Baltimore Beatdown
More questions than answers were revealed in disappointing performance on Sunday.
In an AFC North showdown between two teams heading in different directions, the Baltimore Ravens were upset in gut-wrenching fashion by the Cleveland Browns in a 29-24 loss. They not only had their five-game winning streak snapped, the result ended a five-game skid by their division rivals who notched just their second win of the season.
There were several concerning performances by players and units on both sides of the ball who played pivotal roles in the Ravens’ overall record dropping to 5-3. With the loss, they temporarily fall to second place in the AFC North standings pending the results of the Pittsburgh Steelers interconference matchup with the New York Giants on Monday Night Football.
Here are five of the main things that can be learned from Monday’s disappointing loss at Huntington Bank Field on Sunday.
The most seismic deciding factors in the outcome of this game were the multitude of plays on the ball that were there to be made but weren’t on offense and defense. Lamar Jackson would’ve come close or likely even surpassed his single-game season-high in passing yardage and led the offense on more scoring drives had it not been for several crucial drops by some of his wide receivers on a handful of third downs that resulted in punts instead of clutch drive-extending plays. Veteran Nelson Agholor had a bad one on the Ravens’ first drive of the third quarter but fourth-year wideout Rashod Bateman had two with the most gut-wrenching being a 50-plus-yard bomb he let bounce off his chest in the fourth quarter on third and long with the Ravens trailing by three points. While it appeared as if he lost track of the ball in the air due to the sun being in his eyes, there is still no excuse for not coming down with the incredibly accurate pass from his quarterback that would’ve moved the ball past midfield.
On defense, safeties Eddie Jackson and Kyle Hamilton both had prime opportunities to come down with game-changing interceptions but each of them failed to make the clutch play. Jackson had two shots, the first of which would’ve thwarted an eventual scoring drive for the Browns in the first half and taken a field goal off the board had he come down with it in the end zone. His second came in the fourth quarter and would’ve given the Ravens the ball closer to midfield but instead, Cleveland punted two plays later and pinned Jackson and the offense back to their six-yard line which set up Bateman’s massive eventual disappointment.
Hamilton made the biggest defensive play of the first half when he came up with a crucial strip-sack of Browns quarterback Jameis Winston late in the second quarter that was recovered by inside linebacker Trenton Simpson and led to a two-play scoring drive to give the Ravens their first lead of the...
