Jaguars Rout Ravens 33-10 as Baltimore's Slide Hits Four

BALTIMORE

There are losses, and then there are nights that tell you exactly where a season stands. Thursday night in the rain at M&T Bank Stadium was the second kind. The Jacksonville Jaguars routed the Baltimore Ravens 33-10, led from their first possession to the final whistle, and walked out 6-2 with the AFC South tightening in their grip. Baltimore walked out 4-5 — its slide hits four straight losses, with its third quarterback of the season sacked by the reality of the first one.

The Jaguars' own game report tells the cleanest version of it: Jacksonville never trailed for the second straight game, forced three turnovers, and allowed 10 or fewer points for the second straight game. Reuters put the two-game total at 17 points allowed since Jacksonville's Week 7 bye. This was not a fluke weather game. It was a division leader handling a team that could not throw the football.

How it broke open

Jacksonville scored on the game's opening drive, a seven-play, 77-yard march finished by Bhayshul Tuten's 1-yard touchdown run. The drive's tone was set on its second play, when Trevor Lawrence found rookie tight end Nate Boerkircher for 52 yards. Baltimore answered with the first points of Jake Moody's Ravens career — a 53-yard field goal that cut it to 7-3 — and then basically stopped answering.

Cam Little made it 10-3 with a 36-yarder late in the first quarter. Then, with 58 seconds left in the half, Lawrence hit Parker Washington for a 50-yard touchdown, and 17-3 at halftime felt generous to the home team. Little added field goals of 45, 47 and 33 yards after the break — four on the night — and Chris Rodriguez Jr. ran for a touchdown as the lead stretched to 33-3 before Baltimore scored at all.

Lawrence finished 16 of 26 for 242 yards and the one touchdown, with no interceptions, according to Reuters. Jacksonville's defense did the rest: Montaric Brown and Jourdan Lewis intercepted passes, Jalen McLeod recovered a fumble, and the Ravens were held to 227 total yards.

The other sideline

Joe Fagnano's first NFL start was never going to be judged fairly, and Thursday showed why. The undrafted rookie, starting because Lamar Jackson (right thumb) and Tyler Huntley (right toe) are both on injured reserve, completed 10 of 18 passes for 60 yards with two interceptions. Pro Football Network put his passer rating at 22.7 and Baltimore's net passing total at 55 yards. At one point tight end Mark Andrews lined up behind center on a fourth-and-1 and fumbled the snap. It was that kind of night.

Baltimore's only touchdown came after the game was gone: Justice Hill broke a 65-yard run in the fourth quarter, finishing with 85 yards on nine carries, per Ravens Wire's snap-count breakdown. The one piece of history in the wreckage belonged to Derrick Henry. His 57 yards on 17 carries moved him into seventh place on the NFL's all-time rushing list at 13,707 career yards, Sporting News reported — a milestone reached in a game his team lost by 23, which is about where Baltimore's season is right now.

The injury list grew, and the cavalry is a trade

As if the quarterback room were not enough, All-Pro safety Kyle Hamilton left the game with a hip injury and did not return. Ravens Wire noted Hamilton played just 32 of Baltimore's 56 defensive snaps, on a night when cornerback Nate Wiggins was already inactive through illness. Reuters added the number that frames the whole slide: Baltimore has been outscored 84-10 in the second half during this four-game losing streak.

Help is scheduled, not present. The Ravens are finalizing a trade with Arizona for veteran quarterback Jacoby Brissett, reported by ESPN's Adam Schefter and NFL Network's Ian Rapoport, with the deal expected to be completed this weekend and Brissett in line to debut on Monday, November 16 against the Los Angeles Chargers. Baltimore gets an 11-day break to install him. It also gets a question it cannot dodge, with the trade deadline set for Tuesday, November 10 at 4 p.m. ET: buy for a wild-card run, or start selling? Ravens Wire posed exactly that question after the game, and 4-5 with no healthy franchise quarterback is a hard case for buying.

Jacksonville, per the club's game report, now leads the AFC South by three and a half games over Houston (2-5), has won four of its last five, and has outscored its last two opponents 72-10 while forcing six turnovers. That is not a hot streak. That is a team built to travel in January. Baltimore, meanwhile, has 11 days, a new quarterback arriving from the desert, and a season that is one more bad week from being about next year. Follow the rest of Week 9 live in The Zone and check the matchup numbers in the Stats Hub.