Baltimore Ravens beat Giants: Good, bad and the ugly

The Ugly:

The Giants outscored the Ravens in the second half 10-7. It was just enough to keep the Giants technically alive in the ballgame. Justice Hill had a roughing the passer penalty that kept a horrible New York drive alive. Hill’s penalty gave the Giants a first down after the Ravens recorded sacks on three consecutive plays. Was it an unfortunate consequence of Hill’s momentum? Possibly, yet you don’t want these things happening. Put a team away when you have a chance. That’s the best policy.

The Ravens surrendered a chance to put another touchdown on the board near the end of the game. Approaching the goal-line there was a fumble caused by a weirdly operated mesh point between Gus Edwards and Lamar Jackson. The game was wrapped up quickly after that moment, yet it was a bad look.

The Giants had a very pass-happy offense. Part of that was because the Ravens made them one-dimensional. The other part of that is because the Ravens pass defense was fairly inconsistent. Three of the six sacks the Baltimore defense tallied up came in one drive.

Without Jimmy Smith and Marcus Peters, Baltimore had to bend way more than they’d like. Give Don Martindale’s unit some credit because the Giants could only muster 13 points in this affair, yet there were some downright awful drives for this defense. This game had intervals of fun and no drama that switched to mildly annoying patches.

The fact that this game wasn’t a bigger blowout is slightly problematic. The Ravens played well, did the things they absolutely had to do but left some room for improvement.