OWINGS MILLS — The Ravens are finding their identity, and as it turns out, they never really lost it.
Baltimore has gotten back to running the football and playing physical defense in the past two wins over the Dallas Cowboys and Buffalo Bills. That’s a formula that has worked well for the Ravens throughout their history.
“That’s kind of always what we’ve been about,” coach John Harbaugh said. “If you look back at the history of the organization, even before [I was the head coach]. Running the ball and playing great defense, and then we have weapons. We’re blessed with weapons. [Lamar Jackson] just walked in here right now. [He is the] best weapon in football right there, and everybody rallies around him, and he distributes to everybody else. That’s where it starts, but the run game is massively important to us.”
One week after running for 274 yards against the Cowboys, the Ravens had 271 yards rushing against the Bills — 199 from Derrick Henry.
Henry, whose first carry in Sunday night’s 35-10 win over Buffalo was an 87-yard touchdown run, has been the catalyst for that resurgence and looks much more comfortable in Todd Monken’s offense. Henry leads the NFL with 480 yards rushing. He finished 199 yards on 24 carries with a touchdown against Dallas.
“Credit goes to everybody in front of me blocking,” Henry said. “The O-line – they’ve been incredible these last two weeks. In practice, coach [John Harbaugh] challenges us to come out [and] practice hard; work hard and it’ll pay off in the game, and it [will] transition to the game, and it has. So, hats off to those guys and everybody blocking.
“Everybody’s just being unselfish for me to have success. I want to do the same for those guys.”
The Ravens’ secondary was susceptible to big plays in the first three games of the season and blew double-digit leads in the fourth quarter to the Raiders and Cowboys. Baltimore played much better against the Bills and limited them to 236 total yards. Quarterback Josh Allen was 16 of 29 for 180 yards and was sacked three times.
“The outside noise is the outside noise, and that’s why they’re not inside, and just thinking about it from that perspective, we just have to be ourselves at the end of the day, and focus on who we are and control the controllable,” inside linebacker Roquan Smith said. “If we know that we’re ourselves, at the end of the day, the sky is the limit for each and every person on the defense.”
