Broncos vs. Ravens, Week 15: 'The Baltimore Ravens were embarrassed'

The Baltimore Ravens failed to get any points in the first half against the Denver Broncos, falling behind 31-3 before making the scoreline respectable as they dropped their third-straight game.

The Ravens were hoping for a better offensive performance a week after firing coordinator Cam Cameron, but the offense came out flat. Ray Rice was ineffective when he did get the ball, gaining only 32 yards on the ground, and Joe Flacco completed only half of his 40 passing attempts. Ravens blogger Bruce Raffel titled his postgame recap "Somewhere, Cam Cameron is Smiling":

The Denver Broncos showed everyone the difference between a playoff contender and a playoff pretender. The Broncos are the former and the Ravens, alas, are the obvious latter.

Flacco had a chance to make the game close when he had the team on the doorstep of the Broncos' end zone towards the end of the half, but he made the poor decision to force a pass into tight coverage. Instead of a touchdown that would have made the game 10-7, Chris Harris ran the ball back 98 yards to make the score 17-0 at the half. Raffel wondered why Flacco made the throw, placing much of the game for the loss on the Ravens' quarterback.

With three timeouts at the time, there is every reason to question why didn't the Ravens call timeout instead of forcing a play to be started that never got untracked as Flacco stubbornly tried to get the ball to a receiver that was nowhere near being open. Give Joe credit for chasing Harris the full length of the field, diving at his heels at the goal line and lying motionless on the field for a while after the scoring play was complete.

The Ravens have now lost three straight, although the Broncos weren't the worst team to lose to, as they've won nine in a row. They still have a one-game advantage over the Cincinnati Bengals with two games to play.