On Sunday evening, the Baltimore Ravens suffered one of the more epic collapses in recent NFL history with a 41-40 road loss to the Buffalo Bills to open up their season. The Ravens led this game 40-25 more than halfway into the fourth quarter but ended up relinquishing three scoring drives to the Bills down the stretch of the game, accelerated by a brutal fumble from Derrick Henry, who had been having a great game up to that point.
Blowing big leagues has become a familiar theme for the Ravens in recent years, and recently, former NFL MVP Cam Newton took to ESPN's First Take to put the team on blast for the choke job.
“The Ravens collapsed. There are things that cannot happen. Derrick Henry knows that that fumble cannot happen. Another thing too, where was the Ravens' defense?… 251 passing yards in the fourth quarter alone. Josh Allen had over 400 yards of offense by himself… They did every single thing but win the football game,” said Newton.
A brutal loss for the Ravens
The Baltimore Ravens' 2024-25 season ended in similarly heartbreaking fashion on the road against the Buffalo Bills, with a series of inexplicable mistakes, including most notably a brutal drop from Mark Andrews, ending their season last year during the divisional round matchup between the two teams.
For the first three quarters and into the fourth of Sunday night's game, the Ravens looked like a team on a mission to exact revenge on their AFC foes and establish themselves as the team to beat in the NFL this year. Instead, they provided further evidence for a trend that has become increasingly difficult to deny in recent years: the Ravens are awful at closing big games.
Lamar Jackson, who was brilliant for most of the night on Sunday, was nowhere to be found when the Ravens needed him most late in the fourth quarter, and the Baltimore defense, which was supposed to be among the league's elite units this year after the addition of Jaire Alexander, was torched by Josh Allen throughout the evening, allowing him to fully validate his 2024 MVP in the process.
It's only Week 1, but the Ravens already have some soul searching to do.
