‘Best’ time for big step
Jackson earns 1st playoff win after rallying Ravens on road
NASHVILLE, Tenn. — Lamar Jackson finally has his first postseason victory, and coming away from Baltimore makes it even more impressive.
Jackson ran for 136 yards and a 48-yard touchdown while throwing for 179 more as the Ravens rallied from 10 points down and beat the Titans 20-13 on Sunday in their AFC wild-card game.
The Ravens also shut down 2,000-yard rusher Derrick Henry and held the Titans to their fewest points all season.
The Titans (11-6) had the ball and a chance to tie when Marcus Peters intercepted Ryan Tannehill’s pass intended for Kalif Raymond with 1:50 left. After the turnover, the Ravens came onto the field and started waving good-bye to the Titans — drawing a taunting penalty they didn’t mind at all.
“We finished finally,” Jackson said. “We finally finished.”
The Ravens (12-5) snapped a string of 21 straight games lost by the franchise in either the regular season or playoffs when trailing by 10 or more.
Henry ran all over the Ravens with 328 yards rushing combined in the last two meetings. With both Calais Campbell and Brandon Williams back on the Ravens defensive line, Henry had his worst performance this season with 18 carries for 40 yards.
“Our defense was tired of hearing the noise,” Jackson said. “And they did what they were supposed to do.”
The Ravens smothered a Titans offense that tied for fourth averaging 30.7 points a game and had more offensive yards per game during the season than any team but the Chiefs. The Ravens finished with a 401-209 yards edge in total offense.
“This may be the best win I’ve ever been associated with,” said Ravens coach John Harbaugh, who won a Super Bowl eight years ago. “It was a very strong effort. Our tackling was strong, all the outside backers. That kind of physicality.”
The Titans lost their first home playoff game in 12 years and now have had three of their last eight postseasons ended on their own field by the Ravens.
“We won the division, hosted a playoff game,” Titans coach Mike Vrabel said. “Today it wasn’t good enough. ... We competed and battled and came up short.”
The Titans sacked Jackson five times and got an interception. But they settled for a pair of field goals and couldn’t slow Jackson enough after halftime. Jackson turned in the sixth 100-yard rushing game by a quarterback in the postseason, and joined Colin Kaepernick with two.
The Titans took a 10-0 lead by outgaining the Ravens 126-36 in the first quarter, with Tannehill tossing a 10-yard TD pass to Pro Bowl wide receiver A.J. Brown. Stephen Gostkowski kicked a field goal set up by Malcolm Butler’s interception, his first in the postseason since picking off Russell Wilson in Super Bowl 49 to preserve the Patriots’ win over the Seahawks.
“We didn’t get rattled,” Jackson said.
The Ravens defense, the second-stingiest scoring unit in the NFL, took over. The Ravens held the Titans to minus-7 yards in the second quarter, the third fewest in any quarter of a playoff game since the 2000 season.
The 2019 NFL MVP helped the Ravens pile up 134 yards as he set up a 33-yard field goal by Justin Tucker with a 28-yard pass to Marquise Brown. Jackson then tied it by breaking loose for a 48-yard TD run, diving for the pylon —the second-longest TDrunby a quarterback in the Super Bowl era behind Kaepernick’s 56-yarder for the 49ers against the Packers on Jan. 12, 2013.
“It’s the best run I’ve seen by a quarterback,” Harbaugh said. “It just got us back in the game. We needed points at that point.”