On the day the Ravens rediscovered the joy of victory, everything came together for Jerry Rosburg's schizophrenic special teams.
Steve Hauschka didn't miss, Eddie Royal didn't run and Lardarius Webb weaved like a champ.
"We were playing like our hair was on fire," Jameel McClain said about the smothering effort of the Ravens' special teamers in Sunday's 30-7 rout of the Denver Broncos. It was as apt a description as any.
Indeed, the Ravens swarmed to Royal, one of the NFL's most dangerous kick returners. He was stopped three times inside the Denver 20 on kickoff returns and got just five yards out of two punt returns.
The description also fit Hauschka, who cost the Ravens a comeback victory in Minnesota when he missed a 44-yard field-goal attempt at the end of the game. But he made three straight field goals at distances of 43, 35 and 31 Sunday to cool the fires of discontent.
But the player whose hair was burning most might have been Webb, the slender rookie from Nicholls State in Louisiana, who gave the Ravens a charge to start the second half with an electric 95-yard kick return for a touchdown.
Webb weaved the last 20 yards while glancing over his shoulder at the Broncos' pursuit. His first NFL touchdown gave the Ravens a 13-0 lead. It was just the fourth touchdown on a kickoff return in team history and the first since Yamon Figurs went 94 yards against the Indianapolis Colts in 2007. Webb gave the credit to his teammates.
"I just ran," he said. "They blocked so good on that, it was like all 10 men got their man. They blocked so good, there were holes everywhere and I just hit one of them."
On what was supposed to be an angle return, Webb saw an opening up the middle - "instinct," he called it - and wasted no time getting through. He was never touched, even though the Broncos were closing at the end.
That run was validation of the Ravens' decision to put Webb in on kickoffs, even though they had signed veteran Chris Carr for the job in the offseason.
"The design [of the return] gave him some freedom and he saw the opening and took it," Rosburg said.
"I thought he set it up real well. He did a nice job of running to a point, then bent it back where the crease was. That's where the vision comes in. That's what great returners have; they have the ability to bring the ball one direction and see what's happening behind them."
