Ravens' much-improved defense will be tested vs. Josh Allen and the Bills

As the Baltimore Ravens headed out of the locker room late Saturday night following their wild-card win over the Pittsburgh Steelers, they didn’t know who they would play next. Some players questioned reporters about the scenarios.

The general consensus, though, was this: The Ravens had a game the following weekend, and that’s all that truly mattered.

“One down,” left guard Patrick Mekari said, downplaying the handling of Baltimore’s biggest rival. “We’re not done yet.”

The Ravens planned to watch Sunday’s wild-card games to get a good glimpse at their potential competition. In the Buffalo Bills’ 31-7 victory over the Denver Broncos, they might have felt like they were looking in the mirror.

A dynamic, playmaking quarterback at the top of his game leading an explosive and efficient offense. A relentless, ball-controlling run game. Physical offensive and defensive lines that controlled the line of scrimmage. A defense playing solid complementary football.

The details of the second-seeded Bills’ thrashing of the Broncos weren’t identical to the third-seeded Ravens’ 28-14 victory over the Steelers a day earlier. However, the similarities were hard to ignore.

The two quarterbacks, Buffalo’s Josh Allen and Baltimore’s Lamar Jackson, both threw two touchdown passes, didn’t put the ball in harm’s way and did additional damage with their legs. The Ravens rushed for 299 yards, while the Bills gained 210 on the ground. Both offensive lines dominated. The Bills held the ball for just under 42 minutes, while the Ravens possessed it for 39 1/2 minutes. Each of the defenses did its part.

As a result, the two teams will meet Sunday night at Buffalo’s Highmark Stadium in the most-anticipated matchup of the divisional round. The game is a rematch of Baltimore’s 35-10 victory over the Bills in Week 4. It also gives the Ravens a chance to avenge a divisional-round loss at Buffalo following the 2020 regular season. Baltimore was beaten 17-3 in a game where Jackson threw a crushing pick six and then departed early with a concussion.

Jackson took a knee to the back in Baltimore’s win Saturday over the Steelers and had a heating wrap on it while on the sideline. He said he doesn’t expect it to be an issue as he prepares for a game that will be hyped for the quarterback matchup.

Jackson and Allen are the two front-runners for league MVP and their candidacies have been weighed and dissected for weeks, causing plenty of friction among the two fan bases. Now they’ll share the field with an AFC Championship Game berth against either the Kansas City Chiefs or Houston Texans on the line.

“This is what everyone’s been waiting for, right?” Bills coach Sean McDermott said after Buffalo’s win over the overmatched Broncos.

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Sunday’s result will surely be used as a referendum on which quarterback should win the MVP award. Of course, the game is immaterial to the actual voting. Those votes have already been cast and the winner will be announced at the NFL Honors on Feb. 6.

What this game should be a referendum on is just how much the Ravens have improved defensively. Through 10 weeks of the season, the normally vaunted Baltimore defense was one of the league’s worst, ranking last in the NFL in passing yards allowed per game, 27th in total yards allowed, 26th in scoring and 30th on third downs. Over the final eight weeks, the unit ranked first in those categories. During that span, the Ravens trimmed their points allowed per game from 25.3 to 15.4.

In the wild-card round, the Ravens defense held the Steelers to 280 total yards, a good chunk of them coming in the third quarter. Baltimore forced Pittsburgh punts on all four first-half possessions, allowing just 59 yards and two first downs. After a rocky third quarter in which Russell Wilson threw two long touchdown passes to keep Pittsburgh in the game, the defense rebounded to get two stops in the fourth quarter as the Ravens put the Steelers away.

“It’s just trusting the guys in the locker room,” said Ravens defensive lineman Nnamdi Madubuike, who had two sacks, four tackles and a pass breakup against Pittsburgh. “There were a lot of people giving us flak early in the year. It’s just about us. We told each other that: ‘It’s about us.’ So, we made some corrections, people started playing at a high level, and we’re just getting on a roll. We have to keep going.”

The philosophical and personnel changes the Ravens made defensively have been well documented. They have prioritized taking away big plays and forcing teams to mount long drives to score. Cutting down on penalties has been crucial, too.

Versatile defensive back Kyle Hamilton was moved into the deep safety role, and Ar’Darius Washington was inserted as a starter next to him. Veteran Marcus Williams was benched and Eddie Jackson was released. Young inside linebacker Trenton Simpson also was benched and replaced by a rotation that includes veterans Malik Harrison and Chris Board. First-round cornerback Nate Wiggins was elevated to starter snaps and veteran Tre’Davious White mixed in at outside corner.

Since shifting Kyle Hamilton back to the deep safety role, the Ravens defense has led the league in several categories. (Luke Hales / Getty Images)

“There was adversity throughout the season … and we stood tall, despite what anybody said, despite that adversity that was going on out there,” said middle linebacker Roquan Smith. “We’re just getting started.”

The Ravens will certainly be taking a step up in class defensively. While the numbers have improved, the competition hasn’t. Over the past eight games, the Ravens have faced only two offenses ranked in the top 18 in offensive DVOA — and neither of those teams, the Los Angeles Chargers and Philadelphia Eagles, rank in the top 10.

Ironically, the best the Ravens defense played in the first half of the season was against the Bills. At home in Week 4 in a game Baltimore had to win to avoid a 1-3 start, the Ravens harassed Allen into a 16-of-29 performance for 180 yards. They sacked him three times, hit him eight times and forced a key fumble. That game, however, was an aberration for Buffalo’s offense, which ranked second in the regular season in offensive DVOA (second in passing and fifth in rushing).

Allen is having the best season of his career with 4,269 total yards and 41 touchdowns. After averaging just under 16 interceptions over the previous three years, Allen has thrown just six this season. His play is complemented by a strong James Cook-led rushing attack, which ranked ninth in the league in yards per game (131.2), 11th in yards per carry (4.5) and first in touchdowns (32). Cook had 18 touchdowns in the regular season.

A key to it all is an offensive line that’s widely regarded as the best in the AFC. Allen, who has great improvisational skills, was sacked just 14 times this season after being sacked an average of 29 times over his first six years.

Buffalo’s offensive trends continued in its playoff opener. The Bills got pretty much whatever they wanted against a Broncos defense that was regarded as one of the league’s best. They came away with points on six of their seven full possessions. Allen completed passes to eight pass catchers, was sacked just twice and was hit four times by a Denver defense that led the league in sacks in the regular season.

“I think offensively, they’re very coordinated in terms of blocking schemes and timing of routes and pass protections and how it’s all put together,” Ravens coach John Harbaugh said Monday. “The quarterback obviously is playing at a high level. Josh Allen is a great player. They’re well built around him — they did a good job of building the offense around him, and they have a lot of complementary pieces.”

The Ravens, who led the league in rushing defense, prioritize stopping the run in every game. Sunday will be no different. They’ll also need to find a way to make Allen uncomfortable and force him into a few mistakes. They’ll need some help, too.

In the Week 4 meeting, the Ravens’ best defense against Allen was scoring touchdowns on their first three drives, controlling the clock with Derrick Henry — who had an 87-yard touchdown run on Baltimore’s first play from scrimmage — and forcing Buffalo to abandon its own running game because it trailed 21-3 midway through the second quarter.

As Washington said following the Pittsburgh game: “The best defense is the defense that’s not out there. As long as the offense is out there, they’re definitely making our job a lot easier.”

The Ravens will need a repeat performance Sunday.

(Top photo: Greg Fiume / Getty Images)