Don't mess it up

Sporting News, The, Jan 22, 2001 by Paul Attner

That has become the philosophy of a Ravens offense accustomed to playing in the shadow of the league's best defense

A couple of days before Sunday's AFC title game against the Raiders, Ozzie Newsome, the Ravens' vice president of player personnel, mulled the intricacies of the Oakland defense. He was convinced the Ravens could score enough points to win--as long as they could fred Shannon Sharpe.

"The Raiders figure they can use their corners to take out our wide receivers," Newsome said, sitting in his office at the Ravens' practice facility. "And they want to get eight or nine in the box to shut down our running attack. So that leaves Shannon. They are going to have to figure out how to use a safety to stop trim and do ail the rest they want to do. I don't think they can, but it is up to Trent (Dilfer) to recognize when they are vulnerable against Shannon. That's how we beat them."

Newsome was so, so right In what is becoming an uncanny playoff trend for the otherwise offensively strapped Ravens, Sharpe produced the one, and only, gigantic play of the game for his team. On a third and 18 from the Baltimore 4, the Ravens picked up a Raiders blitz and ran "rip double slant," which called for Sharpe to cut across the middle about 10 yards down the field. Safety Marquez Pope trailed him by a step when the pass from Differ arrived, hitting Sharpe in full stride.

Pope missed the tackle, cornerback Darrien Gordon's bad angle took him out of the play, and receiver Brandon Stokley blocked off the nearest Raider. Sharpe, showing surprising speed, then raced down the middle of the field, past the rest of the Raiders' secondary, which had been concentrating on the outside receivers. With Patrick Johnson nudging him at the end, Sharpe finished a 96-yard score, the longest in NFL playoff history. And that ultimately became the game winner for the Ravens in their 16-3 victory.

Against Denver, Sharpe took a tipped pass 58 yards for one of Baltimore's three touchdowns. Against Tennessee, he pulled in a 56-yard completion that set up a 1-yard scoring run by Jamal Lewis, the team's only offensive touchdown. And now this huge play against the Raiders, just when Oakland thought it would force the always-unpredictable Dilfer into a mistake.

"The first thing was, we were just trying m get a first down," Sharpe said. "They wanted us to throw it quick and get a tackle and the ball. But they missed the tackle and it just took off' from there. We had run that play on Thursday, and he hit me in stride, That's how it worked today. I was so sick of hearing about the Black Hole in Oakland. With that touchdown, I took a shovel and covered up the hole."

Too bad he can't cover up the Ravens' offensive deficiencies so easily. The Raiders' major defensive weakness was at safety, but in the Super Bowl, the Giants are much stronger at that spot. And you'd have to think they'll scheme to take away Sharpe. But as ESPN analyst Joe Theismann reminds us: "The playoffs are when your big stars have to step up big and make plays. Otherwise, you lose." And in flits offense, Sharpe is the most experienced and best player, more valuable than Lewis, the still-learning running back.

"I think the main mason they brought me here was because of my leadership," says Sharpe, who signed with Baltimore as a free agent in the offseason after a stellar career with the Broncos. "I wanted to get this team into the playoffs."

And he did, along with Dilfer, the amazingly resilient quarterback who was washed up in Tampa Bay before catching on with the Ravens as a backup to Tony Banks. But since he became a starter, the Ravens' offense, which went 21 quarters at one point this season without scoring a touchdown, has been at least good enough to take advantage of the great work of its defense. Coach Brian Billick also made the transition from a passing coach to a guy who lives reluctantly on the outcome of his running game and an occasional completion from Dilfer. The offensive approach has become: Don't mess it up.

Against the Raiders, the offense didn't. A couple of turnovers early in the second half had Billick a bit antsy, but Oakland could turn the mistakes into just three points and really threatened to score a touchdown only once. But a pushing penalty on Andre Rison negated a 5-yard scoring pass from Bobby Hoying late in the fourth quarter.

The Ravens forced five turnovers, but as the game wore on, Billick grew more conservative and was satisfied to accumulate field goals and chew up time. He took advantage of the errors to set up two Matt Stover field goals in the second half, to go along with one in the first Dilfer finished 9-of-18 for 190 yards, and Lewis gained 79 yards on the ground.

"Trent's job is to get us out of a bad play into a better one," Sharpe said. "He did what we asked. If there was a play to be had, we asked Trent to make it If not we live to see another clay. The thing we can't afford to do is put our defense in a bad predicament. We do what we have to do." And so far, that, amazingly, has been good enough.