ExtremeRavens Posted 10 hours ago Posted 10 hours ago The Ravens let slip an 11-point, fourth-quarter lead, losing to the Patriots, 28-24, on a night a season’s worth of issues all came to a head. Now 7-8, two games back of the AFC North lead, Baltimore no longer controls its own playoff destiny. Here are five things we learned from the game: Sunday night was a dizzying roller coaster ride If you were to chart the Ravens’ postseason hopes throughout Sunday night on a graph, measuring time perpendicular to the heart rate of the fan base, the squiggly line would look like a rollercoaster that left its riders with frizzy hair, doubled over the toilet. At 7:50 p.m. EST, over 500 miles away at Ford Field in downtown Detroit, the Lions scored what appeared to be a game-winning touchdown to beat the Steelers. That was the helping hand Baltimore needed in the AFC North standings. After some deliberation, the touchdown was overturned, Pittsburgh won and that line began its initial descent. By 8:39 p.m., the Ravens were playing like a team ready to make a playoff push. Not only did they still control their own playoff destiny, they white-knuckle gripped it. Derrick Henry rushed for a touchdown to cap a quick scoring drive, then Marlon Humphrey picked off Patriots quarterback Drake Maye. Baltimore was buzzing. Then at 9:34 p.m., about two minutes before halftime, Baltimore fell silent. Lamar Jackson trudged into the locker room steps, hanging his head and grabbing at his back. Huntley replaced him, which in a game of this magnitude, the line representing their playoff hopes fell faster than Joe Frazier in 1973. During an 11-minute window around 10:30 p.m. their playoff hopes were tied to a rocket ship. Zay Flowers took an end-around handoff 18 yards for a touchdown. The Patriots then tried a fake punt, fumbled it and Henry punched in his second touchdown to give the Ravens a two-score lead in the fourth quarter. At 11:22, that charted line crashed with its final descent. There were MVP chants for the opposing quarterback. The Ravens had a chance to put the nail in the coffin and instead ran an uninspiring penultimate drive. Then, on the potential game-winning drive, Flowers fumbled the ball away 15 seconds into a two-minute drill. Fair to say that’s how this Ravens season felt? Late December, we’re getting off a roller coaster that left everyone with frizzy hair, doubled over the toilet. “When we were 1-5, we knew that we were still a good team, and that we had a chance,” wide receiver DeAndre Hopkins said. “We just had to correct some things, and we did that. We went on a little run, but obviously this is the NFL. You have to bring it every week.” ‘It’s BS’; This has been the roughest season of Lamar Jackson’s career Surprisingly, Jackson agreed to speak with reporters after Sunday’s game. He stood against against his locker grimacing in pain. Injured players rarely, if ever, field questions postgame. Trapped inside a Louis Vuitton coat and gray beanie, the superstar quarterback stood upright so as not to move his back too much. “Pain,” he said. “It hurts.” Late in the first half, Jackson, giving himself up on a rare slide, took an awkward knee to the back. He stayed in for one more play. Then he checked out of the game, replaced by Huntley. Jackson said he got a Toradol shot, an anti-inflammatory drug, to alleviate the pain of what coach John Harbaugh unofficially called a “bruise of some kind.” It didn’t get any better. Inside the locker room, he tried throwing a football with one of the team trainers. “It just hurt,” he said. Sunday night may have been the final chapter in what has been the roughest season of Jackson’s eight-year, two-time Most Valuable Player career. He hopes to play in Green Bay on a short week but is expected to undergo imaging on Monday. This season, Jackson has already suffered injuries to his hamstring, knee, ankle and toe. He missed at least one midweek practice for six straight weeks, for reasons listed as injuries, illness and a rest day. There was a three-game stretch without producing a touchdown. He’s five sacks away from tying a single-season career most. Jackson started to look more like himself the past two weeks. He recently acknowledged he was finally feeling closer to playing like himself. Then the 28-year-old was again snakebitten by injury. His night ended having completed seven of 10 passes for 101 yards. Jackson fielded questions in the home locker room about what is closing in on, officially, a lost season. Much of that can be chalked up to the unavailability or uncharacteristic quarterback play. “It’s BS, bro,” he said. “I can’t control that.” Ravens quarterback Lamar Jackson slowly walks off the field after injuring his lower back against the Patriots. He left the game in the second quarter and did not return. (Nick Wass/AP) Meanwhile, the other quarterback clinched a division title for his team while the remaining fans who traveled from up north showered him with MVP chants. Drake Maye completed 31 of 44 passes for 380 yards, two touchdowns and an interception; all while playing behind an offensive line with multiple reserves. “I have to give [Maye] credit, some of those passes were hotly-contested, tight throws, under pressure, so you have to give them credit for making those plays in those situations,” Harbaugh said. “You have to do the things that are required to win, to win a lot of games. And we haven’t done that enough.” The guy regularly making those plays for Baltimore hasn’t been regularly making those plays. “I felt great tonight,” Jackson said. “It was unfortunate that it happened. I wish it didn’t though.” ‘It’s been a theme’ Kyle Hamilton is sick of talking about it. And he knows reporters aren’t fond of having to repeatedly ask it. The Ravens struggled with turnovers, between Flowers and Henry both fumbling. They failed to wall up on what required a signature defensive stand, leading by a field goal with five minute left. Not to mention that 11-point fourth-quarter lead vanished, marking Baltimore’s sixth loss in the past seven seasons after leading by 10 or more points in the final stanza. “It’s redundant, and [there are] no excuses at this point,” Hamilton said. “You said we had six losses at home. Is that right? Yes, that’s terrible. Our fans, whoever’s supporting us coming out to these games — it’s not like the attendance has dropped off at all — there’s people still out at these games on a Sunday night. It’s