With the Ravens finishing off a playoff run, quarterback Lamar Jackson and his No. 1 rush offense took dead aim at the Bengals' injury-riddled defense and dialed up a 38-3 victory Sunday at Paul Brown Stadium.
Jackson directed the biggest rushing attack ever against the Bengals as the Ravens rolled up 404 yards on the ground with rookie running back J.K. Dobbins accounting for 160 of them on 13 carries.
Working against a lineup that had six Opening Day starters, Jackson had 97 himself. It must be something about the building. The Ravens racked up the most rush yards in the NFL since the Bengals put up 407 against the Broncos on Oct. 22, 2000 in the game Bengals running back Corey Dillon broke Walter Payton's NFL rushing record.
A week after being named the FedEx Player of the Week, Bengals quarterback Brandon Allen could go just six of 21 for 48 yards for a 0 passer rating. After going 3-for-16 on third-down conversions in their 27-3 loss in Baltimore back on Oct. 11, the Bengals went 1-for-9 on Sunday.
Down 31-3, they tried to get wide receiver A.J. Green a share of Chad Johnson's Bengals franchise record for receiving touchdowns, but any chance for a record of their own Sunday seemed to be doomed.
The Bengals had the ball at the Ravens 1 after Green had just drawn back-to-back pass interference penalties, the last one in the end zone on cornerback Marcus Peters. Allen went right to Green on first down. He went play-action and tried to throw back against the flow to the left pylon and Green was open. But Allen under threw it and Peters picked it off for the Bengals' first turnover in 12 quarters.
After not targeting Green in the first half, Allen went to him on back-to-back plays in the first series of the second half after tight end Cethan Carter was called for a false start. But they came up empty on second-and-13 and third-and-13.
On second down, Green got behind cornerback Anthony Averett over the middle but Averett knocked it away. On third down, Green went deep down the right sideline against Peters and as he got inside him, Allen threw it. But Green was still running the route and Green looked back at Allen as if in surprise.
Green finished what may have been his last game at PBS a Bengal with no catches on six targets. Allen went for him late in the game, but he was double covered and he was intercepted again, this time by safety Chuck Clark as he buzzed over the top and kept both feet in on a play that needed to be overturned.
The injuries kept piling up. After losing rookie wide receiver Tee Higgins with a hamstring injury in the first series of the game, they lost center Trey Hopkins with a left knee injury on the first series of the second half and he was replaced by Billy Price. That denied Higgins the Bengals rookie receiving record, a mark he needed oned to break.
Lamar Jackson led touchdown drives on the first two series of the second half.
The first one came courtesy of a five-play drive that was all runs and featured Jackson baflfling the Bengals on the zone read. But before that, he broke off a scramble for 18 yards. Then, he and Dobbins ran together before he gave it to Dobbins for a 27-yard bolt past linebacker Germaine Pratt. Then, Jackson kept it for 20 yards and that set up Dobbins walking into the end zone for a four-yard touchdown run that made it 24-3.
On the next drive, after an incompletion, the Ravens ran it six straight times and that set up Jackson's scrambling nine-yard touchdown pass to wide receiver Hollywood Brown in the back right corner of the end zone. That made it 31-3 with 3:44 left in the third quarter.
That was it for Jackson as he left with 97 rushing yards to go along with two 100-yard rushing days among his 5-0 record against the Bengals.
But Dobbins wasn't done. After Peters' interception, he took a handoff through a wide-open hole and just bolted past Pratt and there was nobody home. Dobbins, the former Ohio State back, ran past everybody down the left sideline for a 72-yard touchdown run he finished it off by giving the O-H in the end zone.
That gave Dobbins his 160 while Gus Edwards pitched in 60 more on a dozen carries. The previous rushing high against the Bengals had been 313 yards in a 1969 game in Cincinnati.
Game action photos as the Bengals host the Baltimore Ravens in Week 17 of the 2020 NFL season.