The list of best games from the 2021 NFL season gets crowded quickly. Off the top of your head, you might come up with the Chiefs and Bills trading touchdowns late into the night in the divisional round. Or the Raiders and Chargers stretching the boundaries of potential playoff scenarios, nearly tying on Monday night in Week 18. Maybe even Tom Brady’s return to Foxborough coming down to the final play.
But let’s not forget about a Week 5 tilt that had about as much excitement as an October game can, and will go down as an all-timer for followers of a certain statistic: Ravens 31, Colts 25 in a Monday night comeback classic.
“All the stars kind of aligned that night,” All-Pro tight end Mark Andrews says eight months later.
The Ravens trailed by 19 points in the third quarter, then by 16 with under 10 minutes left. That’s when things turned. Andrews accounted for all 16 points himself, in nine minutes of game time and 23 minutes of real time. The frantic comeback, aided by a blocked Rodrigo Blankenship field goal attempt in between those Andrews TDs, culminated in the tying score(s) with just 39 seconds left. Lamar Jackson finished the night a sparkling 37-for-43 for 442 yards, four touchdowns and no interceptions.
Here are the Ravens’ final four drives of the game:
• Third quarter: Five plays, 75 yards, touchdown
• Fourth quarter: Six plays, 78 yards, touchdown (plus two-pointer)
• Fourth quarter: Eleven plays, 75 yards, touchdown (plus two-pointer)
• Overtime: Ten plays, 68 yards, touchdown
Andrews did more than his part, catching 11 passes in all for a career-high 147 yards, on a night he later revealed he was playing with a heavy heart.
His most impressive statistical achievement: the rare double octopus.
“I’m all about the octopus,” Andrews told me during Ravens minicamp in June. “Now that I know about it, and I’ve already had two of them, I’m going for more. I want more of ’em.”