cold outside, the stadium’s packed out, people have work tomorrow, and we’re not making it worth their while at the end of the day.” Those words loom heavy from the highest paid safety in the league and the face of the Ravens defense. This is, unfortunately, who they are. The game’s final few minutes were a microcosm of all that has hindered this Super Bowl caliber roster from getting over the hump to competing for a Lombardi Trophy in the Jackson era. There were coaching decisions worthy of criticism. Prominent players came up short in crucial moments. And the defense couldn’t bring down the quarterback nor get off the field when they desperately needed to. To quote Dennis Green, “They are who we thought they were.” On that final drive, punter Jordan Stout pinned New England at its own 11-yard line. In four plays, they closed in on midfield. Maye, who has been one of the league’s most efficient deep-ball passers, showed no reservations about trying the Ravens defense. He converted a pivotal fourth-and-2, fitting a ball through a tight window to Stefon Diggs. “We just didn’t do enough to close out the game,” said safety Ar’Darius Washington, who nearly tipped the fourth-down throw. “Having an 11-point lead in the fourth quarter [and losing], that’s just not what we wanted to do. That’s not Ravens football, and we know that.” Historically, that’s not Ravens football. Of late, it’s not out of the norm. With the game on the line, Ravens should give the ball to Henry Zay Flowers dropped his head. He shrugged, trying to make sense of what had unfolded. “I tried to make a play,” he said, hard on himself for what was his third career fourth-quarter fumble. This one came two plays into a failed game-winning drive. “I seen him over run it so I cut back. Tried to get upfield. Get a first [down]. Somebody behind punched it out.” It’s a maddening flaw in what has otherwise been an impressive, nascent career for the former first-round pick. Flowers arrived in Baltimore in 2023. He’s grown into the closest thing the Ravens have to a homegrown wide receiver one. The one-time Pro Bowl selection eclipsed 1,000 yards for a second straight year. On Sunday, he caught seven passes, totaled 84 yards and ran for a touchdown. Two explosive plays on the game’s opening drive set the tone. It’s become clear in recent weeks how much Jackson relies on the road runner who jolts and squirms like there’s a battery pack taped between his shoulder blades. Flowers was as reliable an option as the Ravens had all night. Until the final drive, when he caught a short pass from Huntley and Patriots linebacker K’Lavon Chaisson punched it loose. Chaisson said they knew Baltimore had some “speed skaters,” an analogy he used to explain Ravens players who are a bit too liberal with their ball security. Ravens running back Derrick Henry celebrates scoring a touchdown against the Patriots. He scored two in the loss, although Baltimore didn't give him any touches in the game's final 10 minutes. (Kenneth K. Lam/Staff) If divine intervention could grant the Ravens a do-over, Harbaugh might have preferred a highly paid veteran to decide this game. “Looking back, would I rather have Derrick starting the drive? Yeah,” he said. Harbaugh was alluding more specifically to the drive before. Baltimore led by a field goal and took over possession with under nine minutes left. A touchdown drive might’ve put the game out of reach. Rather than Henry, backup running back Keaton Mitchell was in to start the drive. It was part of a plan the Ravens have been running with lately, rotating running backs on a per-drive basis. By that point, Henry registered 128 yards on 18 carries. He scored two touchdowns against one of the league’s worst run defenses over the past month. Mitchell, who has played well of late, managed just 13 yards on a season-high nine attempts and a career-low 1.4 average. Henry said he was not surprised by how the touches were distributed. That’s because it’s something they’ve been doing for weeks. “Keaton is deserving of it,” Henry said. Flowers is too. He has shown as much. Curiously, it was third stringer Rasheen Ali who was out there for the final drive. In a game of this magnitude, with the star quarterback watching from the sideline in street clothes, there’s one player who should have had the ball in his hands. “When you look back on it,” Harbaugh said, “I think it’s pretty easy to say, ‘Hey, he should have been in there or shouldn’t have been in there.’ But we’re rotating those guys throughout the game as two backs. “But yes, game-winning drive, do I want Derrick Henry on the field? Sure, I do want him on the field.” The Ravens are out of options. They must win out and get help. Thirty minutes before kickoff Sunday night, fans who had already found their seats were glued to the big board. Half the split-screen showed Ravens and Patriots players stretching; fans didn’t care much for that. They were locked into what wound up being a dramatic ending between the Steelers and Lions over 500 miles away. Detroit quarterback Jared Goff nearly authored a two-minute drill for the ages (with some help from officials). It would have given Baltimore a sliver of breathing room. Instead, the Steelers held on, reached nine wins and complicated the Ravens’ playoff push. Now, any combination of a Ravens loss in Green Bay on Saturday or a Steelers win Sunday in Cleveland would end Baltimore’s season. The grim energy in the postgame locker room suggested as such. DeAndre Hopkins said, “It sucks.” Asked about the team’s postgame message, Humphrey admitted, “To be honest, I have no idea what just got said. I’m still processing everything, so I can’t really answer that.” Center Tyler Linderbaum called it “very frustrating” knowing they have the talent to be a playoff contender but for much of this season, they haven’t been able to “translate that onto the field.” “I think it’s very simple,” linebacker Roquan Smith said, “We didn’t play winning football.” Because of it, the Ravens have backed themselves into a corner where just playing winning football won’t be enough to salvage this season from hell. Have a news tip? Contact Sam Cohn at scohn@baltsun.com, 410-332-6200 and x.com/samdcohn.x.com. The Ravens went just 3-6 at home this season, and their playoff chances are slim with two games left in the regular season. (Kenneth K. Lam/Staff) View the full article Quote
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