Sorting the Sunday Pile, Week 7: Ravens offense hitting its stride, Bijan Robinson no-show concerning

The one knock on the Baltimore Ravens’ impressive start to the season was quality of opponent. We can scratch through that complaint after Sunday’s 38-6 blowout win of the previously 5-1 Detroit Lions. Lamar Jackson has been quietly excellent all season long, flying well under the quarter pole MVP discussion, but in Week 7, and a game that Baltimore dominated from start to finish, Jackson erupted, throwing for 357 yards and three touchdowns while adding another score on the ground. 

Detroit’s going to be licking its wounds for a while after this ugly affair, but the Ravens are the much bigger story. The Lions were playing back-to-back road games, had been getting all the headlines, had basically become the new “America’s Team” (bye to the Jaguars who replaced the Browns after a ~very~ brief stint atop these imaginary rankings) heading into Baltimore. And then they got steamrolled by the Ravens.

Baltimore scored early and often, with Lamar sauntering into the end zone inside of five minutes after an opening drive of seven plays and 75 yards. Following a three-and-out by Detroit, the Ravens fashioned another touchdown drive, this one 11 plays and 68 yards, eating up almost six minutes of clock and establishing exactly how this matchup was going to play out. 

The Lions wouldn’t muster anything of substance on offense until the game was well out of hand — their longest drive of the day was the only touchdown of the day, coming in the fourth quarter while trailing 35-0. 

We’re still far too early in the season to make definitive statements about any team, especially when the theatrical trope of Any Given Sunday still applies to almost every single matchup. The NFL may not possess the chaos of college football — 1-5 Virginia took down a top-10, undefeated North Carolina team 24 hours earlier after all — but the worst team in professional football is very capable of snaking the best…

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