Lamar Jackson was back Tuesday night, and so was the joy.
The Ravens' effervescent quarterback had a grin after a fourth-quarter scramble for a first down, his legs moving the sticks and cranking up his teammates' delight. There was a laugh after he missed a wide-open Miles Boykin on a would-be touchdown throw. And there were happy skips and ecstatic high-fives and bear hugs for an assembly line of friends and coaches — even team president Dick Cass — after an exclamation-point touchdown against Dallas.
The scoreboard read Ravens 34, Cowboys 17, and Jackson had waited so long to be this joyous. First there were the two straight narrow losses that had upended a promising season. Then there were the 10 days of self-quarantine, mandatory after a Thanksgiving Day test revealed a COVID-19 diagnosis. He'd had to watch from home as a Ravens team depleted by the coronavirus outbreak was eliminated from AFC North title contention.
But he was back now, and maybe so were the Ravens (7-5). They'd entered Tuesday night ninth in the AFC's seven-team playoff picture. They left it with a win they needed to stay in the hunt in December, and with a quarterback performance that suggested they could very much contend in January.
After an early interception, Jackson settled into the game. He looked like, if not the all-everything superstar he was last season, then at least a quarterback well suited to lead an offense missing talented pieces and finding ways to integrate other ones.
The Ravens' first touchdown set the tone for the night. It was vintage Jackson, a fourth-and-2 carry powered up the middle for a 37-yard touchdown. Their third touchdown was vintage Jackson, too, a little bit of improvisational magic on a 20-yard touchdown pass to wide receiver Marquise "Hollywood" Brown on a corner-of-the-end-zone throw, the kind he's struggled with this year.
Despite the expected absence of Pro Bowl tight end Mark Andrews, the unexpected departure of wide receiver Dez Bryant and yet another offensive line combination, Jackson finished 12-for-17 for 107 yards, two touchdowns and an interception, along with 13 carries for 94 yards and a touchdown. The Ravens piled up 294 rushing yards, more than they had in any game last season when they set the NFL rushing record.
It was the comeback the Ravens needed heading into the most important game in the most important month of their season. Before finishing the season with eminently winnable games against the Jacksonville Jaguars (1-11), New York Giants (5-7) and Cincinnati Bengals (2-9-1), the Ravens will head to Cleveland to face a strange Browns team — a winning one (9-3).
Tuesday night's all-around weirdness was a fitting appetizer for what awaits Monday night. The surreal started with a tweet a half-hour before kickoff from Bryant, the former Cowboys star: "Tell me why they pull me from warming up so I can go get tested," he wrote. "I tested positive for Covid WTF." After two inconclusive COVID-19 tests before the game, he'd finally tested positive and been sent home.
In a series of tweets that bled into the first quarter, Bryant seemed to cycle through the stages of grief in real time, from denial and anger ("This (stuff) do not make sense to me") to depression ("I'm going to go ahead and call it a quit for the rest of the season") to acceptance ("I'm about to drink some wine and cope").
For at least this week, there would be no more delays. The game went on as planned; Bryant was ruled out with what the team called an illness, and an NFL spokesman said contact tracing had determined no high-risk close contacts.
The rest of the first half played out with all the attendant oddities of a Tuesday prime-time game. Jackson's third meaningful pass in over two weeks was intercepted after a poor throw over the middle to Brown, his second interception on an opening drive in six weeks. He now has seven picks in 11 starts this year, more than he had during his NFL Most Valuable Player season.
On the drive after his fourth-down touchdown run, the Ravens stalled in the red zone, as they have in recent games. Kicker Justin Tucker was good from 31 yards, but the field-goal attempt was waved off; guard Bradley Bozeman, in an attempt to secure a first down, had been flagged for a false start for pointing out an alleged Cowboys penalty.
The next time Tucker kicked the ball, he missed from 36 yards, ending a streak of 70 made field goals inside 40 yards.
The next minute was almost like an exercise in the universe rebalancing itself. Dalton had a pass tipped at the line of scrimmage by defensive tackle Brandon Williams and intercepted by Patrick Queen, the rookie inside linebacker's first career NFL pick.
On the Ravens' next play, Jackson found wide receiver Miles Boykin wide open over the middle on a play-action pass for a 38-yard catch-and-run. Boykin's first target since Week 9 ended in the end zone, and with the Ravens leading 14-10.
The game scattered surprises throughout the night. In the first quarter, the Ravens' special teams, rock-solid all year on kickoff coverage, gave up a 66-yard return to running back Tony Pollard. In the second quarter, the Ravens offense drew its first defensive-pass-interference penalty all season. And in the first half, the Ravens defense finished with just one hit on Dalton against a Cowboys line decimated by injuries.
About the only thing predictable Tuesday was offensive coordinator Greg Roman's approach. The Ravens entered halftime with 10 pass attempts for 74 yards and 16 carries for 161 yards. The path back to normalcy would be a familiar one.
