Ravens Kick Their Way to a Win

The Lions let another game slip away Monday night, giving up 6 field goals including a 61-yard go-ahead field goal by K Justin Tucker for the win.

(Rick Osentoski/AP)

The Ravens struggled to get any kind of momentum going, as you can see from their franchise-record six field goals in Monday's win. The Lions seem to keep shooting themselves in the foot. After leading the NFC North with a 6-3 record after Week 10, the Lions have lost 4 of their last 5 and have thrown the most INT's, dropped the most passes, and had the most turnovers in the NFL since. The trend continued Monday for the Lions with All-Pro WR Calvin Johnson dropping some critical passes and QB Mathew Stafford throwing for 3 INT's, which was their 5th straight game with at least 3 turnovers.

The Lions started the game looking good on their opening drive, 8 plays for 78 yards capped off by a 14-yard run by RB Reggie Bush. The Lions would have to punt away every other possession in the first half, while the Baltimore Ravens were able to knock down 3 field goals in the 2nd quarter to give them a 9-7 lead going into halftime. Not much happened in the 3rd quarter except for a field goal by each team, although the Ravens field goal was set up by a Mathew Stafford INT on the Lions first drive of the 2nd half. Stafford would throw 2 more INT's in the 4th, one to set up a field goal by Tucker to give the Ravens the lead 15-10. The Lions finally answered back with a TD pass to rookie TE Joseph Fauria on their next possession, but would fail a 2-point conversion attempt, that gave them a 16-15 lead with 2:21 left to play in regulation. The Ravens would set up a game-winning 61-yard field goal attempt by Tucker that barely swung in the bottom right of the goal post to give the Ravens back the lead 18-16 with only 38 seconds left for Detroit to try a comeback. Stafford would go on to throw his 3rd INT of the night on his first pass attempt and seal the win for Baltimore and continue the Super Bowl champs playoff push.

(Photo: Andrew Weber, USA TODAY Sports)

Prediction:

BAL over DET 27-25

Final Score:

BAL over DET 18-16

With Stafford's 2 late INT's he joined the likes of Tony Romo's Week 15 performance as well as rookie QB Geno Smith in Week 2, as the only QB's to throw multiple INT's in the 4th quarter when the game is within 5 points this season. Not a great list or great company and is something Detroit will have to work on if they want to make it to the post-season.

Up next for the (8-6)Ravens will be a visit from (10-4)New England Patriots, which is always a classic game. Also it will be another game between the 2 brothers Chandler and Arthur Jones who last played each other in the AFC Championship game last year. They also have a brother in the UFC who you may know (I'll give you a hint, he currently holds the Light Heavyweight Title).

The (7-7)Lions next opponent will be against another struggling NFC team in the (5-9)New York Giants. The Giants will be looking to get over their complete shutdown they had to endure at the hands of the Seattle Seahawks and I'm sure the Lions will have their own chip on their shoulder as well after Monday's performance.

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