BALTIMORE — The Ravens weren’t caught off guard this time, but the Miami Dolphins left them even more dazed than last year.
The Ravens squandered a 35-14 third-quarter lead, and a defensive collapse was completed when Miami quarterback Tua Tagovailoa threw a 7-yard touchdown pass to Jaylen Waddle with 14 seconds left to lift the Dolphins (2-0) to a shocking 42-38 win at M&T Bank Stadium in the Ravens home opener on Sept. 18.
Against a Ravens secondary that was without Pro Bowl cornerback Marlon Humphrey (groin) for its defining moments, Tagovailoa threw six touchdown passes, including four in the fourth quarter as the Dolphins found the end zone on every fourth-quarter possession.
According to ESPN, this marked the first time in 12 years that an NFL team lost when leading by 21 points in the fourth quarter.
“All credit goes to the Dolphins,” Ravens coach John Harbaugh said. “They got the job done in the second half and in the fourth quarter. … We have to own it, every single person.”
The loss spoiled a superb effort from Ravens quarterback Lamar Jackson, who threw for three touchdowns and ran for another, a 79-yarder that is the longest of his career.
Jackson was flustered and frustrated by relentless Miami pressure in a 22-10 loss to the Dolphins last year, and he acknowledged last week that the Ravens were “caught off guard” by the Dolphins’ scheme.
This time, Jackson and the Ravens had answers, early and often.
Jackson took apart the Miami pass defense in the first half, going 11-for-13 with three touchdown passes, including a quick slant to Rashod Bateman that turned into a 75-yard catch-and-run score as the Ravens opened up a 28-7 halftime lead. In the third quarter, Jackson gashed right up the middle for a career-long 79-yard touchdown for a 35-14 lead that, at the time, appeared to be insurmountable. It proved to be anything but that, with the Dolphins outscoring the Ravens 28-3 in the fourth quarter.
Down by 21 points, the Dolphins, “didn’t let that define them,” Jackson said. “They kept playing. That’s what we’ve got to do. We’ve got to finish when we’re up.”
Here are five quick impressions of the game, the Ravens’ first home-opening loss in seven seasons:
1. This built-from-the-back defense isn’t supposed to allow this to happen.
The Ravens have poured resources into their secondary in recent years in the form of contracts and draft capital, with the belief that it will be cornerstone of the defense. Games like this, in which the opposing quarterback throws for 469 yards and six touchdowns, aren’t supposed to happen.
Last year’s team ranked 32nd in pass defense, which could largely be attributed to a rash of injuries, but the Ravens thought they had moved well past that. In this game, Pro Bowl cornerback Marcus Peters returned to the field after missing the entire 2021 season with a torn ACL, and Pro Bowl cornerback Marlon Humphrey was active as well, although he was dealing with a groin injury.
Behind them, the Ravens had their top free-agent acquisition, safety Marcus Williams, patrolling alongside top draft pick Kyle Hamilton, with veteran Chuck Clark filling in as a dime linebacker. Williams has paid immediate dividends, as he hauled in a pair of interceptions in this game, giving him three in two games this year — as many as any Ravens player had all of last season. Williams had a potential third interception bounce off his hands after several deflections.
Yet Humphrey left the game with that groin injury and he watched from the sideline as Tyreek Hill (11 catches, 190 yards) blew past his replacement, rookie Jalyn Armour-Davis, on a 60-yard touchdown that tied the game at 35 with 5:19 left. That play came right after Williams had a potential interception bounce off his hands.
Less than three minutes earlier, Hill had gotten two steps on Peters, and Hamilton couldn’t close ground as Hill hauled in a 48-yard score.
Hamilton acknowledged communication issues hampered the secondary, perhaps understandable considering he, Armour-Davis and Pepe Williams were three rookies on the field a lot.
Hamilton, the rookie first-round pick playing in his first regular-season home game, said, “Obviously as you get down to crunch time, you’ve got to hone in what we’ve been practicing. I did make mistakes, and that’s on me, and I’ll get it fixed. I’ll work with the guys to work on communication and be better next week.”
New players or not, for a team that has made the secondary the cornerstone, and had made a change at defensive coordinator in part to move past last year’s last-ranked pass defense, this was a stunning breakdown.
“Never did you think we were going to have that many balls thrown over our head,” Harbaugh said. “That just can’t happen. That’s not OK. I don’t care who’s back there, what they’re doing. Those plays will cost you a game.”
2. The Ravens were doomed by their inability to gain a yard when they needed it.
For all the woes of the Ravens’ pass defense, the only reason the Dolphins had four possessions in the fourth quarter was because the Ravens were thoroughly unable to run the ball, save one magical, 79-yard touchdown scamper by Lamar Jackson.
J.K. Dobbins was again held out of the game as he continues to work back from the knee injury that cost him all of last season, and his replacements have produced next to nothing. The Ravens’ three running backs in this game — Kenyan Drake, Mike Davis and Justice Hill — totaled 28 yards on 14 carries.
