Thursday night was a who’s who game for the Baltimore Ravens and Tampa Bay Buccaneers. In posting a 27-22 win at Tampa Bay, the Ravens moved to 5-3 while looking a lot like the best team in the AFC North. By contrast, the Buccaneers, now 3-5 after a third straight loss, looked like a team that has no legitimate chance to play until January.
Tampa Bay got off to a hot start before fading over the final three quarters of the game. Baltimore’s pass rush made life miserable for Tom Brady, who in the first half passed Ben Roethlisberger as the most sacked quarterback in NFL history. It was a much better night for the visiting quarterback, as Lamar Jackson threw two touchdown passes while racking up nearly 300 all-purpose yards. Jackson was aided by a running game that racked up 233 yards while helping chew up nearly 38 minutes of game clock.
At halftime, the Ravens took the lead on a third-quarter touchdown pass from Jackson to Kenyan Drake and Isaiah Likely. Baltimore took a double-digit lead on Devin Duvernay’s 15-yard touchdown run with 6:35 left, less than six minutes after the Buccaneers scored their first points of the half on a Ryan Succop field goal.
Brady kept hope alive briefly with a touchdown pass to Julio Jones. But the Ravens got the ensuing kickoff, sealing the victory while snapping Brady’s 302-game hitting streak.
The Buccaneers went into halftime with a 10-3 lead after making two red-zone stops in the first 30 minutes of the game. Tampa Bay also got a decent first half from Brady, whose 44-yard completion to Chris Godwin set up Leonard Fournette’s touchdown midway through the first quarter.
We’ll have a full breakdown of Thursday night soon, but in the meantime, watch our live kick-off below to relive the action in real time.