It was unfathomable, inexcusable and flat-out terrible.
(But perhaps you’ll enjoy “Expend4bles,” in theaters now.)
We, of course, have to start there, right? The Ravens’ 22-19 overtime Week 3 loss to the Colts was one of the more incomprehensible defeats they’ve suffered in the John Harbaugh era. We’ll get back to some of the circumstances later, but no matter who was playing or what the weather was like, this was not a game the Ravens should have lost. In fact, ESPN Analytics had the Ravens with win probabilities above 85 percent both early (before Kenyan Drake’s fumble) and late (when a safety appeared to have clinched the result).
My God, the Ravens lost to a quarterback that went full Orlovsky. You never go full Orlovsky!
There are no shortage of head-scratching “how did this happen?” thoughts associated with this football game. The team appeared to be on cruise control in the first half right until Drake coughed up the ball and then it was seemingly stuck in reverse for about an entire half’s worth of game time. Then there was the excruciating series of unfortunate events late.
- There was Zay Flowers inexplicably taking a fair catch after the clock confusion surrounding the two-minute warning (seems like it might have been worth taking a timeout to straighten up that communication).
- There was the Nelson Agholor penalty that saved ANOTHER timeout (but should have been wiped off because of an egregious missed face mask call).
- There was Matt Gay doing his best Justin Tucker impression.
- There was Lamar Jackson taking an astonishing sack late in the fourth quarter.
- There was Justin Tucker missing … any kick at all, even a 61-yarder in the slop.
- There was wasting tremendous field position after stopping the Colts on fourth down in overtime.
- There was Isaiah Likely dropping a would-be third-down conversion that hit him in the chest.
- There was an ensuing fourth-down decision that felt obvious to some but in reality was anything but.
- There was an equally egregious missed pass interference on that very fourth down.
Within that list we find officiating blunders, Colts player successes, Ravens coaching errors, Ravens player failures and just plain bad luck. It’s remarkable. If any of those things were to have gone the other way, we’d be talking about a lackluster performance but repeating the phrase “a win is a win” more frequently than hack sports anchors are ham-fisting Taylor Swift lyrics into Kansas City Chiefs highlights.
Alas, they didn’t. And they conspired to deliver a truly staggering result that ranks among the most deflating early-season defeats we’ve seen. Worse, it came one week after a win against the Bengals that was so satisfying that we were ready to start thinking about just how badly we were going to be price gauged in Las Vegas in February. So as infuriating as this result was, the simple reality of losing a home game to a seemingly bad football team was truly crushing. Did we get too carried away? Are the Ravens just as mid as, well, pretty much every other team in the league?
That’s the other side of the conversation, of course. And there’s no simple answer to the question. The easiest thing to say is “we’ll find out in the next few weeks.” And truthfully, we probably will. With trips to Cleveland, Pittsburgh and London on the horizon, the theory will quickly be put to the test. This portion of the schedule reads as a significant gut check.
Speaking of guts, mine says that it’s more likely that this proves to be a bit of a silly anomaly than a damning statement of record about the team. Injuries and weather conditions aren’t excuses. But they are at least part of the explanation. Having an entire list of inactives made up of starters in Week 3 is practically unprecedented. With the majority of the team’s injured players expected to return to the field in the coming weeks, there is still reason for optimism.
Jackson certainly wasn’t spectacular in defeat. But if Tucker’s kick travels another 18 inches, he’s one of the biggest reasons why they would have won. The offensive line wasn’t great, but we were almost certainly far too hopeful about what that group was capable of, depleted as it is, after its heroic effort in Cincinnati. The edge rush group remains concerning, but Odafe Oweh didn’t play and David Ojabo left early.
What exactly is there about this team that we can truly measure from this game?
The concerning part about what happened is the result itself. At the end of the season, it is quite possible that we’ll be saying, “The Ravens could have clinched by now if they just hadn’t pissed away that game against the Colts.” It could ultimately prove to be a devastating result. And that critical stretch coming up will likely be defined by how many of their players they’re able to get back on the field.
But at the moment, as enraging as this result was, it probably doesn’t tell us that much about the 2023 Ravens. It was just a hellish way to spend a Sunday.
Photo Credit: Kenya Allen/PressBox