A week ago, Roquan Smith jogged into the Buffalo Bills tunnel, stunned that the Ravens defense squandered a 15-point lead in the final minutes. He watched that game five times in the days following.
Sunday afternoon against the Browns, Smith rolled into the end zone on a 63-yard fumble return to seal Baltimore’s 41-17 win over the rival Cleveland Browns at M&T Bank Stadium.
Much of Sunday’s game was a “grind,” as Head Coach John Harbaugh called it, but Baltimore closed out its AFC North rival with 21 unanswered points in the fourth quarter.
“A great bounce-back win. [It was] a great winning-football win, in terms of handling a really tough week, a really challenging week, but also understanding what it takes to bounce back and win the next week or play a good football game,” Harbaugh said.
“I thought we did the things we needed to do. The guys already knew how to do those things, but to come out here and do them in this game, in terms of winning maturity, if you want to call it that.”
The Ravens defense held Cleveland and former Ravens quarterback Joe Flacco in check for much of the day in his first game back in M&T Bank Stadium as an opponent. The Browns had 12 offensive drives and gained more than 20 yards on only five.
Baltimore cashed in two turnovers that led to touchdowns, one on a Nate Wiggins interception that he nearly took for a pick-six and the other being Smith’s fumble recovery return for a score.
“I feel like last week we all had a sour taste in our mouth, and it was just more so about moving on and not letting last week beat you twice,” Smith said. “I felt like it was a great job by [Inside Linebackers Coach] ‘Tucc’ [Tyler Santucci], giving me some great pictures this week; then for studying these guys and knowing what they like to do in certain situations and just pulling the trigger. I still feel like I left some plays out there.”
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