Even more than usual, the Baltimore Ravens needed Lamar Jackson to do pretty much everything as they tried to climb out of a second-half hole.
Their running backs had been stopped, and another key offensive player had left with an injury – but the Ravens still had their star quarterback, whose latest scintillating effort may have been the best of his young career.
“It’s one of the greatest performances I’ve ever seen,” said the coach John Harbaugh. “It wasn’t easy. It wasn’t like we came out, just up and down the field. We had to overcome and fight through some things.”
Jackson threw a five-yard touchdown pass to Marquise Brown on the first possession of overtime to give the Ravens a 31-25 victory over the Indianapolis Colts on Monday night. The Baltimore quarterback threw for a career-high 442 yards and four touchdowns, including a pair of short TD passes to Mark Andrews in the fourth quarter as the Ravens rallied from a 25-9 deficit.Andrews also caught two two-point conversions during that furious comeback.
Jackson went 37 of 43 without an interception. He also ran for 62 yards. If you subtract the five yards Jackson lost when sacked, he accounted for 499 of Baltimore’s 523 net yards on the night. “I was just locked in,” Jackson said. “I was just calm. Everything was just moving slow.”
The Ravens had to withstand a 47-yard field goal attempt by Rodrigo Blankenship on the final play of regulation, but the Indianapolis kicker missed, sending the teams to overtime.
The Ravens had their record-tying streak of 43 straight 100-yard rushing games snapped, and it looked like they were in big trouble after Jackson fumbled near the goal line in the third quarter. But after that turnover Baltimore scored a touchdown on each of its final four possessions.
The Indianapolis kicking game was a big reason the game got to overtime. Blankenship – who hurt a hip in warmups – missed an extra point in the third quarter. With the Colts up 25-17, he had a 37-yard kick blocked by Calais Campbell with 4:29 remaining, giving the Ravens a chance to tie the game. “Tough loss. Proud of the way our guys fought. We have to learn from our mistakes and learn how to finish games,” the Colts coach, Frank Reich, said. “No one is going to feel sorry for us. We have to learn from it and get better.”
Jackson directed an 11-play, 75-yard drive that ended with a four-yard touchdown pass to Andrews with 39 seconds remaining. Then Jackson flipped a two-point conversion pass over the middle to Andrews to tie it.
The Colts (1-4) made it back into field goal range, with the help of an unnecessary roughness penalty on Baltimore’s Tavon Young with 13 seconds left, but Blankenship’s kick sailed wide left.
Wentz threw for a career-high of his own, 402 yards and two touchdowns. Jonathan Taylor scored on a 76-yard swing pass early in the first quarter, then added a rushing touchdown in the third as the Colts took a 22-3 lead. But the game was far from over. “A guy like Lamar, you know he’s going to have a couple plays,” Taylor said. “He’s a special player.”
The Ravens (4-1) took over sole possession of first place in the AFC North after Cleveland and Cincinnati lost Sunday.