Breaking: Humphrey Reveals Ravens’ Secret to Shutting Down CJ Stroud: Batilmore’s Defensive Blueprint Exposed

Heading into Week 17, it seemed like the Baltimore Ravens and the Houston Texans were going to turn in an absolute classic for the millions of fans watching along from home on Netflix.

Two teams, one loaded with young talent, another with an established core desire to take that final step forward, would duke it out on a special Wednesday afternoon broadcast, and the winner would have one heck of a feather in their cap heading into the final week of the season.

And yet, that didn’t happen.

No, outside of getting two points on the board from a safety early in the second quarter, the Texans were completely left off of the scoreboard, with their offense struggling to even get into the redzone, let alone have a chance to put up anything on a Ravens defense known for making opposing teams one-dimensional.

Asked about how the Ravens performed in Week 17, cornerback Marlon Humphrey celebrated his teammates for coming together on the defensive side of the ball, noting that he mentioned to his defensive coordinator, Zach Orr, just how well they were playing in the middle of the contest.

“Man, I’m not going to lie. I’d say we’ve come full circle. But no, it felt good. I was talking with [senior advisor Dean] Pees. He was here when I was a rookie, and I think we had maybe one or two shutouts,” Humphrey told reporters. “I was telling ‘Z.O.’ [defensive coordinator Zach Orr], it feels good to play good defense. We had some things out there, but it’s always good when you can have their offense not score. You’ve got to say you played pretty well. This is a testament to it all kind of coming together. I felt the coaching was there, and I just felt as players, ‘What is the formula to continue to get high percentages of 11 guys doing 11 guys’ jobs?’ Obviously, we had some mishaps here and there on a couple things, guys were kind of wide open, but man, a shutout – even though they got a two [points] – it feels great.”

Asked how it feels to see his team hold strong and win three straight games after their loss to the Philadelphia Eagles, Humphrey celebrated the folks in the building as they all came together to get the win.

“Man, I really like the plan that we had. I think our plan mentally to get the work in, but then also physically. The walk-throughs that we did went a little bit fast,” Humphrey told reporters.

“I talked with [director of high performance] Sam Rosengarten, one of our guys that does all the DARI and all the data with speed and how fast we’re going and the catapult and everything, and I think the plan we had, it was unmatched to what other teams did. I felt that we came out fresh, ready to go, but that quick turnaround is about who can recover the best, who can have the best plan, and I felt that we had a better plan than them, and I thought we were a little bit fresher than them. So, I think hats off to the weight room [staff] and all the guys doing the catapult and all the different things, because I thought our plan worked really well.”