BALTIMORE — The Ravens facing second-and-goal from the 2-yard line was a microcosm of their crumbling 2021 season.
Against all odds with Lamar Jackson and a slew of other key players sidelined on Sunday, Baltimore led 16-14 over the Los Angeles Rams with just over six minutes remaining. According to ESPN’s in-game model, their win probability stood at 87.0%, which was roughly where their playoff odds stood a month ago when they occupied the top spot in the AFC at 8-3 despite their many injuries and deficiencies.
But getting those two yards had been easier said than done of late, evident by failed 2-point conversion tries sinking the Ravens in three of their previous four losses entering the must-win tilt in Week 17. It was about to doom them again.
The handoff to running back Latavius Murray was blown up for a 2-yard loss when Rams nose tackle Greg Gaines swam right past backup center Trystan Colon, who was filling in for an ill Bradley Bozeman. It was just the latest absence to hurt the Ravens at a critical juncture.
Circumstances went from bad to worse with an inexcusable delay of game penalty to set up third-and-goal from the 9, and the drive came to an abrupt end when quarterback Tyler Huntley was sacked by Los Angeles pass rushers Aaron Donald and Leonard Floyd. Instead of scoring the touchdown to cap a drive of over 7 1/2 minutes and all but guarantee a crucial win for their playoff hopes, Justin Tucker’s 34-yard field goal with 4:30 to go maintained a one-score deficit for the Rams.
You could feel the uneasiness.
A depleted Ravens defense that played admirably for most of the day by forcing three Matthew Stafford turnovers had no magic left as Rams receiver Odell Beckham Jr. made a superb fourth-and-5 catch to move the chains and caught the game-winning 7-yard touchdown on the next play with 57 seconds remaining. There would be no Tucker game-winning try as Huntley and the Baltimore offense could move no further than their own 38-yard line before Los Angeles outside linebacker Von Miller’s quarterback takedown smothered any lingering hope.
The heartbreaking 20-19 loss was the Ravens’ fifth in a row — the longest slide of the John Harbaugh era — and leaves them as little more than a mathematical footnote in the AFC playoff needing a miracle with one game to go. Losing by two or fewer points for the fourth time in five weeks, the 8-8 Ravens weren’t quite good enough once again.
“Tough loss. I thought the guys were physical. I thought they played very hard,” Harbaugh said. “We need to make a couple more plays [in] critical situations [that] would’ve turned the tide for us. We didn’t get that done.”
As has been the case throughout Baltimore’s longest losing streak since 2007, there was blame, second-guessing, and tough breaks one could identify to help explain the defeat.
You’re not going to win many games when you fail to score an offensive touchdown as the Ravens did on Sunday. Huntley has played as well as anyone could have reasonably expected from a former undrafted free agent in his second season, but that’s a far cry from a healthy Jackson playing his best football, something Baltimore has sorely missed over the last two months since the former league MVP was struggling even before sustaining his right ankle injury in Cleveland in Week 14.
The defense provided the Ravens’ only touchdown of the afternoon as safety Chuck Clark intercepted Stafford for a 17-yard score late in the first quarter, but Wink Martindale’s group again failed to finish strong, allowing touchdowns on the Rams’ final two drives.
The kind of complementary football that led to playoff berths in each of the previous three seasons has been fleeting in 2021 with each side of the ball decimated by injuries and taking turns failing the other down the stretch. Though the Ravens rebounded from last week’s debacle in Cincinnati to put up a good fight against a superior team on Sunday, they’re now 3-7 since their blowout victory over the Los Angeles Chargers in mid-October, the last time they looked anything like a Super Bowl contender and won a game by more than six points.
The hard truth is this was always the likely outcome — whether it was in Week 17 or the divisional round — when considering the injury attrition that began with the likes of J.K. Dobbins, Gus Edwards, and Marcus Peters before the season began and has been unrelenting with so many notable players on injured reserve and Jackson missing a third straight game on Sunday. Yes, there’s the “next man up” rallying cry, but every team has a breaking point when it’s simply no longer good enough to overcome.
If the Ravens looked to be running on fumes at Cincinnati last week, their 2021 season finally stalled midway through the fourth quarter on Sunday, now leaving them in need of good fortune akin to a coin landing on heads five or six times in a row to sneak into the playoffs next week. Of course, that’s assuming they beat Pittsburgh for their first victory since late November, which is hardly a given with longtime nemesis and Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger likely playing his final game.
“We don’t do this for moral victories. We’re trying to win,” tight end Mark Andrews said. “This is the Ravens, and that’s what we do. We win games, and we’re going to get back on track.”
Barring a borderline miracle sequence of events, however, that’s a bet that will need to wait until next season with the Ravens once again stopped at the 2-yard line and their once-robust playoff hopes all but gone.
