BALTIMORE, MD – Stonewalled at every turn, the Texans’ offense was rendered one-dimensional by an overpowering Baltimore Ravens defense headlined by linebackers Roquan Smith and Patrick Queen.
How the Ravens shut down the Texans’ running game impacted everything offensive coordinator Bobby Slowik hoped to do with his game plan.
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Because there was no room to operate and the Texans were in frequent long down and distance situations, they didn’t score an offensive touchdown and didn’t reach the red zone in a 34-10 blowout loss at M&T Bank Stadium in an AFC divisional round playoff game.
“We couldn’t get going,” Texans coach DeMeco Ryans said. “Up front, they made plays on us as they moved. They had a lot of stunts, moving their line a lot. They were playing on our side of the line of scrimmage. We couldn’t get going.”
Ending the Texans’ season, the Ravens held them to 38 rushing yards as lead running back Devin Singletary was held to 22 yards with 16 of them gained on a single run. Singletary rushed for 898 yards and four touchdowns for the season, averaging 4.2 yards per carry. Against the Ravens, he ran nine times and averaged 2.4 yards per run.
Singletary did a great job after taking over the starting job from former Pro Bowl alternate selection Dameon Pierce, who had a frustrating second NFL season. He had no carries against the Ravens as Singletary was the primary back again while Dare Ogunbowale ran twice for seven yards late in the game.
“Have a heck of a running back,” Ravens coach John Harbaugh said. “I thought our defense was just as good as it could be.”
In a 45-14 AFC wild-card playoff win over the Cleveland Browns the previous week, Singletary complemented rookie quarterback C.J. Stroud with 66 rushing yards on 13 runs as he averaged 5.1 yards per carry. He caught five passes for 48 yards on six targets against the Ravens out of the backfield.
“hey were eating us up,” Singletary said. " They just had our number today. That’s all it came down to. All the way around, they were just the better team today. We were ready to go, and we were locked in. It just wasn’t our day.”
“That was tough on the defense, man. They were playing great all day. We just couldn’t get it going how we wanted to on offense.”
The Texans finished with just 10 first downs and 213 yards of total offense, averaging 4.5 yards per play.
Without a running game to support him, Stroud was held to 175 passing yards on 19 completions out of 33 passes.
“That was huge,” Smith said. “All week we talked about stopping the run and that is with any team. If you stop the run and make a team one-dimensional, it’s going to be very hard to do anything. And that is a credit to the big dogs up front.
“I think we have the best front seven in football starting with our four up front and then the best two combo in the league, me and [Queen] in the middle. So, when you look at it like that, you stop the run, make them one-dimensional, that’s when we let the ball hawks in the back make the plays that they do.”
The Ravens set a physical tone with their front seven and the Texans had multiple presnap penalties as they were flagged 11 times for 70 yards. It was a meltdown in many ways with the running game being among the most glaring issues
“That’s how we’re supposed to come out,” Queen said. “That’s how you’re supposed to play the game. We don’t shy away from that kind of stuff. There was a lot of jawing back and forth. Some people probably thought we shouldn’t have been playing like that in the game. That’s just what we do. We like that kind of stuff.”
Aaron Wilson is a Texans and NFL reporter for KPRC 2 and click2houston.com
