OWINGS MILLS, Md. — As the Ravens sifted through the ashes of yet another fourth-quarter implosion, head coach John Harbaugh vowed to look at every aspect of how they operate late in games with the lead, which has proved to be a shockingly precarious place to be for this team.
In the season opener at Buffalo on Sept. 7 in front of a national “Sunday Night Football” audience, the Ravens had the ball and a 15-point lead with less than eight minutes to play. But the Bills rallied with 16 straight points, and Matt Prater’s 32-yard field goal with no time left sent the Ravens to a stunning 41-40 defeat.
According to the Associated Press, that marked the eighth time in the last 10 years the Ravens have blown a double-digit lead in the fourth quarter. And since the beginning of 2022, they have lost 10 games in which they led by at least 10 at some point, according to Pro Football Reference.
Instead of rolling out of Buffalo with a satisfying and score-settling win after controlling the game for three-plus quarters, the Ravens are again soul-searching about their fourth-quarter collapses.
“I do believe that we need to be really thoughtful of how we decide that we’re going to approach those situations going forward,” Harbaugh said at his weekly Monday news conference the day after the game. “Let’s give some thought to our play-calling. Let’s give some thought to our defensive play-calling. Let’s give some thought to our mindset like how we’re going to talk to one another.
“We’re two scores up,” he continued. “We’re trying to keep a lead against Josh Allen or any of these great quarterbacks in this league. What’s our mindset on defense? How are we going to approach this? How are we going to talk to one another on the sideline to try to find a way to get the win? It becomes kind of a situation, a game scenario, that we need to be really intentional about going forward.”
The Ravens had contained Allen, the league’s reigning Most Valuable Player, for most of the game, but in the fourth quarter, he picked apart a Ravens secondary that was thought to be one of the strongest and deepest in the league.
Allen finished 33-for-46 for 394 yards, with two touchdowns. He threw for 251 yards in the fourth quarter alone, leading the Bills to a pair of touchdown drives and a game-winning field goal over the final seven minutes.
“We understand Josh Allen,” Harbaugh said. “We had a plan, and we just didn’t get it done. We weren’t able to execute. We couldn’t keep him in the pocket. … That’s probably the No. 1 disappointment for me. I think when you let him extend plays like that, he’ll run for yards, but he’ll also find receivers downfield, and they do a good job of getting open. It’s just hard to extend that coverage long enough with his arm strength and accuracy on the move.”
The Ravens’ pass rush was pretty much nonexistent against Allen. On 47 dropbacks, Allen was sacked once and was hit three times.
Harbaugh said the Ravens need to improve their “pass rush lanes. That’s something that we’ve got to go to work on. It’s not just four lanes. There’s different patterns that we use, and we just weren’t as good as we need to be at that.”
The Bills rally was greatly aided by a fumble by Derrick Henry that set up a Bills touchdown to cut the Ravens’ lead to 40-38, but Nate Wiggins broke up a potential game-tying two-point conversion with 1:58 left.
All the Ravens needed was one first down to salt the clock away, but they couldn’t manage it. Henry, who ran roughshod over the Bills to the tune of 169 yards on 18 carries, gained 1 yard on first down. On second down, the Ravens tried a jet sweep to Zay Flowers, but the Bills shut it down for no gain. On third-and-9, Jackson connected with DeAndre Hopkins, but he was stopped for a 6-yard gain, leaving the Ravens with fourth-and-3.
Harbaugh has been aggressive on fourth down over his career, but this time, with the ball on the Ravens’ 38-yard line and 1:33 remaining, he opted to punt.
Jackson said after the game that he was dealing with cramping, and that went into the decision to punt. Harbaugh a day later said as Jackson came off the field after the third-down pass, “I could see something wasn’t quite right, and so you have to get your punt team out there. … It’s a fast sequence of events in that moment. But then again, too, I’m not shying away from putting our defense out there.”
Harbaugh noted that if the Bills had stopped the Ravens on fourth-and-3, they would have pretty much already been in field-goal range.
“I trust our defense,” he said, “and I’m going to trust our defense this year in a lot of big situations. Our defense is going to be really, really good. And I know there’s doubt about that right now, probably, but I guarantee you our defense is going to play really good football this year.”
It didn’t on this night, though, and especially in the fourth quarter as Allen heated up.
Jordan Stout punted 42 yards on that fourth-and-3, giving the Bills the ball at their own 20-yard line. Four plays later, Allen found Joshua Allen behind Jaire Alexander down the left sideline for a gain of 32 yards, and then Allen connected with Keon Coleman down the middle for 25 more. The Bills were quickly in position to win it, and yet another Ravens fourth-quarter meltdown was complete.
“We tried everything,” Harbaugh said. “We were playing man, we were playing zone, we were blitzing, we were coming off the edge, we were showing and dropping out of there. … We just didn’t really get them stopped in the last two drives at all.
“Early in the season, you do find some things out,” he added. “Especially when you’re playing a really good offense, you get exposed a little bit. We learned where we have to get better, too.”
NOTEBOOK
NO WORD FROM LEAGUE ON JACKSON-FAN INCIDENT: Harbaugh said he had not heard from the NFL regarding an incident in which Lamar Jackson shoved a Bills fan in the first row behind the end zone. DeAndre Hopkins had caught a touchdown pass, and as the Ravens were celebrating near the seats, the fan pushed Hopkins in the helmet and then did the same to Jackson. Jackson responded with a two-handed shove.
“Lamar is down there celebrating a touchdown with his teammates just like you’re supposed to do,” Harbaugh said. “We talk about celebrations. We want our guys to celebrate with one another. … I guess I didn’t know that you’re not allowed to go close to the stands to do that without being attacked by a fan. If you score a touchdown, you probably shouldn’t have a frozen water bottle thrown at you, either. So, these are the types of things that I’m sure the NFL is going to address and deal with.”
According to ESPN, the fan, who was not named, was ejected from the game and has been banned from NFL stadiums.
RICARD COULD PRACTICE THIS WEEK: Harbaugh said Pro Bowl fullback Patrick Ricard, who has been sidelined for the past few weeks with a calf injury, “should be out there practicing a little bit this week, potentially, and we’ll see how it goes.”
Ricard had not missed a game since 2021 before sitting out the game at Buffalo. In his place, practice squad callup Zaire Mitchell-Paden made his NFL regular-season debut after three seasons on practice squads in Cleveland and Baltimore. Mitchell-Paden played 15 offensive snaps, often lining up in Ricard’s fullback spot, and he had a key block on Derrick Henry’s second-quarter touchdown.
“Zaire did a really good job,” Harbaugh said. “He was explosive and physical. He really brought it up in there and unloaded on some blocks.”
HARBAUGH NOT A FAN OF HAMILTON LATERAL: After Kyle Hamilton intercepted a Bills two-point conversion try, he ran out of the end zone and lateraled the ball to Kyle Van Noy, who was still in the end zone. Van Noy advanced out of the end zone before he went down, but had Van Noy been tackled in the end zone, it would have resulted in the extremely rare one-point safety. So rare, in fact, that it has actually never happened in an NFL game (but has in college).
Harbaugh was not interested in making history.
“I thought that was one of the most foolish things I’ve ever seen,” Harbaugh said. “(Hamilton) agreed, and it should never happen again.”
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