Coaching Put Ravens Over Top

Even though Super Bowl XXXV produced three spectacular touchdowns on three consecutive plays in the third quarter Sunday night, the offense earned none of them.

Both quarterbacks were so erratic that this one would be remembered as one of the worst of all Super Bowls if it weren’t for those big third-quarter plays.

So that’s one of the great things about football:

Your defense can break the game open with a touchdown on an interception return from midfield, as Baltimore’s did on cornerback Duane Starks’ run.

Then after the other side scores on a 97-yard kickoff return, your special teams, on the next play, can make it a rout with an 84-yard kickoff return, as Baltimore’s did on Jermaine Lewis’ run.

At the end, after the sorely disappointed New York Giants gave up in the fourth quarter, the Ravens were a runaway winner, 34-7, disguising the reality that they don’t have much talent anywhere except on the coaching staff.

Even their famous defense turned out to be less than impressive.

Indeed, the Raven defense proved it can be had.

All you have to do is spread them out and throw deep, as the Giants did in the second quarter, when their receivers were so far open that the Rams might have scored a half-dozen touchdowns.

Giant quarterback Kerry Collins failed to score any.

He drove the Giants now and then because he has the arm for the long pass, but he is probably the least instinctive starting quarterback the Super Bowl has seen.

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The play that leveled New York was the interception that Collins threw to Starks in the third quarter.

Before that play, Baltimore’s lead was only 10-0 and in jeopardy if the Giants could capitalize on the Raven weaknesses they had found.

On the Starks play, however, instead of capitalizing, Collins blundered, failing to make the simplest of all quarterback reads, and that was the game.

Passers begin learning in junior high to key on strong safeties, and in this instance Raven strong safety Kim Herring, taking off with the snap, instantly dropped deep to his left into his area of the three-deep zone.

That meant the left cornerback, Starks, would be edging forward, and, therefore, as they tell quarterbacks in junior high, you can’t safely throw near him.

Instead, Collins threw right at him.

As a corner, Starks isn’t a great player--there isn’t much greatness anywhere on that defense --but defensive coordinator Marvin Lewis’ coaching clearly has more Hall of Fame quality than any in the Super Bowl since 1986, when Buddy Ryan coached the Chicago Bear defense.

The Raven offensive coordinator, Matt Cavanaugh, turned out to be another star--which everyone should have realized, probably, when Raven Coach Brian Billick, a renowned offensive thinker himself, gave him the job.

It was coaching that won this game, starting with Billick.

It certainly wasn’t his offense.

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In a game that might have ended 7-0 if Collins hadn’t made so many misplays, the Ravens, in 60 minutes, executed only one big play on offense themselves.

That was Dilfer’s touchdown pass to backup wide receiver Brandon Stokley in the first quarter, a 38-yard play that put the Giants in a hole so deep that their offense never could have climbed out.

Cavanaugh, not Dilfer, earned that one.

Here’s how:

* In a study of the Giant tapes, Baltimore’s coaches discovered that Giant free safety Shaun Williams could, in certain alignments, be looked off.

* So on the touchdown play, Dilfer came out of his set looking hard left--where Williams was--while, on the other side of the field, Stokley, the fastest Raven, raced away from Giant cornerback Jason Sehorn.

* When Dilfer suddenly turned to his right and fired at Stokley, Williams continued, for a fatal split second, to watch his side of the field, where Raven tight end Shannon Sharpe was tying up two other Giants in the double coverage they gave him all night.

It was an easy touchdown because Sehorn, all by himself, couldn’t cover Stokley, who was the closest thing to a most valuable player this game had.

That play was almost all the offense there was to see in this game.

For if Collins isn’t instinctive, Dilfer isn’t consistent.

They had the honor of leading the two teams that set the record for most punts in the third quarter, with most of the second half yet to be played.

For excellence and drama, this was a game that had nothing but Stokley’s quick touchdown and, in the third quarter, those three quick, strange ones.