The 2001 season was the Baltimore Ravens' sixth season in the National Football League (NFL) and the third under head coach Brian Billick.
Fresh off their victory trip from Super Bowl XXXV, bad news struck the 2001 Ravens as running back Jamal Lewis suffered a knee injury in training camp and would miss the entire season. This weakened the Ravensâ running game. Trent Dilfer was allowed to leave in free agency, and the Ravens elected to have a quarterback room that had Elvis Grbac as the primary starter with Randall Cunningham as the backup. Grbac went 8-6 as a starter but threw 15 touchdowns to 18 interceptions while Cunningham won both of his two starts. Terry Allen led the Ravens in rushing with 658 yards while Jason Brookins had five rushing touchdowns. On the receiving side, Qadry Ismail had 1,059 receiving yards on 74 receptions for seven touchdowns while Shannon Sharpe had a Pro Bowl season with 73 receptions for 811 yards as a tight end. Jermaine Lewis returned 42 punts for 519 yards to go along with 42 kick returns for 1,039 yards and was a Pro Bowl player. Ray Lewis had a league-high 162 combined tackles with three interceptions while Peter Boulware had a career-high 15 sacks.
The Ravens were swept by the Browns for the first time since they returned to Cleveland, and the Ravens also failed to equal their 12âÂÂ4 record from 2000, instead going 10âÂÂ6 but eventually reaching the postseason for the second consecutive year. They easily shut down the Miami Dolphins, 20âÂÂ3 in the wild-card round, but were unable to stop the 13âÂÂ3 Pittsburgh Steelers, in the next round, due to a series of turnovers and penalties.
This was the final season Randall Cunningham, Dale Hellestrae, Erik Williams and Carnell Lake would play in the NFL.
Throughout training camp, the team was the first to be covered by and featured on the HBO series Hard Knocks.
Note: Intra-division opponents are in bold text.
at Heinz Field, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania