A method of making a fabric-creped absorbent cellulosic sheet includes applying a jet of papermaking furnish to a forming wire, the jet having a jet velocity and the forming wire moving at a forming wire velocity. The papermaking furnish is compactively dewatered to form a nascent web. The nascent web is applied to a transfer surface that is moving at a transfer surface speed. The nascent web is fabric-creped from the transfer surface at a consistency of from about 30 to about 60 percent utilizing a creping fabric that is traveling at a fabric-creping speed, the fabric-creping speed being slower than the transfer surface speed, and the fabric-creping step occurring under pressure in a fabric creping nip defined between the transfer surface and the creping fabric, such that the nascent web is creped from the transfer surface and redistributed on the creping fabric to form a creped web. The creped web is dried. The jet/wire velocity delta and the fabric-creping step are controlled such that the dry machine direction to cross-machine direction (MD/CD) tensile ratio of the dried web is about at most 1.5.