MINNEAPOLIS -- For Lamar Jackson's 100th career start, the Baltimore Ravens defense gave him a gift on Sunday -- a "smoke break."
In the Ravens' 27-19 win over the Minnesota Vikings, it was their resurgent defense and not their MVP quarterback that led the charge. Baltimore recorded season highs of two interceptions and 12 quarterback hits as the Ravens' defense is starting to look like the team's units of old once again.
"That's been a big key -- the mindset shift of, even though we have Lamar Jackson, let's give him a smoke break, let's give him an off day," said cornerback Marlon Humphrey, who made an interception in the third quarter. "He's bailed it out so many times. How about we do it."
The Ravens (4-5) won their third straight game after a 1-5 start, and the team's turnaround has coincided with the defense bouncing back to form. After giving up an NFL-worst 177 points in the first five games, Baltimore has held its past four opponents under 20 points.
On Sunday, when Jackson and the Ravens offense were struggling in the red zone (2-of-5), the defense was making repeated stands. Baltimore stopped the Vikings 11 times on third downs and three times on fourth down.
"They played Raven standard [of] football," said Jackson, whose 73 wins are the third-most in a quarterback's first 100 career starts since 1950.
Humphrey and rookie safety Malaki Starks picked off Minnesota quarterback J.J. McCarthy twice to nearly match Baltimore's season total. The Ravens had three interceptions in their first eight games.
One of the keys was getting to McCarthy. He completed just 2-of-11 passes (18%) when pressured.
Asked whether the Ravens' defense has finally got its swagger back, safety Kyle Hamilton replied, "Yeah ... No, actually no. We got work to do and stuff to be done, but we got to work on our celebrations if we're going to say that we have a swagger back. Some of our celebrations are bad, but at least we have stuff to celebrate now."