Nobody Beats The Ravens Like The Ravens

An NFL Sunday has a way of ruining your shit, then putting it back together. Oftentimes you will spend your afternoon watching something that barely looks like football—the Dolphins, or the Giants, say—and it makes you consider a mission trip to North Sentinel Island just so you won't be tempted to watch again next week. But then you get to the Sunday night game, it reminds you what the sport is supposed to look like, and it kicks your ass thoroughly and satisfyingly. Ravens-Bills never disappoints, and in this Week 1, a stunning Buffalo comeback and 41-40 victory provided all the drama necessary to fuel an entire season's storyline.

Baltimore came in looking for revenge in the building where their title hopes slipped through Mark Andrews's fingers. Eight months of stewing later, the early season Super Bowl favorites sought to prove two things: that they could beat the Bills, and that they could avoid beating themselves. The latter felt spiritually more important, because the Ravens are starting to gain a whiff of disappointment about them—reliable for 12 or 13 wins since Lamar Jackson took the helm, and reliable for a playoff exit earlier than they'd like or expect. One lone AFC title game appearance over this stretch feels like a failure, given the talent here. And those exits are numerous and various enough to have just one common factor: the Ravens themselves. Buffalo in Week 1 promised to provide a measuring stick, but just as relevant, a crucible.

For three and a half quarters on Sunday, the heat and pressure merely felt like seasoning. The Ravens thrived in a rowdy road house; by halftime, their lead was seven points; after three, 15. Lamar Jackson, en route to three TDs on 209 yards in the air and 70 more on the ground, required a defense fully selling out to stop him, and it couldn't do that, because if it tried, there was Derrick Henry to run wild. When Jackson found DeAndre Hopkins to make it 34-19, the most fight anyone appeared to be putting up against it was a handsy Bills fan, who got shoved back to North Tonawanda for his transgressions.

"He slapped me, and he was talking," Jackson said of the fan, who was promptly ejected. "So, I just forgot where I was for a little bit." No harm, no foul—fans might be less inclined to put their hands on players if players give them hands back.

It was the high point for the Ravens. The 15-point lead felt like more, especially after the Bills scored six to open the fourth quarter but failed on the conversion, and the Ravens got that six right back. It might have been slightly ominous that rookie placekicker Tyler Loop clonged the point-after try, but 15 was still 15.

And it was still 15 when the Bills took over with 7:16 left, that age-old scenario where all Baltimore had to do to close out the win was to make a single stop, or pick up a single first down on their own drives. “You got to make plays to get off the field and you got to stay on the field,” John Harbaugh said after the game, though my inclusion of the quote here in the chronology turns it into it foreshadowing. (Poetic license—a blogger's right.)

Josh Allen marched the Bills 80 yards in 3:20, making it a one-score game. On their turn, the Ravens did what they'd done with success all night, and fed Derrick Henry. Only this time, Ed Oliver forced his way into the backfield and tore the ball from Henry's grip. The one thing the Ravens needed not to do, they'd done.

"I told my teammates after the game to put the loss on me,” Henry said, and his fumble had an echo of Andrews's drop in the playoffs: one of the Ravens' most dependable players—Henry just doesn't fumble—making an error in the clutch. The Bills scored quickly on the short field, but missed another two-point conversion that would've tied the game, giving Baltimore's offense another chance to close things out. Instead they went three-and-out, including the fairly cowardly decision from John Harbaugh to punt on fourth-and-3 with 1:33 left. Do you want the game in Lamar Jackson's hands, or in Josh Allen's? Harbaugh made his pick and Allen punished him for it, efficiently picking up 71 yards on five plays, capped off by 25 yards to Keon Coleman, who may have announced himself as a WR1. A few clock-wasting kneels and a gimme field goal later, and the Buffalo comeback was complete.

Or was it a Baltimore collapse? The Ravens, incredibly, have blown eight games since 2021 where their win probability hit 90 percent; no other NFL team has more than five. “We’re banging our heads on the wall about it at this point,” safety Kyle Hamilton said.

"I don’t want the Ravens to be known as a team that gets up big and blows the lead," Hamilton added. So, no immediate revenge for the Ravens for how last year ended. No leg up in the loaded AFC race. No confidence boost to carry into this fresh season, or into a potential playoff rematch against the Bills. Nothing but a distinct, emerging, capital-R Reputation.