OWINGS MILLS, Md. — Ravens wide receiver Zay Flowers said missing the divisional round loss at Buffalo “took a little toll on me,” and he said he thought he could have played next week had the Ravens advanced to the AFC championship game at Kansas City.
Instead of preparing for that game, though, Flowers and his teammates were cleaning out their lockers at the team’s Under Armour Performance Center on Jan. 20, the day after suffering a 27-25 loss at Buffalo in the divisional round.
The Ravens rallied from a 21-10 halftime deficit against the Bills, but their comeback fell short after tight end Mark Andrews dropped a potential game-tying two-point conversion pass with 1:33 left.
Flowers missed both of the Ravens’ playoff games with a sprained knee suffered in the regular-season finale against Cleveland. Flowers led the Ravens in catches (74), receiving yards (1,059) and targets (116) and scored four touchdowns. He became the first Ravens player ever named to the Pro Bowl at wide receiver.
Flowers had been listed as doubtful for the Bills game, then went through a pregame workout on the field but was declared inactive.
“Not being out there, it took a little toll on me,” Flowers said, “just to watch that and not be able to participate and do what I wanted to do and help the team.”
As Flowers spoke, teammates autographed helmets for one another and emptied locker belongings into big contractor bags and moving boxes as they closed the book on a Ravens season that once again ended more quickly than they envisioned.
The Ravens ended the regular season on a four-game winning streak to finish 12-5 and capture the AFC North title for the second year in a row. The third-seeded Ravens dispatched the sixth-seeded Pittsburgh Steelers, 28-14, in the wild-card round to set up the showdown with the second-seeded Bills.
But like last year against Kansas City in the AFC title game, turnovers proved to be a critical, fatal factor for the Ravens in Buffalo. They committed three turnovers, which the Bills converted into 10 points, while the Bills committed none.
“We’ve got to stop the turnovers,” Flowers said. “We’ve got to get better at that in the playoffs.”
Flowers also came to the defense of both Lamar Jackson and Andrews, who took the majority of the criticism for the Ravens loss; Jackson threw an interception and lost a fumble, and Andrews lost a fumble before dropping the two-point conversion.
Flowers said Jackson rightfully drew praise all year for his MVP-caliber performance, “then he messed up one time, and … now everybody don’t want him to do what he do. Just like Mark. He catches everything, and then he dropped one. He dropped two. I mean, it’s football, so sometimes that happens.”
Photo Credit: Kenya Allen/PressBox