BALTIMORE—When the Baltimore Ravens set out to halt their three-game skid against the Denver Broncos on Sunday, they knew they had to get off to a quick start in the third quarter.
Rookie Lardarius Webb took the game plan personally.
Webb, a third-round pick out of Nicholls State, returned the second-half kickoff 95 yards for the pivotal score in a 30-7 victory.
“Coming out of halftime we needed a big play, a big drive,” wide receiver Kelley Washington said. “Just to get it off the special teams, a kick return, that will take the momentum out of any team.”
Webb fielded the kick at the 5 and liked what he saw when he looked up field.
“The guys up front, they got their man and they stayed on them for more than a second. That’s something we worked on all week,” Webb said. “I just did my part and ran. I ran as fast as I could.”
Webb was drafted in the third round because of his experience as a defensive back and kick returner. He fielded 11 kickoffs with the Ravens before taking No. 12 for his first NFL touchdown.
“The opening came at the last minute,” Webb said. “I thought I had messed up and took the wrong way.”
———
DB REDEMPTION
The Ravens’ defensive backs enjoyed a bounce-back performance against Denver quarterback Kyle Orton.
The unit, which didn’t finger-point at each other after several dubious efforts during the losing streak, celebrated the turnaround as a team improvement.
“Today, we all stepped up. … Today, I think we created our own breaks,” cornerback Domonique Foxworth said. “We still had some plays that didn’t go our way, (but) we fought through them and kept playing.”
The biggest difference was that Foxworth and Fabian Washington didn’t allow Orton to throw deep routes to his receivers, effectively shortening the field.
During the losing streak, Ravens defensive backs displayed a penchant for untimely pass interference penalties and allowed big plays. Foxworth was whistled for a pass interference call against Denver, but Orton completed 23 of 37 attempts for only 152 yards and a quarterback rating of 71.
“We were always looking for things to take our shots, but they’re playing the safeties pretty deep,” Orton said. “We tried to work inside on the linebackers, and didn’t have much success doing that. We tried to throw outside, and really didn’t have much success doing that as well. Really not a good day for us. A good day for them; they were the better team today.”
———
CHEERFUL COACH
Ravens coach John Harbaugh turned cheerleader in the fourth quarter. With the Broncos facing a second-and-15 from their own 19-yard line, the usually reserved second-year coach frantically waved his arms along the sideline, trying to elicit more support from the crowd of 71,132.
“This is a physical team, an emotionally dominant defensive team. … So that has to be who we are as a team, and it was there today,” Harbaugh said.
For a brief time, anyway.
After Harbaugh was shown on the video board—making the crowd roar even more loudly—an NFL observer warned the Ravens not to show any more film of their coach’s demonstrative encouragement.
