The Baltimore Ravens did it again. They held a double-digit four-quarter lead with under seven minutes to play and they lost the game. This isn’t the first time it’s happened. It’s not even the second time.
The Ravens have now lost each of their three games in the same miserable way. They’ve choked away three double-digit fourth-quarter leads in just six weeks.
This time it was Lamar Jackson who ultimately choked away the win. An interception with roughly three minutes to go set the New York Giants up for what would eventually be the game-winning score.
Then, with one final chance to win the game, Jackson had the ball stripped from his hands by rookie pass rusher Kayvon Thibodeaux. It was the final nail in the coffin of an ugly, embarrassing loss.
Lamar Jackson and the Ravens need to figure out how to finish games
One time can be excused as a series of unfortunate events. Two times feels a little like deja vu. Three times is when it becomes a troubling trend.
The Ravens have a problem. They’ve struggled to finish games and it’s cost them on three different occasions. That’s not what good football teams do. It’s not what well-coached teams do.
Jackson is too good and too experienced to make the kinds of mistakes he made in Sunday’s game. This Ravens coaching staff is too experienced to allow themselves to be outcoached in the way they were in the fourth quarter.
From untimely penalties to drops to just flat-out bad quarterback play, the Ravens were a mess for much of Sunday’s game. They allowed a significantly less talented Giants team to score 14 unanswered in the final seven minutes of the game.
The Giants took advantage of the Ravens’ mistakes. Meanwhile, the Ravens wasted great games from the likes of Kenyan Drake and Mark Andrews.
The Ravens aren’t a bad football team, but they continue to commit the same back-breaking mistakes that bad football teams do.
John Harbaugh, Lamar Jackson, and the rest of this Ravens team need to figure out how to fix their late-game miscues. If not, the Ravens aren’t going to be winning anything this season.