Less than 24 hours after a colossal Sunday night collapse in a 41-40 loss, Baltimore Ravens coach John Harbaugh was forced to answer for his team's downfall to the Buffalo Bills.
Atop the list: Why is it that the Ravens have a habit of blowing leads in such fashion?
"We've won a lot of games, and we've had a lot of two-score leads," Harbaugh explained during his Monday news conference. "We've kept a lot of those, but I think we've lost six of them, if I'm not mistaken. That's too many. I don't care how many two-score leads you have. I do believe that we need to be really thoughtful of how we decide that we're going to approach those situations going forward. Let's give it some thought. 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. We're trying to keep a lead against (Bills QB) 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."
Baltimore possesses one of the most talented rosters in the NFL, and the 40 points the Ravens put on the board on Sunday night in Buffalo weren't a fluke. But as Harbaugh suggested, even the strongest teams need to be prepared for all scenarios; even the mightiest militaries still need war games to sharpen their skills in case they're necessary in a moment of real conflict.
The Ravens' breakdown began with a three-and-out that gave Buffalo possession while facing a 15-point deficit with enough time for two more drives. It truly unraveled, though, once defensive tackle Ed Oliver knocked the football out of Derrick Henry's grasp for a game-altering fumble.
In that moment, the stunned Ravens were sent scrambling for answers. Harbaugh could have delivered a decisive response a few minutes later when facing a fourth-and-3 at their own 38-yard line and clinging to an two-point lead, but decided to punt with 1:33 left in the game in order to play the field-position game.
That decision has been debated tirelessly since the game concluded. The fourth-down call wasn't the only deciding factor, though; Baltimore made three peculiar play calls on the three prior downs that failed to move the chains.
Those plays revealed how unprepared they were for the chaotic scenario, and how disjointed their communication was in the heat of battle.
"Did we call the right plays? Well, in hindsight, no, [because] they didn't work," Harbaugh said. "And I'm not just saying that to blow it off. Maybe we could have had some sort of a naked boot, I would've liked, maybe, if we'd have done that -- hindsight being 20/20. I'm not sure I want a drop-back pass against [Cover] Zero right there, necessarily, but it's not to say we couldn't have popped it, because our guys are good man[-coverage] route runners. Maybe we'd get the ball off, and we get a catch-and-run, but that ball can get batted down, too. So that's one that you say, 'Would that have been a little more aggressive? That would've been,' but the ball gets batted down there, and it's like, 'Oh, why don't you just give it to Derrick [Henry] or just put it in Lamar [Jackson]'s hands and let him run it.' So, I think that's the catch-22 of the whole conversation."
In that response alone, Harbaugh admitted (with the benefit of hindsight) he'd have liked to put the ball in the hands of his best player, Lamar Jackson, and empower the two-time NFL MVP to make a win-securing play. It's undoubtedly a call that makes logical sense. But the coach also revealed he knew something wasn't quite right with Jackson in that moment, prompting him to make the snap decision to punt and put the game in the hands of his defense.
"Lamar [Jackson] was coming off the field at that point, and I could see something wasn't quite right, and so you have to get your punt team out there," Harbaugh explained. "That was really ... 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. If you get stopped on fourth-and-3, did you think about punting the ball and putting your defense out there and giving them a chance to win the game? That would've been the next conversation, because they'd have been in field-goal range already.
"I trust our defense, 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's difficult to firmly make such a claim after giving up 41 points, 22 of which coming in the fourth quarter of a game that the Ravens appeared to have already won. Collapse aside, Harbaugh is right: His defense forced a Buffalo turnover on downs earlier in the fourth quarter, and the Bills needed a fortuitous pass deflection (which ended in a touchdown catch to Keon Coleman) just to have a sliver of hope in the final four minutes.
NFL Research contextualized it well in the aftermath of the game: Teams with 40-plus points and 235 or more rushing yards in a game owned a 277-0 record in all games, including playoffs, entering Sunday night. Baltimore became the first to achieve those marks but leave with a loss.
Optimists will chalk up the loss as a wild anomaly and guarantee Harbaugh's staff will figure things out. Historians will point toward their tendency to melt down as a concerning sign of things to come.
Harbaugh is hoping it's no longer a conversation the next time the Ravens find themselves owning a two-score lead in the fourth quarter.
