The Ravens in the past have overcome a missed field goal by the greatest of all time. They have overcome a fumble, or a failed fourth-down conversion. But with a backup quarterback leading an offense that appeared to completely lose its sense of self, and facing an AFC North rival playing to salvage its season, the accumulation of errors proved far too much to overcome as the Ravens (9-5) slogged through a 13-3 loss to the host Cleveland Browns (6-8) at FirstEnergy Stadium on Dec. 17.
Slotted for a national television date on a Saturday afternoon, the Ravens proved hard to watch, beginning with fumbles on back-to-back plays in the first quarter. Justin Tucker, the most accurate kicker in NFL history, hooked a field-goal try wide left and had another kick blocked. And the Ravens and their consistent play-clock woes showed up in inglorious fashion, as they were called for a delay of game penalty immediately after a timeout.
Playing without starting quarterback Lamar Jackson, who missed his second straight game with a knee injury, the Ravens failed to reach the end zone for the first time since their playoff loss to the Buffalo Bills at the end of the 2020 season.
Backup Tyler Huntley struggled throughout, concentrating on a short passing game, and he made a disastrous mistake on the opening drive of the third quarter when his quick slant intended for DeSean Jackson was intercepted by Browns cornerback Denzel Ward at the Browns’ 9-yard line.
That proved to be the second time the Ravens mounted a sustained drive deep into Cleveland territory and came up with nothing; on their opening drive of the game, the Ravens marched to the Browns’ 7-yard line, but fullback Patrick Ricard was stood up for no gain and the Ravens lost the ball on downs.
Huntley finished 17-for-30 for 138 yards with one interception in his sixth career start.
Cleveland took a 6-3 halftime lead on the strength of two field goals from Cade York, who also missed two. The Ravens had a chance to tie on the final play of the half, but Tucker’s 48-yard try hooked wide left. He later had a 50-yarder blocked.
Browns quarterback Deshaun Watson, making his home debut after serving an 11-game suspension for a violation of the league’s personal-conduct policy, threw a 3-yard touchdown pass to Donovan Peoples-Jones late in the third quarter for the game’s only touchdown.
Here are five quick impressions of the loss, which cost the Ravens — for at least a day and maybe much longer — first place in the AFC North:
1. The only thing that stopped J.K. Dobbins and Gus Edwards was the play-calling.
The Browns entered the game with the league’s 22nd-ranked run defense, and the Ravens were playing backup quarterback Tyler Huntley. With resurgent J.K. Dobbins and Gus Edwards increasingly looking like their pre-injury selves, this looked like a game in which the Ravens would lean heavily on their ground game.
And sure enough, the Browns had no answer for either Dobbins or Edwards. The duo gashed the Browns for 9 yards a carry; Dobbins ran 13 times for 125 yards and Edwards carried seven times for 55. Working off misdirection, with Devin Duvernay as a jet-sweep decoy and with right tackle Morgan Moses doing outstanding work pulling to the left side, the backs had gaping holes much of the night. Dobbins had a 37-yard run that might have gone for a 91-yard score if he were 100 percent.
The running backs produced the Ravens’ biggest offensive plays, 37- and 25-yard runs by Dobbins and a 25-yard run by Edwards. No pass play went for more than 19 yards.
Offensive coordinator Greg Roman, with his team trailing by 10 as the fourth quarter began, clearly felt that Huntley throwing the ball was a better option than Dobbins or Edwards running it, and that’s an approach that invites scrutiny. The Ravens in the fourth quarter ran 12 offensive plays — one carry by Edwards and 11 pass plays (including two in which Huntley was sacked). Dobbins, who averaged almost 10 yards a carry, had no touches in the fourth quarter.
The play-calling fails to acknowledge that the Ravens’ best quick-strike ability in this game, with this passing attack, was its running game, and it seems that Roman called the fourth quarter as if his team were trailing by 30, not 10.
It turns out that the only thing that stopped Dobbins and Edwards was the Ravens’ play-calling.
2. The Ravens’ wide-receiver gamble was badly exposed, and this is on Eric DeCosta.
At the end of the first half, Ravens wide receivers had a combined total of two catches for minus-1 yard. That sounds like Navy and its triple-option offense, seemingly inconceivable for any team in the modern NFL, which has skewed the rules toward the passing game for the past two decades.
Minus-1 yard.
After a sluggish first half, the Ravens’ wide receivers had been targeted five times, and Demarcus Robinson had the only two catches. His reception on the Ravens’ opening play went for minus-7 yards as he fumbled out of bounds — the first of his two fumbles in the game — and then he caught a 6-yarder later in the half.
Overall, the entirety of the Ravens’ wide receiver corps finished with eight catches for 58 yards on 14 targets, with one interception, or about 4 yards per target. Robinson finished with six catches for 29 yards but fumbled twice, and Devin Duvernay had two catches for 29 yards. (Duvernay, a Pro Bowl return specialist, looked unsteady in that part of the game as well.)
True, Ravens receivers were playing with a backup quarterback in Tyler Huntley who showed no inclination to look downfield, but it’s also fair to question how the Ravens got to this point, and whether this kind of passing arsenal — with Lamar Jackson or without him — is sustainable in any potential playoff run.
