The Baltimore Ravens and the Buffalo Bills were two of the most impressive teams in the NFL on Wild Card Weekend, as the two of them easily took care of business to set up a monster clash in the Divisional Round on Sunday.
The Ravens' defense has a tall task in front of them as it heads into Buffalo, where not a lot of teams have been able to have success so far this season. Almost nobody has been able to slow down Josh Allen and this high-flying Bills offense, but the Ravens will have to do so if they want to keep their Super Bowl hopes alive. Before the big game, Ravens linebacker Roquan Smith revealed the key to stopping the Bills during an appearance on The Insiders.
“Very excited about this matchup with the Bills knowing that they're a very good team led by Josh Allen,” Smith said. “Their O-Line is playing some really good ball as well, and then the running back [James] Cook, I've known him for a very long time. And then guys on the outside who can make a lot of plays. I think it’s gonna be very simple for us. We just gotta stick to who we are as a group, stopping the run and making those guys one dimensional. Once you do that, it can create a long day for those guys.”
The Ravens do have some positive experience to go off of in this matchup. These two teams squared off in Week 4 in Baltimore and the Ravens won handily in a 35-10 rout. Of course, both teams have changed drastically since then, but the Ravens should come into the game with some confidence based on that outing.
Smith laid out the blueprint to beating the Bills that the Denver Broncos failed to accomplish in a 31-7 blowout last weekend in Buffalo. In that game, the Bills controlled the ball and the clock with the running game and let Allen make hero plays on late downs and in big spots. If the Ravens run into similar problems stopping the run in this game, the Bills have the capability to keep Lamar Jackson and the explosive Baltimore offense on the sideline. As a result, the Ravens must be able to make Allen beat them through the air on Sunday.