Baltimore Ravens Week 3 Preview

For the second week in a row two of the most exciting young quarterbacks and arguably the best in the game will face off. For the third time in their careers reigning league MVP Lamar Jackson and reigning Superbowl MVP Patrick Mahomes will go head to head, except this time it will be in primetime on Monday Night Football in Baltimore and not at 1 PM eastern standard time on  Sunday afternoon in Kansas City.

The Baltimore Ravens will welcome the defending champion Kansas City Chiefs to M&T Bank Stadium for a Week Three showdown between arguably the best two teams in the league in what many already dubbed as the “Game of the Year” when the schedule came was released in May.

In Week Two, the Ravens recorded a second straight blowout win to start the season 2-0 after steamrolling the Texans 33-16 and the Chiefs overcame yet another double-digit deficit to improve 2-0 after edging out the Los Angeles Chargers 23-20 in overtime.

Here is a detailed breakdown of the matchup minus potential X factors and key matchups to look for because they will be featured in separate and more detailed pieces but it will include what is at stake for both teams, who will likely be out with an injury for each team, and a final outcome prediction:

What’s at stake:

The Ravens have won 14 straight regular-season games dating back to last season when they went on a franchise-record 12-game winning streak down the stretch after opening the year 2-2 and will be looking to extend the longest active winning streak to 15 in a row when the Chiefs come to Charm City.

The Chiefs have an impressive winning streak of their own coming into this game having not lost a game, including the postseason, since Week 10 of last season. Including their perfect 3-0 run in the playoffs last year that they capped off with their first Superbowl title in half a century, Kansas City has won 11 straight games.

Baltimore could extend their lead over the Pittsburgh Steelers and the Browns, who they already beat, in the race for the AFC North divisional crown with another win over an AFC opponent and the Chiefs would fall to 2-1 in both overall and conference play with a loss and would prove to be the top layer of the cream of the crop with a win over a Ravens’ team that is perhaps the biggest obstacle in their quest to repeat as champions.

Even though the Ravens haven’t won a playoff game in their last two trips in each of the last two seasons and their last postseason victory came in 2014, ever since Jackson took over as the starting quarterback midway through his rookie season in 2018 the Ravens boast an astounding league-best 21-3 record in the regular season.

That impressive record includes a perfect 12-0 streak in primetime games with Jackson under center and in those games, he looked like quarterback and overall player by far and it hasn’t even been close. However, of his three career losses in the regular season, two of them have come at the hands of Mahomes and the Chiefs.

Win or lose the Ravens will either have their primetime game winning streak with Jackson extended or their losing streak to the Mahomes led Chiefs team come to an end. Hopefully, it will be the latter, but there will definitely be a lot more competition for the best player on the field for either team in this game with these two sensational talents at quarterback.

Who’s in and who’s out:

The Ravens are coming into this game the healthiest they have been since the regular season started outside of the season-ending injury to Tavon Young. They only have three players on their injury report that practiced as limited participants and one as a full participant on Thursday.

The shortlist includes veteran safety/linebacker Anthony Levine (abdomen), veteran wide receiver/special teams ace Chris Moore (finger), rookie defensive tackle Justin Madubuike and running back Justice Hill (thigh) was the full participant.

With exception of Levine, captain of special teams, none of the other three players appeared in the Ravens first two games of the season. Hill returned to practice on a limited basis last week after dealing with his soft tissue issue but was not active for the team’s Week Two rout of the Houston Texans.

Moore and Madubuike have been out of commission since training camp but returned to practice for the first time in the regular season on Thursday. Moore missed nearly all of training camp for the second straight year with a broken finger but because he is one of the key fixtures on several of the Ravens’ special teams units, he made the final roster and wasn’t placed on the short term injured reserve.

Madubuike has been week to week with a knee injury that he sustained late in training camp. Prior to his injury, the third-round pick out of Texas A&M was performing well in practice according to reports and could bring some additional depth and interior pass rush presence to the defensive line rotation.

“Chris Moore, if he is able to do enough, he could play special teams; he could jump right in there,” Head Coach John Harbaugh said Monday. “Justin, he’s a rookie, so we’d have to see enough to feel comfortable with him out there Monday night.”

As for the Chiefs, starting wide receiver Sammy Watkins is currently in the concussion protocol and prohibited from practicing. Reserve defensive end Alex Okafor also did not practice on Thursday with a hamstring injury. Backup running back Darrel Williams (ankle) and starting corner Charvarius Ward (hand) were limited participants and starting defensive end Frank Clark (illness) was among five of their full participants.

Recent history of the matchup:

Including the postseason, the Chiefs own a 6-4 lead in the all-time series between the two teams. Kansas City has won the last three meetings, Baltimore won the previous four before that and the Chiefs also won the first three, dating back to the very first meeting in 1999.

In the last two games when Jackson and Mahomes faced off, both tilts were tightly contested games and went down to the wire. In Jackson’s rookie season, the game went into overtime and the Chiefs won a game-winning field goal 27-24 and last year the Ravens lost points on a few fourth-down gambles and wound up losing 33-28 in regulation.

Final prediction:

The Ravens have played great under the lights of a primetime stage with Jackson under center and I believe that not only will their winning streak in nationally televised games and regular-season games dating back to Week Five of last season be extended, a win would also end the Ravens’ winless streak that against the Chiefs since Reid became their head coach in 2013 and give Jackson his first head to head win against Mahomes in what is setting up to be the next great quarterback rivalry of the next generation.

I believe that the two most important keys to a Ravens victory over the reigning world champions are for Baltimore are to first, continue their trend of getting out to fast starts and not letting up and second, stick to their bread and butter of dominating opposing defenses on the ground which just so happens to be the weakness of the Chiefs defense through two games.

Kansas City has made a religious habit of starting slow and having Mahomes conjure up one miraculous comeback from down double digits after the other dating back to their perfect playoff run in 2019.

However, it appears the stars are aligned for Ravens to bring the Comeback King’s impressive yet improbable streak to a ceremonious end on Monday night with the whole world watching. The Chiefs can’t afford to spot the Ravens a double-digit lead early on because they will just continue to pile it on to point that not even Mahomes’ late-game magic will be able to dig them out of that deficit that could be three possessions or more if they start as sluggish as they did against the Chargers in Week Two. I predict that the Ravens will win this game 34-24 to improve to 3-0 and might have two or more players rush for over 100 yards which might include Jackson and possibly two of the three of four runnning backs that will be active.