The Ravens had three touchdowns of 75 yards or longer, including a 103-yard, opening-kickoff return by Devin Duvernay, but when they needed to pick up just 1 yard, they had all sorts of trouble.
The most telling sequence came when the Ravens had first-and-goal at the Dolphins’ 2-yard line late in the first quarter. Davis gained a yard on first down, and then was stuffed for no gain on second down. Jackson ran on a keeper off the right guard on third down, and after initially being called a touchdown, the play was overturned, leaving the Ravens facing fourth-and-inches. Jackson kept again, but he fumbled at the goal line — “a mishap from me and my center,” Jackson said — and Davis recovered back at the 5-yard line, ending the possession.
Then in the fourth quarter, with the Ravens leading 35-21, Jackson was again stuffed for no gain on fourth-and-1, giving the ball back to the Dolphins with about nine minutes left.
After the first of Hill’s two long touchdowns cut the lead to 35-28, the Ravens again took over, looking to chew up yardage on a clock-swallowing, ground-and-pound drive that was their hallmark in 2019. What happened? Hill lost 2 yards on first down, Jackson threw two incompletions, and the Dolphins quickly had the ball back with all the momentum.
The Ravens would have won this game if they could gain a yard in short-yardage situations. They could not. Now they have to figure out why not.
“That’s one of the things we have to take a hard look at, and try to get to where we need to be in that way,” Harbaugh said, “because that’s how you win games.”
3. Lamar Jackson should always win with those numbers.
Lamar Jackson torched the Dolphins’ defense for three first-half touchdown passes, and then added to his lengthy highlight reel with a 79-yard score in the third quarter, proving that, as he professed all summer, the extra 10 pounds on his frame hasn’t compromised his speed.
Jackson finished 21-for-29 for 318 yards and three touchdowns, and after being inundated by the Dolphins’ blitz last year, he wasn’t sacked all in this game. The Dolphins didn’t even register a quarterback hit. Jackson finished with a passer rating of 142.6. Coming into this game, he had been 18-1 as a starter when his passer rating was at least 100. The other loss? At Kansas City his rookie year, when his rating was 100.5; this was easily the highest passer rating Jackson has posted in a loss.
He also ran nine times for 119 yards and his touchdown that gave the Ravens a 35-14 lead.
By the time he jogged back to the sideline after that touchdown, “MVP!” chants were raining down at M&T Bank Stadium, and indeed, he appeared to be in MVP form for much of the game.
It’s easy to look at Jackson’s numbers and wonder how this team could have lost. Ultimately, it was because the Dolphins got one more possession against a shell-shocked Ravens defense, and because the Ravens’ offense couldn’t get a yard to stay on the field.
4. Rashod Bateman’s speed is a game-changer.
The Ravens showed they had learned something from last year’s beatdown in Miami. With the Dolphins stacking the box and showing more Cover Zero blitz looks, with the middle of the field essentially unguarded, Lamar Jackson fired a quick slant to Rashod Bateman.
Bateman got inside position on cornerback Xavien Howard, extended his hands to make the grab and, with nothing but green grass in the middle of the field, he outraced Howard and everyone else for a 75-yard touchdown and early 14-7 lead. The touchdown put all of Bateman’s skills — his hands, his route-running, his speed — on full display.
It’s exactly the type of home-run ability the Ravens have been lacking. Last year, the Ravens had no plays from scrimmage of 50 yards or more; Bateman now has two in two weeks. He caught a 55-yard touchdown pass from Jackson against the New York Jets in Week 1.
Among the many critiques of Jackson, his ability to throw the deep ball has been one of the most scrutinized. The touchdown to Bateman proved that he and Jackson can connect on huge plays that don’t even involve a lot of air yards.
Here’s something else it does: Any teams that want to follow the Dolphins’ model last year, with an aggressive Cover Zero look designed to fluster Jackson, are going to have to think twice after watching Bateman turn a quick slant into a 75-yard score against that kind of look.
5. The Ravens cannot let this loss linger.
The Ravens have a big three-game stretch coming up, traveling to New England before facing Buffalo and Cincinnati at home. How they fare over that stretch could set their trajectory for the remainder of the season, and they need to make sure they suffer no hangover from this demoralizing loss.
“We’re a veteran team,” defensive end Calais Campbell said. “We’re not going to let this beat us twice. We’re going to regroup. We go in there, we study the tape, we figure out what happened, and then we move on.”
Last year, the Ravens suffered a tough overtime loss at Las Vegas in Week 1, but then returned home and played extremely well in beating the Kansas City Chiefs. John Harbaugh’s teams have generally been able to move past losses — last year’s six-game losing streak is something of an anomaly given all the injuries — and that feels like the most important aspect of his job this week after what is clearly one of the worst losses of his tenure.
“I told the guys in the locker room, ‘How we respond to this, that will be the story,'” Harbaugh said. “We have a 17-game season. This is the second week of the season.”
Players like to say the NFL is a week-to-week league, and the Ravens sure need to hope so right now.
Photo Credit: Kenya Allen/PressBox