BALTIMORE — The Ravens ran for 179 yards with Derrick Henry eclipsing the century mark for the first time since Week 1.
The 17 points allowed matched the best showing of the season from the NFL’s worst scoring defense. Embattled defensive coordinator Zach Orr’s group certainly put up more fight than it did in last week’s embarrassing performance against Houston.
Baltimore won the time of possession for the first time all season and did so by more than 15 minutes.
Such steps were supposed to be the formula to pull off an upset without injured quarterback Lamar Jackson and get to the much-needed bye week on a positive note. But the Rams instead won going away in a 17-3 final after the Ravens were inexplicably stuffed three straight times from the 1-yard line to close the first half and Los Angeles scored two touchdowns in the first five minutes of the third quarter. The three points were Baltimore’s lowest scoring output in a home game since being blanked by Tampa Bay on Sept. 15, 2002.
The negatives simply stack too high to be too encouraged by baby steps when you’ve lost four straight games to open a season 1-5 for the first time since 2015. That reality left head coach John Harbaugh’s words about there being “plenty of things we can build on” ringing hollow after Sunday’s defeat.
“We had our opportunities. We created our opportunities, and we put ourselves in a position where we could have won that football game,” Harbaugh said. “Probably, you could say in some ways that we should have won it, but we didn’t do the things that you have to do to win the game. We made some critical mistakes that cost us an opportunity to win the game, and that’s really what it boils down to.”
Those errors included two fumbles from wide receiver Zay Flowers with one leading to the Rams’ second touchdown and the other ruining a promising drive late in the third quarter. It’s also become clear that Baltimore whiffed in upgrading the backup quarterback spot this offseason with Cooper Rush turning in another dud that resulted in his benching for Tyler Huntley in the fourth quarter. This was certainly a more winnable game than last week, but Rush averaged just 3.8 yards per pass attempt and tossed his fourth interception in two starts.
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The injuries are unquestionably a major factor in this miserable start, but the Ravens are also seemingly doing whatever it takes to lose, a hard truth that began with their fourth-quarter collapse in Buffalo in Week 1. And while an open week to heal and reset and the post-bye schedule should work in Baltimore’s favor to try to awaken from this nightmare, it’s fair to wonder if it’s already too late.
Only four teams since the 1970 merger have recovered from a 1-5 start to make the playoffs. The most recent one was Washington winning a horrendous NFC East with a 7-9 record in 2020.
“It’s still a long season. We’ve still got time to win the division and set ourselves up to have a good season,” Henry said. “I know we’re 1-5, and it doesn’t look good as far as [big] picture-wise, but we’ve still got a lot of games left ahead of us. And like coach [Harbaugh] said, when we get some of our guys back, let’s go see where we land.”
That’ll start with the expected return of Jackson against Chicago in Week 8, and inside linebacker Roquan Smith, fullback Patrick Ricard, and cornerback Chidobe Awuzie are also nearing returns. But that doesn’t mean the injuries will subside the rest of the way as starting outside linebacker Tavius Robinson was lost to a broken foot in Sunday’s loss, which now leaves Baltimore extremely thin at the edge rusher positions after Odafe Oweh was traded this past week. Concerns also persist about the health of left tackle Ronnie Stanley with his ankle now prompting two early exits and a missed game in the last three weeks.
Since the NFL moved to a 17-game schedule in 2021, there’s been only one 10-7 team to fail to qualify for the playoffs, which means the Ravens are looking at needing to win nine of their final 11 to give themselves a strong chance to make the postseason. They’ve gone on similar runs in the past with a healthy Jackson as they won their final 12 regular-season games in 2019, took 10 of 11 games to clinch the No. 1 seed in Week 17 two years ago, and prevailed in seven of their last nine contests to overtake Pittsburgh for the AFC North title last season.
But that’s also assuming this year’s Ravens will find some solutions to what plagues them as the offense has struggled to run the ball and pass protect consistently even with Jackson on the field and the defense desperately needs to find some semblance of a pass rush. The pivot to more three-safety looks did flash positives on Sunday, but the defense is still a long way from showing the consistency that will be required to go 9-2, regardless of what the remaining schedule looks like on paper.
The Jackson-era Ravens haven’t been in this grave a spot before, so it’s certainly fair to question whether this team has the leadership, accountability, and belief in one another to turn this around to the degree that’ll be required. If all was great on those fronts, would this team be in this position to begin with?
8Welcoming back the franchise quarterback will be an encouraging start at least.
“It’s Lamar Jackson,” center Tyler Linderbaum said. “He’s the best quarterback in the game, so he’s certainly going to help our team out.”
Considering just how much has gone wrong, however, it could be too little, too late.
Even for a team firing on all cylinders, winning nine of the last 11 is a lot to ask.
