBR 34.4 and a Passer Rating of 69.4, both of which are atrocious.
In the end the Ravens performance in the season opener was just plain bad. Guys were running into each other. The offense was one dimensional and ineffective, and because the offense was stagnant, their defense got no rest. The defense, which appeared overmatched from the start, got absolutely hammered by Peyton Manning and the Broncos no-huddle offense. The result was a 49-27 beat-down that would make a grown man cry to his momma.
