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Live Updates: Ravens Are Running All Over Defenseless Packers

The Green Bay Packers (9-5-1) are hosting the Baltimore Ravens (7-8) on Saturday night at Lambeau Field. Follow along all night for updates.
Bill Huber|
The scene at Lambeau Field before kickoff of Packers-Ravens on Saturday night.
The scene at Lambeau Field before kickoff of Packers-Ravens on Saturday night. | Bill Huber/Packers On SI

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Green Bay Packers

GREEN BAY, Wis. – The Green Bay Packers will host the Baltimore Ravens on Saturday night at Lambeau Field. Follow along all night for updates.

Halftime: Ravens 27, Packers 14

It’s a bloodbath as the Packers are getting absolutely destroyed by the Ravens. The first-half stats:

  • Total yards: Ravens lead, 258 to 155.
  • Plays: Ravens lead, 45 to 14.
  • Rushing: Ravens lead, 175 to 22.
  • Time of possession: Ravens lead, 23:46 to 6:14.

Malik Willis is 8-of-8 passing for 133 yards. Along with his 22-yard touchdown run, he has accounted for all 155 yards.

Injury updates: Packers CB Nate Hobbs (knee) and WR Dontayvion Wicks (concussion) are out.

Second Quarter

Ravens 27, Packers 14 (0:10 remaining)

The Packers left far too much time on the clock for the unstoppable Ravens. Derrick Henry’s third touchdown of the game, a way-too-easy 3-yard run on a toss to the right, made it a two-score game.

At the start of the drive, Tyler Huntley gained 25 on a quarterback draw. The middle of the field was wide open, and the Ravens double-team block on Quay Walker gave Huntley far too many easy yards. A short completion to Isaiah Likely and a helmet-to-helmet hit on Evan Williams gave the Ravens a first down at the 14.

The Packers were booed off the field.

Injury update: WR Dontayvion Wicks is being evaluated for a concussion and is questionable.

Ravens 20, Packers 14 (1:24 remaining)

Practically in must-score mode late in the half, Malik Willis came out firing with completions of 13 yards to Christian Watson and 13 more to Romeo Doubs, with 15 yards tacked onto the Doubs catch when he was tackled out of bounds by the facemask by safety Alohi Gilman. That gave Green Bay a first down at Baltimore’s 33 at the 2-minute warning.

After an 11-yard pass to Chris Brooks on a one-man screen with Josh Whyle out front, Willis stuck the ball in Brooks’ belly on a zone read, pulled it out and had clear sailing around the right side for a 22-yard touchdown.

Ravens 20, Packers 7 (3:36 remaining)

The Packers are being completely outclassed, overwhelmed and embarrassed. After the Ravens took a 17-7 lead, Malik Willis was busy canning to another play when he got drilled in the facemask by Sean Rhyan’s snap. The Ravens recovered at Green Bay’s 30.

The defense allowed one first down but limited the damage to Tyler Loop’s 34-yard field goal. After excellent plays by Lukas Van Ness on first down and Kingsley Enagbare on second down, Keisean Nixon broke up a third-and-9 pass to DeAndre Hopkins.

Derrick Henry has 20 carries for 103 yards. The Packers have four carries for 1 yards.

It’s 38-8 in plays.

Ravens 17, Packers 7 (7:10 remaining)

The Ravens can run the ball at will. The Packers can’t run at all. On third-and-1, Malik Willis was stuffed on a sneak. On fourth-and-1, a shotgun handoff to Josh Jacobs was stuffed. Neither play had a chance as Green Bay’s front was overwhelmed.

The Ravens took over at Green Bay’s 34. Keaton Mitchell dodged Keisean Nixon in the backfield for a gain of 15. Finally, the Packers got a stop. On third-and-goal at the 4, Tyler Huntley avoided a potential sack by Keisean Nixon and fired a pass to Zay Flowers. Nate Hobbs broke it up. Hobbs and Flowers banged knees on the play and limped to the medical tent.

Tyler Loop hit the chip-shot field goal.

It’s 131-1 in rushing. That is not at typo.

Ravens 14, Packers 7 (13:13 remaining)

The Ravens ran over the Packers on the opening drive. On their second drive, Tyler Huntley went to work. He had completions of 7 and 9 yards to Isaiah Likely, a 13-yard pass to Zay Flowers – Carrington Valentine went for the pick-six but came up empty – and a 9-yard run to pick up a second-and-8.

It was all Derrick Henry to start the second quarter, with four consecutive carries culminating with a way-too-easy 1-yard touchdown run. The drive was 13 plays for 74 yards, which came on the heels of their opening drive of 13 plays for 75 yards.

Henry has 14 carries for 81 yards and Huntley is 7-of-7 for 51 yards. For time of possession, it’s 15:36 to 1:11.

First Quarter

Packers 7, Ravens 7 (5:44 remaining)

What an answer by Malik Willis. On the first play, he threw a 40-yard bomb to Romeo Doubs that brought the crowd to their feet. A 12-men-in-the-huddle penalty and a false start brought the boobirds to their feet. On first-and-20, the fans were back on teir feet as Willis threw a laser to Christian Watson, who caught the ball at the 15 and plowed through safeties Malaki Starks and Alohi Gilman near the goal line.

Ravens 7, Packers 0 (6:55 remaining)

The Ravens blew through the Packers’ defense like a tractor-trailer through a swarm of gnats. Their 13-play, 75-yard touchdown drive was capped by Derrick Henry’s 3-yard touchdown run. Baltimore ran the ball 10 times for 65 yards, led by Henry’s seven carries for 48 yards.

The touchdown run was the shortest of his carries. They were, in order, 12, 4, 9, 9, ,3, 8 and 3. The 8-yarder came on third-and-2. He dodged Evan Williams, gained the first down and ran through Keisean Nixon for another 5 yards.

