This week's Game Balls are brought to you courtesy of Sprint.
For the next couple of weeks, our usual writer of the weekly "Game Balls" post - Mosul_DolFan - will not be able to share with us his wisdom. So it's up to me to fill his big shoes.
It's not going to be easy - that I will admit. But I'll do my best to make "Mosul" proud.
And with that said, let's get into it - even though it wasn't easy to find five players worthy of receiving game balls this week after the Ravens thoroughly beat down the Dolphins on Sunday.
1-Yard Game Ball: Karlos Dansby. The defense didn't play well at all on Sunday. But Karlos was very active all game long. He ended the game with a team-high 10 solo tackles, including two tackles for loss - one of those being a big stop on a 3rd & 1 play from Miami's 7 yard line.
2-Yard Game Ball: Jake Long, Richie Incognito, Joe Berger, John Jerry, and Vernon Carey. Miami's offensive line was able to open up some big holes in the running game against this physical Ravens defense. Of course, it's a shame that the Dolphins decided to stop running after averaging 7.5 yards per carry on their first possession. For the game, the Dolphins running backs averaged 5.45 yards per carry. This unit also protected Chad Henne very well yet again.
3-Yard Game Ball: Brian Hartline. Yes I know - Hartline fell down, causing Henne's first interception of the game. But Hartline was also making plays on the four other passes thrown his way. Two of them converted third downs on Miami's two scoring drives. The other two were big plays of 31 and 34 yards. A solid day for Brian on Sunday.
4-Yard Game Ball: Ronnie Brown. It's a damn shame that Brown didn't get the ball in his hands more often on Sunday. For the first time this year, Ronnie was running with some anger behind him. It's like the threat of losing his job - and possibly looking for a new team this offseason - lit a fire under Ronnie. For the game, Brown rushed for 59 yards and a touchdown on 9 carries, as well as putting up 40 yards receiving on 5 receptions.
5-Yard Game Ball: Cameron Wake. Without a doubt, Wake is quickly cementing himself as one of the very best pass-rushers in the NFL. Wake picked up two more sacks on Sunday and now leads the AFC with 8.5 on the season. But Cameron is quickly becoming a great all-around linebacker. He's been doing a nice job setting the edge, and did so again on Sunday. For the game, Wake tallied 8 tackles to go with his two sacks and one tackle for a loss.
Sack: The easy way out here would be to give the sack to Le'Ron McClain for spitting on Channing Crowder - and then denying it even after pretty clear visual evidence of the incident was released. But as much of a scumbag as McClain is for doing that, there are plenty of people on this team who deserve to get the sack.
I'm going to give out two sacks. The first goes to Dan Henning for his decision to stop feeding Ronnie Brown the ball. I'm sick and tired of this two-back rotation. In theory, it works well. But as a game plays out, this coaching staff has got to try playing the hot hand. Instead, this staff refuses to waver from their rigid "series to series" running back rotation. Even worse, the Dolphins basically completely abandoned the run in the second half - even though they were more effective on the ground than they have been all year.
The second sack goes to every single player on the defense not named Cameron Wake or Karlos Dansby. This unit surrendered over 400 yards of offense and far too many 3rd down conversions - particularly third and longs in the second half.