“He’s shown that if there’s nowhere to run the ball, he can still break it open and make a 15-, 20-yard gain,” linebacker Rey Maualuga said. “For us, I don’t think anything has changed. It’s still the same gameplan. Everyone just has to be fundamentally sound in their gaps and make sure if you have him in coverage. Everyone has to know where they’ve got to be and trust everyone else that they’re going to do their jobs.”
But it’s not just the Bengals that Rice steams. The fifth-year pro has topped 2,000 all-purpose yards twice in the last three seasons, and he enters Sunday’s game at Paul Brown Stadium with 1,138 yards rushing and 478 receiving.
He also was voted to his third Pro Bowl in the last four seasons Wednesday and is the reigning AFC Offensive Player of the Week after accumulating 158 all-purpose yards in Sunday’s 33-14 dismantling of the New York Giants that enabled Baltimore to clinch the AFC North Division championship.
That means he will get a chance to collide with the reigning AFC Defensive Player of the Week in Bengals defensive tackle Geno Atkins.
“Ray Rice is a beast,” Atkins said. “We’ve got to stop the run against him. Our defense right now has a little hot streak going, and their offense is on fire. It’s going to be a good matchup this week.”
As good as Rice’s numbers are, the Ravens have had their issues on offense, enough so that the team fired offensive coordinator Cam Cameron on Dec. 10, following back-to-back losses to the Steelers and Redskins.
In its first game with Jim Caldwell calling the plays, Baltimore fell to Denver 34-17, the team’s third loss in a row. But last week the Ravens rolled up a season-high 533 yards of offense, with Rice rushing for 107 while adding 51 and a touchdown in the passing game.
“We needed that, especially coming off that three-game skid,” Rice said. “For us to come out there and execute the way we did, that’s definitely a confidence builder.
“We didn’t change much. We didn’t change our plays. We didn’t change our personnel,” he added. “What we did was we eliminated some things, kept it simple, and that’s where we’re at right now. We executed at a high level last week.”
In the first game against the Bengals this season, a 44-13 rout on Monday Night Football in the season opener, Rice averaged 6.8 yards per carry and scored twice. In the 2011 season finale, he had touchdown runs of 70 and 51 yards and finished with 191 yards, the second-highest total of his career.
The question remains how much he will play Sunday. The Ravens have already clinched the division and can only move up from the No. 4 seed to No. 3. Baltimore coach John Harbaugh said he plans to play to win, while Bengals coach Marvin Lewis said he will as well. And nothing will be more important to achieving that goal than stopping Rice.
“With Ray Rice’s ability to make people miss, it’s important we do a fantastic job of staying on our feet and tackling this week,” Lewis said.
And that, Maualuga said, will take a team effort.
“He’s very elusive, fast and quick, and you need more than one guy to make the tackle,” he said. “We have to start fast and eliminate him from their running game. But they’re still going to look for him with checkdowns and stuff, so if he gets the ball in his hands, we have to make sure we get all hats to the football and get him to the ground.”
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