Green Bay Packers quarterback Malik Willis (2) warms up prior to the game against the Baltimore Ravens at Lambeau Field.
Green Bay Packers quarterback Malik Willis (2) warms up prior to the game against the Baltimore Ravens at Lambeau Field. | Jeff Hanisch-Imagn Images

Packers Must Show Some Spine

During last week’s loss at Chicago, Packers quarterback Jordan Love was victimized by a pair of roughing-the-passer penalties by Andrew Billings. The second knocked Love out of the game with a concussion and will keep him out for this game against the Ravens.

At the end of regulation, Montez Sweat drove backup Malik Willis into the turf and injured his right shoulder.

The Packers did nothing to retaliate. No words. No pushing. No shoving. Nothing. It was a troubling lack of response, with seemingly nobody having the quarterbacks’ back.

Offensive coordinator Adam Stenavich, long before he was the Packers’ offensive line coach, was an all-conference offensive lineman at Michigan. Would he have stood for that if some Big Ten defender smashed into Chad Henne twice after the whistle?

“I don’t really want to comment much more on that,” Stenavich said this week. “He got a penalty, obviously, for illegal hit to the head and then the body weight stuff. Yeah, that was (pauses) unfortunate.”

That wasn’t the question, though. Would he have stood for it? Because former Packers linemen such as T.J. Lang didn’t during the Mike McCarthy era.

“I don’t know what you want me to say up here,” Stenavich replied.

The reality is the Bears were penalized a couple times but got Green Bay’s starting quarterback out of the game. That probably wasn’t Billings’ intent but it’s the reality.

“You definitely have your quarterback’s back, for sure,” Stenavich said. “They’re not going to go start a fight in the middle of the game and get penalties, as well. That’s not productive for anybody.”

Asked again about the lack of response from the linemen, Stenavich, clearly tired of the topic – either because he was upset by the lack of response from the linemen, too, or the insinuation behind the line of questioning – gruffly said, “Next question.”

The Bears lead the NFL with nine roughing-the-passer penalties – four more than any team. Green Bay has been flagged once and Baltimore is the only team with zero.

Packers-Ravens Inactives

Jordan Love and Lamar Jackson are inactive. Here’s who’s in and who’s out.

Packers Say They’ve Turned the Page

The last time the Packers lost back-to-back games, they rebounded with a four-game winning streak. They’ll have to reboot again after crushing losses at Denver and Chicago the last two weeks probably knocked them out of the NFC North race.

“I think the vibes are still high, the energy is still high,” safety Xavier McKinney said. “Obviously, we didn’t want to lose the game but things happen. So, you’ve got to be able to put it to bed. You can’t dwell on it. We’ve still got an opportunity to do what we want to do, so I think that’s really the biggest thing.

“We still have an opportunity, so we’re just trying to make sure that mentally we’re locking in and we’re doing what we’ve got to do to go out here on Saturday and get a win and be victorious.”

The Packers clinched a playoff berth, nonetheless, thanks to the Lions dropping their last two games to go from the NFC Championship Game in 2023 to 15-2 in 2024 to out of the race altogether.

How will Green Bay rebound? At Denver, the Packers blew a lead and lost Micah Parsons to a torn ACL. At Chicago, the Packers gave away a game they had in the bag and wasted a chance to take the division lead and grab the coveted No. 2 seed.

“You’ve got to turn the page. We’ve got to turn the page,” McKinney said. “In life, you’ve got to turn the page regardless. Obviously, it hurt. That sh** hurt all of us. We was feeling a certain type of way about it because of how it happened. I don’t think there’s a player in here or even a coach that got over it right after the game. Like, nah, we was mad for a couple days. I know I was.

“But, at the end of the day, you’ve got to turn that page, you’ve got to move on and that’s what we’re doing. We’re onto the next week.”

Big Challenge – Literally

The Ravens’ defense features a pair of 340-pounders at defensive tackle with John Jenkins and Travis Jones. That will make this the biggest challenge of the year for the running game.

“They’re massive and they do a great job of staying square, playing block, tough to move,” coach Matt LaFleur said. “They’re physical on the perimeter, on their edges, obviously their backers are very physical, too, and you see it with their secondary. It’s one of the more physical defenses out there. I think they are a big-time challenge to run the football against.”

The Packers ran it well last week, with Emanuel Wilson having a productive game in place of Josh Jacobs. Rather quietly, Green Bay’s run game has come on strong during the second half of the season.

“I thought our guys were coming off the ball,” LaFleur said. “That’s where it always starts and trying to get everybody on their landmarks, on their aiming points. The backs got to press those blocks and read it one gap at a time, and that’s what we were doing.”

The Ravens are 13th in rushing yards allowed per game and per carry. 

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Bill Huber
BILL HUBER

Bill Huber, who has covered the Green Bay Packers since 2008, is the publisher of Packers On SI, a Sports Illustrated channel. E-mail: packwriter2002@yahoo.com History: Huber took over Packer Central in August 2019. Twitter: https://twitter.com/BillHuberNFL Background: Huber graduated from the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater, where he played on the football team, in 1995. He worked in newspapers in Reedsburg, Wisconsin Dells and Shawano before working at The Green Bay News-Chronicle and Green Bay Press-Gazette from 1998 through 2008. With The News-Chronicle, he won several awards for his commentaries and page design. In 2008, he took over as editor of Packer Report Magazine, which was founded by Hall of Fame linebacker Ray Nitschke, and PackerReport.com. In 2019, he took over the new Sports Illustrated site Packer Central, which he has grown into one of the largest sites in the Sports Illustrated Media Group.