Does Patriots' Victory Over Ravens Qualify As 'Signature Win'?

By Matt Dolloff, CBS Boston

BOSTON (CBS) -- Leave it to literally everyone to predict a street fight for Patriots-Ravens. Leave it to various corners of the sports media complex to crown the Ravens road victors before the first snap ever took place, or merely question the Patriots' ability to score against the Ravens' top-ranked defense.

You saw and heard all the takes that the Internet could muster leading into the Patriots' 30-23 win over the Ravens on the Monday Night Football stage. "This is a huge test for Tom Brady." "They haven't faced a tougher opponent all season." "How will the Patriots score without Gronk?"

But that pre-game pontificating mostly ignored the challenges facing the Ravens while simultaneously lionizing the men in purple and white, a.k.a. the Patriots' most consistently formidable foe in the Brady/Belichick era. There's no question that Baltimore has consistently played the Patriots tough, but that could mean the Patriots always played them tough, too. The Patriots faced their biggest test of the season on Monday night, but so did the Ravens.

It's really too bad that Tom Brady threw one of the worst interceptions of his career and that the Patriots' special teams got screwy for about 1:26 in the third quarter. Because aside from those ugly miscues, the Patriots showed up and delivered their most dominant, complete effort of the season - and because of the opponent and the stage, it may end up being their "signature win" of the season.

There's no sugar-coating the three turnovers; they were all a result of glaringly sloppy football and they undid a lot of good things that the Patriots did. But if Brady's interception, Cyrus Jones' latest muffed punt adventure, and Matthew Slater's fumbled kick return cost the Patriots anything, it was the chance to absolutely blow the Ravens off the field. It was a few plays of ugliness sprinkled in with what was about 56 minutes of Patriots domination.

Take the Brady-led offense, which overcame some early miscues to shred the Ravens for 496 total yards of offense, including 406 passing yards and three touchdowns for No. 12. For whatever reason, people forgot that Brady tends to show up against top-ranked defenses. If that performance didn't throw a bucket of cold water on the Ravens' defenders, it blasted it like a firehose.

The aforementioned special teams unit had itself a superb first half, highlighted by Shea McClellin's Jamie Collins-esque blocked field goal. Jonathan Jones also made a great play to pin the Ravens down on their own 1-yard line that led directly to Malcom Brown's safety, while the punt return team came within inches of blocking another kick. The great first half was undone by those two fumbles in the third quarter, but the good things are worth mentioning because there were a lot of them.

The most encouraging effort of the game, however, came from the Patriots defense, which has faced its share of questions since the Collins trade. Ravens quarterback Joe Flacco certainly presented the biggest test they would face for the rest of the regular season, and the unit stepped up and played perhaps their best game of the year.

There was plenty of aggression and pressure on Flacco, who was sacked twice. There was another turnover, as Devin McCourty played his interception as if he were the intended receiver. There was creativity, as was evident in the team's defensive line shifts that at times threw the Ravens offense off-balance and at one point forced a false start penalty. Another line shift directly caused Brown's safety. Best of all, it appeared that the Ravens were not ready for it.

The eye in the sky watching over them all - a.k.a. the Patriots coaching staff - had as good a night as anyone on the Patriots. They deserve lots of credit for having nearly everyone prepared and focused for what was surely one of the toughest opponents of the season. For a rivalry that is usually defined by back-and-forth coaching chess matches between Bill Belichick and John Harbaugh, on Monday night the Patriots put on a clinic.

But is it their signature win?

You may believe that there's no need to determine "signature wins" when evaluating a team's chances to win the Super Bowl, but I'm personally a big believer in signature wins. A victory like Monday night's game can obviously engender plenty of confidence among us in the peanut gallery, but it can also do wonders for the team's confidence as a whole. The adversity they faced in the second half can only help them moving forward.

A win like last night's can build the kind of momentum needed to roll to the Super Bowl, which is especially important for younger, less experienced players - and the Patriots have plenty of those. I tend to believe that the Patriots, who have endured a lot of trying circumstances (whether it's of their own doing or beyond their control) amid their 11 wins, needed a win like Monday night.

Perhaps you feel that the Patriots' turnovers, and the points lost due to them, deprive Monday night's win of the "signature win" label. That wouldn't be unfair. It's quite possible that the Patriots get to the playoffs without a signature win. But the win over the Ravens is certainly the closest they will come to one, save for maybe a convincing win in Denver against the Broncos.

So now, I leave it up to you. Is Monday night's win over the Ravens the team's "signature win" of the season?

Matt Dolloff is a writer for CBSBostonSports.com. Any opinions expressed do not necessarily reflect that of CBS or 98.5 The Sports Hub. Have a news tip or comment for Matt? Follow him on Twitter @mattdolloff and email him at mdolloff@985thesportshub.com.