From Jarret Johnson delivering a crushing sack on the first defensive play to Ray Rice powering his way across the goal line on the offense's last play, the Ravens didn't just defeat the Denver Broncos.
They beat up the previously unbeaten Broncos.
With three straight losses weighing on their minds during the bye week, the Ravens vented their frustrations with their most complete game of the season, roughing up Denver in a 30-7 rout before 71,132 at M&T Bank Stadium.
The defense set the physical tone and held the Broncos to 200 total yards (the fewest by a Denver team since 2003). The special teams provided the midgame spark when rookie Lardarius Webb returned the opening kickoff of the second half 95 yards for a touchdown. And the offense finished it off with two fourth-quarter touchdowns and Joe Flacco completing his final 14 passes.
For the first time in a month, the Ravens didn't let the game come down to the last play. Instead, they left the lasting impression by pounding one of the NFL's three remaining undefeated teams.
"We needed that win," Johnson said. "To lose the way we've lost the last three games ... I think we needed to have a big-time opponent and play big versus them. We did that today."
The Ravens (4-3) inched to within one game of the Pittsburgh Steelers and the Cincinnati Bengals in the AFC North because they didn't back down from the challenges of playing the Broncos (6-1).
Rice called this a "special" game. Wide receiver Kelley Washington labeled it a "statement game."
Defensive end Terrell Suggs described it as a game of sweeping emotions.
Said Suggs: "We were just hungry. We were angry. And we were very confident coming in."
The players heard all week that the Denver defense was the stingiest in the NFL and looked like some of the old dominant Ravens ones. The Ravens' defense showed the Broncos on Sunday that they have more work to do.
Johnson ran free on the first play of the game to drop Denver's Kyle Orton, one of five quarterback hits by the Ravens. Free safety Ed Reed forced running back Knowshon Moreno to fumble on the Broncos' third series, which led to the Ravens' second field goal of the game. And the Ravens would have intercepted Orton twice if Suggs and Johnson hadn't let passes go through their hands.
In the end, the Ravens were one penalty-filled drive from a shutout. They were flagged twice for pass interference (Ray Lewis and Domonique Foxworth) and once for being offside (Reed) on a third-quarter series that led to Moreno's 1-yard touchdown run.
