Ray Lewis might have wished that he had waited another week before he returned from his toe injury, as the Baltimore Ravens (10-4) fell to a comprehensive 34-14 defeat to the San Diego Chargers (7-7).

The Ravens marched down the field confidently on their opening possession and looked certain to take the lead in the game. However, kicker Billy Cundiff, who is carrying an injury to his left thigh, was unable to convert the simple field goal, and gifted possession back to the Chargers. San Diego proved to be more clinical on their opening drive, with Mike Tolbert going over from the 1-yard line to end the Ravens streak of not allowing any kind of score on their oppositions opening drive.

Baltimore did manage to level the scores early in second quarter, quarterback Joe Flacco finding Ed Dickson with the 15-yard touchdown pass, and Cundiff was on target with the extra point. San Diego were exposing a Ravens secondary which, without Ladarius Webb on most plays, was allowing big yards to Phillip Rivers in the passing game, and retook their lead through a field goal initially, and then extended it with a rushing touchdown from Ryan Matthews as the game went into halftime.

The Chargers heaped even more misery onto the misfiring Ravens defense early in the third quarter, with Rivers finding Malcolm Floyd for a 28-yard touchdown, and moving San Diego into  a 17-point lead.  A Takeo Spikes interception then led to another rushing touchdown for Matthews, as they took the game beyond Baltimore, consigning the Ravens to their fourth loss of the season.

Rookie wide receiver Torrey Smith did grab a consolation touchdown for the Ravens in the fourth quarter, with a 36-yard touchdown, but it was too little too late for Baltimore who looked uncharacteristically poor in defense.

The Chargers will be thrilled with Rivers, who put in a masterful performance, throwing for 270 yards on just 17 completions, and although he only managed one touchdown, his accurate passing set up the rushing touchdowns of Matthews and Tolbert.

Baltimore Head Coach John Harbaugh will now be hoping that his brother Jim can do the Ravens a favor and beat the Pittsburgh Steelers, which would keep Baltimore at the top of the AFC North.

Image Courtesy of  Keith Allison

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Maybe the rest of the league shouldn’t write off this Chargers team just yet. San Diego finally snapped its miserable six game losing streak on Monday night with an eye-opening 38-14 victory over the Jaguars. Many people claimed the 4-7 Chargers season was over heading into this primetime matchup. However, their first win since October 9^th put them just two games behind Denver and Oakland for top spot in the AFC West.

“It’s been a rough six weeks. I haven’t put a complete game together, but I don’t care about the numbers. I just want to win,” said quarterback Phillip Rivers. Rivers has been criticized throughout the year for having what has probably been the worst season of his career. He has a league high 17 interceptions and has looked nothing like the elite quarterback that he has been for several years.

But maybe all Rivers needed was a simple change in the calendar. He now has a 23-2 regular season record in the months of December and January. The Chargers are known for making a run at some point every year, and they hope this win will spark another one.

A win seemed highly probable early on after the Chargers jumped out to a two possession first quarter lead on the 3-8 Jags. Mike Tolbert capped off an 11 play, 70 yard drive with a 13 yard touchdown run on San Diego’s first possession.  They then pushed the lead to 10-0 with a 29 yard field goal with less than a minute remaining in the quarter.

Jacksonville came right back in the second quarter. Rookie quarterback Blaine Gabbert led a 79 touchdown yard drive that concluded with a 9 yard touchdown pass to Maurice Jones-Drew. Gabbert went a perfect five for five on the drive, accounting for 49 yards.

The Jaguars offense quickly returned to the field after forcing a three and out. Jones-Drew was in the middle of the action once again after taking a 3^rd and 3 shovel pass 48 yards down to the San Diego 4 yard line. Gabbert finished off the drive with another touchdown pass – a 5 yard fade to Cecil Shorts on 3^rd and goal giving the Jags a 14-10 lead with 2:32 remaining in the half.

From that point on it was all Chargers the rest of the way. Rivers immediately took the Bolts 68 yards to the end zone after throwing a 22 yard back shoulder touchdown pass to rookie Vincent Brown. Jacksonville now trailed 17-14 with less than a minute and a half until halftime.

Chargers safety Eric Weddle then recorded his sixth interception of the year after picking off Gabbert at the San Diego 41. Rivers would go on to add one more touchdown before halftime with a 35 yard throw down field to Vincent Jackson. The Chargers remained just as aggressive in the passing game to open the third quarter. Malcolm Floyd hauled in a 52 yard play action bomb from Rivers to extend the lead to 31-14.

