Both the Giants and Ravens came into Sunday’s game hoping to wash the bad taste from Week 15 out of their mouths.
The Ravens were the only one that succeeded. Joe Flacco played as well as he has all season one week after a poor performance against the Broncos and the Ravens cruised to a 33-14 win that made them the AFC North division winners for the second straight season.
Flacco was 25-of-36 for 309 yards and two touchdowns before giving way to Tyrod Taylor in the fourth quarter. Flacco’s best work came on third downs as the Ravens converted 11-of-17 of them to enjoy a huge edge in time of possession. They only scored nine points after the break, but they used up almost 15 minutes on two of their field goal drives and the Giants defense couldn’t mount any kind of resistance. Ray Rice had 158 yards from scrimmage, Bernard Pierce ran for 123 yards and the Ravens rolled up 521 yards of offense on their way to the win.
That’s a bit more like what they were hoping for when they made the move to Jim Caldwell at offensive coordinator.
That was almost 400 more yards than the Giants managed on another bad day for Eli Manning and company. There was no running game, the pass protection was not up to par and the Giants wound up running just 45 offensive plays all day. You wouldn’t have thought that things could have gotten worse after last week’s 34-0 loss to the Falcons, but the Giants did their very best to convince you otherwise on Sunday.
They still have playoff hopes, although it’s hard to make a case that they deserve them after the last two weeks. Winning won’t be enough for the Giants now, though. They’ll need help from others if they are going to get another chance to make an unlikely run to the Super Bowl.