You’ve probably seen (if not shared) some version of this tweet in the last 24 hours.
It’s pretty damning, right? The Ravens have essentially blown seven games they “should” have won during the course of the last two seasons.
Of course, if the same fact was written another way it might read, “In every game that Lamar Jackson has played the last two seasons, the Ravens have played well enough to have at least a 75 percent chance of winning in the fourth quarter.” The same fact would benefit a different narrative.
While the stat is presented to weaponize the semi-frequent shortcomings of the Ravens late in games (they have had those!), a team of course has to be capable of playing well for large swaths of games in order to be in the predicament. And would it somehow make you feel better if the stat said the Ravens trailed by double digits in all seven of their losses the last two years?
I say none of this to suggest that the Ravens’ most recent late-game collapse (or any of those previous) is acceptable. The issue is perplexing, if only because there is no single issue. In some games the offense has betrayed them, and in others, the defense, play-calling, weather, officials, receivers’ hands, health of key players, the play of the other team and probably the United States Congress have somehow been the culprits.
Against the Browns in Week 10? A bit of all of it. Running backs didn’t get the ball enough, namely Keaton Mitchell. Jackson didn’t play particularly well. The defense was gassed and gashed. Suddenly kicking field goals is a bit of an adventure. No one (officials included) noticed that the play clock started and/or had any interest in doing anything about it. And Deshaun Watson and the Browns’ defense just flatly made plays.
It would be easier to talk about this if there was one particular issue. You can’t fire Greg Roman because Mitchell only got four touches. In the past, the failure of the defensive front to make a massive game-sealing play has been an issue, but Odafe Oweh actually made that play on the Browns’ final possession. Cleveland just managed to get back on top of the ball before Justin Madubuike could pounce for a recovery.
Perhaps it’s time to switch up who gives the halftime speeches? Or just start watching timeless holiday classics in the locker room instead?
The Ravens will probably be OK. After all, you might have heard that they’re a team that’s been so good that they’ve been in position to win literally every game featuring Jackson in the past two years! Heck, they’ve only trailed for 28:46 of total game time through 10 games this season! They’re a very good football team! (But maybe not the third-greatest team of all time, as DVOA was telling us a week ago.)
The Ravens tend to bounce back fairly well from these types of losses. It might benefit them that they have to get right back at it to be ready for a big game on Thursday night. The injury situations with Marlon Humphrey and Ronnie Stanley obviously loom large. But for as disappointing of a loss as this was and as familiar as the story seems, I simply can’t pretend that there’s some sort of new panic. It is the NFL. The other teams try too. Strange things happen. Those things feel like excuses, I get it. But they’re true.
Jackson has remained laser-focused on winning a Super Bowl since the moment he reached the NFL. He’s proven time and time again that he’s capable of reaching the level of play necessary in order to do that. But considering how the AFC playoffs are shaping up, it is quite possible that the Ravens might not be able to dominate the opposing quarterbacks but instead he’ll have to outduel them. While I don’t “blame” Jackson for the loss to the Browns, he certainly didn’t outduel Watson.
And as I’ve shared in this space before, if the Ravens’ inability to handle adversity (and really, their inability to handle prosperity) continues to the point where it costs them the ability to make a playoff run, John Harbaugh will have to answer for it. And the answer will have to be better than “that’s just how the game(s) went.”
Photo Credit: Kenya Allen/PressBox