Follow-up · Ravens 30, Falcons 23 (OT)
We said Atlanta's pass defense was the weak spot. Baltimore ran for 208.
We picked Atlanta, gave Bijan Robinson 100 yards and held Derrick Henry under 80. Baltimore won 30-23 in overtime, Henry ran for 102, and only our Huntley call landed. One hit, three misses.
With Vegas
Vegas favorsATL -3
Our pickAtlanta beats Baltimore.
Opened BAL -6.25 TueNow ATL -3 Sun
Ravens 30, Falcons 23 (OT)
Grading the preview: Even Derrick Henry says Atlanta has the better back.
The calls, graded
- MissAtlanta beats Baltimore.Baltimore won 30-23 in overtime. Atlanta, a 3-point favourite, lost.
- MissBijan Robinson runs for at least 100 yards.Bijan Robinson ran 17 times for 86 yards, 14 short of 100.
- MissDerrick Henry runs for fewer than 80 yards.Derrick Henry ran 24 times for 102 yards, 23 more than the 79 we allowed him.
- HitTyler Huntley throws for fewer than 225 yards.Tyler Huntley went 24 of 32 for 201 passing yards, 23 under the line.
The result
Baltimore beat Atlanta 30-23 in overtime on Sunday night. The Ravens are 4-1 and alone in first in the AFC North; the Falcons are 2-3.
Atlanta led 23-15 after a Nick Folk field goal with 2:31 left. Huntley then threw a 7-yard touchdown to Devontez Walker with 40 seconds to go, and Henry took the direct snap for the tying two points. In overtime Huntley sneaked in from the 1. Michael Penix Jr. had left late in the fourth with a rib injury, and Kyle Hamilton intercepted Tua Tagovailoa's pass for Drake London to end it.
“We didn't do enough to win the game,” Falcons coach Kevin Stefanski said.
The big miss: the pick
We picked Atlanta, with Vegas, and said we were half as sure about the margin. We were not sure enough about the winner. Atlanta had an eight-point lead with two and a half minutes left and lost.
Look at how the Falcons got their 23. Jessie Bates III returned an Andrews fumble 36 yards for a touchdown. Penix's 5-yard pass to Kyle Pitts was the only offensive touchdown. The rest was three Folk field goals, and Atlanta went 1 for 3 in the red zone. Baltimore had the ball for 35:10 to Atlanta's 32:45.
Miss: Henry under 80
This was the call that broke the preview. We said Atlanta had the best run defense in football, 193 yards allowed in four games. Henry ran 24 times for 102 yards by himself. Baltimore ran for 208 as a team, 5.9 a carry, more in one night than Atlanta had allowed all season.
Henry never broke one longer than 11. He just kept coming. Justice Hill added 73 on four carries, 47 of them on one run to open the second half. Then Henry ran in the tying two-point try.
Miss: Robinson's 100
Bijan Robinson ran 17 times for 86 yards, with a long of 38, and caught 4 for 32 more. A good night, not the one we called. Atlanta ran only 26 times to Baltimore's 35.
Hit: Huntley under 225
Huntley went 24 of 32 for 201 yards and two touchdowns, both short: 18 yards to Henry and 7 to Walker. Zay Flowers, who had 118 the week before, caught 8 for 53. The call landed with 23 yards to spare.
It landed, and it did not matter. Huntley won the game with his legs and his last drive, not his yardage. “There's not a locker room in the NFL that has more confidence in their backup quarterback than we have in Snoop,” Ravens coach Jesse Minter said.
The case against us was wrong, and so were we
We said the danger was Atlanta's pass defense, and wrote Reason 3 to answer it. It held: 201 yards for Huntley, after three straight quarterbacks had gone for 285 or more. Baltimore did not stop running into the best run defense in football. It ran 35 times, and that is how it won.
So the call aimed at our weak spot was our only hit, and the two calls built on our strengths both missed. We named the wrong weakness.
