Welcome to the Monday Ravens 10-Pack, where reporter Jon Meoli hits on 10 stats, notes, and thoughts after the Ravens clinched a playoff spot with a 20-10 win over the Cleveland Browns. Read ahead for notes on Torrey Smith's importance in the second half, the Ravens' home defense, and a record-setting offensive season.
1. Since this week gives us two of the best things Baltimore has to offer — a marathon of The Wire and a Steelers-Ravens playoff game — allow me to go back to a moment in Season 5 when Snoop tells Michael that "deserve" has nothing to do with what was about to happen. You can say the Ravens got lucky Sunday, point to the schedule, or anything else, but they're in whether they "should" be or not, and all you need to know is that I bet no one in the league wants the Ravens coming to town in January. If the pass rush and running game are firing, even on the road, this team will be a tough out in the playoffs, and no one knows that better than the Steelers. Deserve has got nothing to do with it.
2. Wide receiver Torrey Smith was emphatic in celebrating his big 53-yard completion on a play action pass that both set the Ravens up for the game-winning touchdown and opened up the offense for the remainder of the game. Running back Justin Forsett is rightfully the team's MVP over the entire season, but if we weighted for recent performance, it might have to be Smith. He has 10 touchdowns in 11 games, though he basically didn't play against Miami with a knee injury and was limited in the second half with a head injury against the Cincinnati Bengals. It's been his lowest season yardage output, but his most touchdowns in a season, and his production has come at a time when the rest of the receiving threats were regressing. That's pretty valuable to me.
3. With Sunday's 10-point performance by the Browns, the Ravens allowed a league-low 13.6 points per game at home, which marks the lowest such total since John Harbaugh took over as coach seven seasons ago. Six of the eight opponents who traveled to M&T Bank Stadium, and two of the three playoff teams that visited, left with one touchdown or less. Twenty-seven of the team's 49 sacks came at home, many of which ended or effectively ended opponent's drives and helped limit points this season.
4. For the second-straight week, the Ravens' streak of games without allowing a 100-yard rusher was threatened by Texans running back Arian Foster, who ran for 96 yards, and former Towson star and Cleveland Browns running back Terrance West, who rushed for 94 yards. Neither saw carries late in that game that could have put them over that mark, but the streak now stands at 26 games. It might not be a bad thing that teams are challenging that mark, either. Save for one or two big runs, the yield on a lot of opposing runs isn't too high, and it's certainly a better option for the Ravens than testing the secondary, which has played well but still has question marks heading into the playoffs.
5. To that end, the secondary deserves some credit for righting the ship recently and finishing the final quarter of the season strong. While the best quarterback the Ravens faced in the final quarter of the season was Miami's Ryan Tannehill (who's miles better than Blake Bortles of Jacksonville, Houston's Case Keenum, or Cleveland's Connor Shaw), the hard data says the Ravens pass defense jumped from 31st (273.9 yards per game allowed) to 24th (248.7 YPGA). Cornerback Lardarius Webb is playing his best football of the season, youngster Rashaan Melvin plays with real confidence, and even Matt Elam got in on the action with some good coverage Sunday. It's a much different test Saturday night against the Steelers and Ben Roethlisberger, who threw for 340 yards and six touchdowns on the Ravens' last visit, but this is an improved unit since that game.
6. The Ravens were fortunate Sunday to have two experienced rookies, tackle James Hurst and guard John Urschel, to deputize with two starting offensive linemen out. If Eugene Monroe returns from his ankle injury for the playoffs, the Ravens could be forced to decide whether to keep the right side of the line intact with Marshal Yanda at tackle and Urschel at guard, or reinstall Monroe at left tackle, then shift Hurst to right tackle and move Yanda back to guard. Given the Steelers' success with inside blitzes in their last meeting, having Yanda at his natural position could help, but it will likely come down to the tape against the Browns to see how this version of the unit fared.
7. Rookie inside linebacker C.J. Mosley earned the Pro Bowl nod, but his veteran partner inside, Daryl Smith, has been the Ravens' most consistent player in the second half on defense. Pro Football Focus has graded him out positively in each of the last 10 games, and Smith's team-leading nine total tackles against the Browns put him at just five fewer than Mosley's 133 on the season. Mosley's accolades this year are wholly earned, but Smith has certainly earned more than having to live through the rookie's success, as he joked about last week.
8. For two straight halftime chats, I've been accused of being a Ravens homer for not wanting to clean out the offensive coaches and quarterbacks, which I suppose I have to wear. Of course, it's easier to wear when the quarterback set career highs in yards (3,986) and touchdowns (27) while taking a career-low 19 sacks. The offense as a whole scored a franchise-record 409 points and amassed a franchise-high 5,383 yards. The Ravens' offense was good way more than it was bad this season, and between Flacco and offensive coordinator Gary Kubiak, plus the Ravens' offensive line talent, I take exception to the idea that there's better available in the bargain bin of fired coaches and free-agent quarterbacks in January.
9. One minor caveat to that: the Ravens were second in the league with just 17 three-and-outs entering the Miami game. In the final four games of the season, the Ravens failed to pick up a first down on 13 drives — a rate that sustained over the entire season, would have been the third-most in the league. It could be a small anomaly, but a couple of those early would probably be cause for concern against a Steelers team that has been scoring points in bunches lately.
10. My least-inspired, most uncreative effort in picking the three stars of the game before it was played leads to the most proud moment I've ever had in the "Three-star Accountability Corner." My thinking was simple: the Ravens just had to win this game, and the only way that was going to happen was if the three offensive pillars of Flacco, Torrey Smith, and running back Justin Forsett showed up. Luckily for all concerned, they did. Flacco threw for 312 yards and two touchdowns, aided by a big fourth quarter. Ditto for Forsett, who ran for 119 yards, and Smith, who caught two huge, fourth-quarter passes, including a touchdown, en route to 83 yards on the day. Steve Smith was the team's leading receiver, but the magnitude of Torrey Smith's day trumps his counterparts' sheer yards.