BALTIMORE — The Ravens defense was Rex Ryan’s Frankenstein last night.
A Baltimore defense that was pretty much Ryan’s creation came back to haunt its old boss in dizzying, ferocious, relentless fashion, all but suffocating his Jets in a 34-17 win at M&T Bank Stadium.
Ryan, the Ravens’ defensive coordinator from 2005 until he got the Jets job three seasons ago, could only watch helplessly as Baltimore smothered Mark Sanchez from the outset while setting a team record by returning three turnovers for touchdowns.
“It felt great to do it against Rex, because he helped a lot of guys in this locker room grow as players,” said Ravens defensive tackle Haloti Ngata, whose strip sack forced the second of those three return TDs. “It was fun to do what we did with [Ryan] watching.”
The Ravens brought the heat on Sanchez from the very first snap, as Ed Reed — whom Ryan had described last week as the best safety in NFL history — recorded a blitz sack of Sanchez that forced a fumble returned by Jameel McClain for a touchdown.
As if that weren’t bad enough, it only got worse for Sanchez and the Jets’ injury-shuffled offensive line the rest of the way.
Realizing the Jets were vulnerable inside with Pro Bowl center Nick Mangold sidelined and replaced by rookie Colin Baxter, the Ravens overloaded the inside and barely gave Sanchez time to blink — much less read the field — when he dropped back to throw.
The Jets had Sanchez throwing from bare-minimum three-step drops, but even that couldn’t slow down the Baltimore onslaught.
A power rush from Nagata midway through the second quarter produced another strip sack of Sanchez, this one returned 26 yards for a score by linebacker Jarret Johnson, but Nagata and his ravenous mates still weren’t done.
Thanks in part to equally horrible play by Baltimore quarterback Joe Flacco, the Jets were somehow still in the game early in the third quarter after Aaron Maybin’s first career sack caused Flacco to lose a fumble.
But the Ravens defense wasn’t going to let Flacco hand this one to the Jets, flipping the momentum once again on the very next play when another horrible Sanchez timing throw — this one for Santonio Holmes along the right sideline — was easily picked off by cornerback Lardarius Webb and returned 73 yards for the decisive TD.
“He hit the ground pretty quick a few times,” Johnson said mockingly of Sanchez. “You could tell he was feeling the pressure and didn’t want any part of it.”
As a result, Ryan’s current quarterback was done in by Ryan’s old defensive blueprint.
Even Ryan could have appreciated the symmetry of that if the outcome hadn’t been so painful.