Baltimore Defense Stuffs Pennington, Dolphins To Reach AFC Divisional

Miami, FL (AHN) - Baltimore ran its unforgiving defense to perfection, tearing apart Miami's offense with five interceptions and the Ravens advanced to the AFC divisional round with a 27-9 victory Sunday at Dolphin Stadium.

Hardly underestimated despite having a first-year coach in John Harbaugh and a rookie quarterback in Joe Flacco, the Ravens went to their top arsenal-defense, with the NFL-best 26 pickoffs during the regular season.

Comeback Player of the Year Chad Pennington was intercepted four times-he had just seven through 16 games-and Terrell Suggs forced the fifth turnover with a recovered fumble early in the second half.

Pennington completed 25-of-38 attempts for 252 yards, his lone touchdown pass going to running back Ronnie Brown via a two-yard score in the fourth period that never made an impact.

Elsewhere on the field, the scrappy Ravens were all over.

But their defensive unit struck the biggest dagger, with Ed Reed accounting for two takeaways, one resulting to a 64-yard return touchdown off Pennington's throw at the Dolphins' 5-yard line.

Flacco rushed for a 5-yard score to peg the final tally with 3:53 left. He completed 9-of-23 attempts for 135 yards and had zero interceptions.

Matt Stover made two field goals from 23 and 31 yards for the Ravens, who will travel to Tennessee next Saturday.

Baltimore, the no. 6 seed, won for the sixth time in the last seven games and nosed out New England for the wild card despite a similar 11-5 record in the regular season.

Baltimore won its first playoff game in eight years, when the Ravens incidentally also beat the Dolphins in a first-round game.

Miami, which got 19 rushing yards from Brown and another 55 in the air from Cobbs, had nothing to be ashamed of, especially after last season's 1-15 unit hardly was never expected to go this far.

Baltimore, which fell one game short of the AFC North division title won by Pittsburgh, drew 75 yards and a touchdown from fullback Le'Ron McClain.

Lead rusher Willis McGahee ran seven times for 62 yards and veteran receiver Derrick Mason caught four passes for 71 yards.