When general manager Eric DeCosta traded away Marquise Brown during the 2022 draft, he was banking on Rashod Bateman, a 2021 first-round pick, ascending to a true No. 1 wideout. The Ravens did not draft a wide receiver nor did they land a top-tier receiver in free agency. Instead, they banked on Bateman being healthy, and undeveloped players such as Tylan Wallace and James Proche elevating to significant roles.
It felt like a house of cards, and it has toppled. Bateman is done for the year. Wallace is on injured reserve. Proche has had little impact, as his reliable hands from training camp just haven’t translated to the game field. He has eight catches for 62 yards all season.
The Ravens, as they are wont to do, again turned to an aging veteran in DeSean Jackson, who has had a couple of moments, but had no catches in this game and was the intended target on Huntley’s disastrous third-quarter interception.
When the Ravens have to play from behind — especially if they are going to ignore the running game — they are turning to a receiver corps that just doesn’t have the firepower. The Ravens go into every game with the edge at kicker. They go into almost every game at a disadvantage at wide receiver, and those guys are on the field a lot more than the kicker is.
3. The Ravens have an issue at cornerback that could get a lot worse.
The Ravens like to line up cornerback Marlon Humphrey in the slot, because he can cover anyone and his physical style can have an impact in the running game. But to do that, they need to have another cornerback on the outside they trust, and that doesn’t appear to be the case right now.
And this problem could get even worse after Marcus Peters hobbled off the field at Cleveland with a calf injury. (Defensive end Calais Campbell also left with a knee injury, and head coach John Harbaugh said he would have more information on both players Sunday.)
Humphrey played largely on the outside against the Browns, and the Ravens turned to rookie safety Kyle Hamilton as a slot defender, which makes sense against big tight ends given his size (6-foot-4, 221 pounds), but it’s a different story when a team trots out three and four receivers.
Deshaun Watson repeatedly had success finding a receiver with Hamilton in coverage, though Hamilton also had a sack when he came untouched on a blitz. Another time Hamilton came on a blitz, he appeared to slip, giving Watson time to find an open Amari Cooper down the middle.
Still, the bigger issue is that Hamilton was in the slot only because the Ravens don’t seem to have a viable No. 3 cornerback; Brandon Stephens could play outside, with Humphrey moving to the slot, but he struggled in a loss at Jacksonville and totaled one defensive snap in the next two games. And Stephens was viewed as a safety when the team drafted him.
Rookie Jalyn Armour-Davis was badly beaten in the fourth-quarter collapse at Miami and played little after that before landing on injured reserve, and fellow rookie Pepe Williams was a game day inactive who also has hardly played in a month. Kevon Seymour has been almost exclusively a special teams player.
The Ravens drafted two cornerbacks this year and have invested a lot of money in the secondary, so it’s unsettling to see them searching to find a third cornerback they trust, but that’s the precarious position they find themselves, and Peters’ injury only adds to the concern.
4. This team isn’t explosive enough to squander red-zone chances.
The Ravens marched deep into Browns territory on the opening drive of both halves, yet came away with no points. On the first drive of the game, head coach John Harbaugh kept the offense on the field on fourth-and-1 from the Browns’ 7-yard line, and fullback Patrick Ricard was stuffed for no gain.
Then on the opening drive of the second half, Tyler Huntley was intercepted by Denzel Ward at the Browns’ 9-yard line.
It’s fair to question whether the Ravens should have just taken the chip-shot field goal by Justin Tucker to cap its opening drive in a game that figured to be low-scoring. But Ricard up the middle for a yard seems a good bet, and credit to the Browns for somehow stopping the tank in his tracks.
The interception by Huntley came with the Ravens facing third down on a sequence that began when he was sacked on first down. (It’s absolutely fair to question why Huntley was ever passing on first down against the Browns given the success of the running game.)
The Ravens have slipped to 24th in the league in red-zone offense, converting 50.0 percent of those possessions into touchdowns. But in the five games since their bye week, the Ravens have scored touchdowns on just five of 16 red-zone trips.
Lamar Jackson and others have lamented struggles near the end zone that led to short field goals by Tucker, but in this game, they didn’t even get that; the two trips ended with no points, and this offense right now isn’t nearly good enough to overcome so many missed chances.
5. The Ravens have lost control of their destiny.
For all their flaws, the Ravens have been chugging along atop the AFC North, but now they have fallen behind the Cincinnati Bengals, at least for a day. The Bengals, who have won seven of eight since a Week 5 loss to Baltimore, face Tampa Bay on Dec. 18, and for now have wrested control of the AFC North destiny from the Ravens; if the Bengals win out, they win the division.
They still have the tougher schedule than the Ravens, with a trip to New England and a home game with Buffalo looming before facing the Ravens in the regular-season finale. The Ravens host Atlanta (5-8) on Christmas Eve and then Pittsburgh (5-8) on New Year’s Day.
The Pittsburgh game looms large, because if the Ravens win that, they will have four AFC North wins — assuming a series split with Cincinnati — and would therefore gain the tiebreaker over the Bengals, who can finish no better than 3-3 in divisional play.
First things first, though. The Ravens have to figure out how to hold on to the ball, convert in the red zone, and stop the other team. It will surely help if quarterback Lamar Jackson returns for the stretch run after missing the past two games, but much like Demarcus Robinson against Cleveland, the Ravens have fumbled their control of their AFC North destiny.
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