In just 4 minutes and 22 seconds the momentum of the game completely swung. San Diego scored 21 points during that span and never looked back. Despite two nice drives early on, Gabbert was unable to put anything together for the remainder of the night. He did not attempt many throws down field and went just 19-33 for 195 yards. The fans would boo him at times as he struggled mightily.

The Jaguars relied a lot on Jones-Drew, who passed LeSean McCoy as the league’s leading rusher in the fourth quarter. But 97 yards on 20 carries still was not enough to make up for Gabbert’s mistakes. Ryan Matthews, however, had a huge night for the Chargers. He ran for 112 yards on 13 carries and broke a 31 yard touchdown run for the game’s final score in the fourth quarter.

But Rivers was the star of the night. The 29-year-old finally looked like himself going for 294 yards and 3 touchdowns on 22-28 passing. It would be easy to overlook this victory for the Chargers since it came against a 3-8 team that fired their coach the previous week. Their rookie quarterback has played very poorly as well.

But the Jaguars sport one of the top defensive units in the league and the Chargers torched them. Rivers and the rest of the team have a lot to be proud of and could certainly build off of this win.

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The way things began at MetLife Stadium on Sunday made it look like the Jets’ season was going to crash and burn. The Jets began the game with the ball, and in less than two minutes, they were already down 7-0 when Donald Butler stripped Dustin Keller of the ball and ran it back 37 yards for the score.

New York started gaining some momentum, and appeared to have a 10-7 lead on a 23-yard catch by Santonio Holmes, but the play was brought back due to a holding penalty on Nick Mangold. Two plays later, Mark Sanchez made a bad throw into double coverage, and was picked off by Eric Weddle, which led to a two-yard touchdown catch by Antonio Gates.

This was Gates’ first game back since missing three games with a foot injury. He finished with five catches, 54 yards, and the one touchdown. The Jets’ only touchdown in the first half capped a nice drive that saw a very balanced running and passing attack. Sanchez was able to find Plaxico Burress in the endzone on the third and goal, which brought the score to 14-10.

Four Charger penalties, two pass interferences, and offsides calls helped the drive. Had it not been for a lot of mistakes the Chargers made, they would’ve been up by more points by halftime. San Diego, which came out of a bye wee, had 13 penalties for 95 yards on the day. A late drive and a one-yard run by Mike Tolbert put the ‘Bolts up 21-10 going into halftime.

The second half was a different story. The Jets dominated on both sides of the ball. On their second possession of the half, the Jets had a nice 10-play drive finished off with Burress’ second touchdown of the day on a four-yard catch to make it 21-17 with three minutes left in the third quarter.

The play of the game came with the Chargers driving down with the lead, looking for the potential game sealing score when Philip Rivers threw to Vincent Jackson. The ball tipped off his hands due to the throw being a little behind him, and bounced right into Darrelle Revis’ hands, who returned it at 64 yards to the Chargers 19-yard line, which set up the go ahead score.

“It was a big play,” said Revis, who thought cornerback Antonio Cromartie also got a piece of the ball. After some good runs by Shonn Greene, who had a breakout game rushing for 112 yards on 20 carries, and a defensive holding penalty, Sanchez was able to find Burress yet again for his third touchdown of the day on a three-yard slant in the redzone to give the Jets their first and only lead with 8:41 remaining.

This was Burress’ second three-touchdown game, his first being the opening week of the 2007 season with the Giants. “You’ve got to evaluate yourself,” Burress said. “I looked at myself, and said I’ve got to play better. It was not on anybody but myself.”

On San Diego’s next possession, Rivers, who finished 16 of 32 for 179 yards and a touchdown, threw another interception, this time getting picked off by Kyle Wilson. The turnover set up a 30-yard run by Nick Folk to put the Jets up 27-21. San Diego’s final drive with no timeouts was a joke as they barely got plays off, and turned it over on downs.

Sanchez who, besides the early interception, picked things up finished 18 of 33 for 173 yards and three touchdowns. Burress finished with four catches for 25 yards, but proved to be the red-zone presence the Jets were looking for when they signed him at the beginning of the season.

The Jets head into a bye week, sitting at 4-3, riding a two-game winning streak. After the bye week are two divisional games against the Bills and a home rematch against the Patriots. The Jets improved to 4-0 at home. “This,” Revis said, “was a must-win for us.”

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