Lamar Jackson and the Baltimore Ravens had Josh Allen and the Buffalo Bills dead to rights in their season-opening duel on Sunday Night Football, but some untimely fumbles and a complete defensive capitulation helped the Bills pull off a 41-40 win via a crazy comeback.
Even with more classic Ravens turnovers in the fourth quarter, 40 points on the road against a Super Bowl contender like Buffalo should have been more than enough to come away with the win. Instead, the defense let Baltimore down again by failing to stop Allen in his tracks.
Allen completed over 71% of his passes and threw for 394 yards alongside four total touchdowns (two passing) in a virtuoso performance. While Allen is clearly a great quarterback, that sort of performance should not happen against a defense that came into the year with this much hype.
Safety Kyle Hamilton, regarded as arguably the best in the game at his position, had a very blunt take on this team's performance, saying that he wanted to vomit when he saw on the scoreboard that Allen nearly had 400 yards passing. Every Ravens fan felt like doing the same thing, Kyle.
Kyle Hamilton is disgusted with Ravens' defensive showing vs. Bills
The lack of a dominant pass rush has been a problem for quite some time. Even with the Bills' offensive line performing at at thoroughly average level, the fact that Baltimore only managed one sack speaks to how this team has been unable to manufacture pressure without blitzing for some time.
This secondary is still very young, as Hamilton and second-year corner Nate Wiggins stand out as premier players, but that is no excuse for an offense led by names like Khalil Shakir and Josh Palmer out wide to have that easy of a time moving down the field.
While fans may want Harbaugh on the hot seat after another loss like this, defensive coordinator Zach Orr is far from safe as well. Even though he picked things up in the second half of last season, a poor showing in 2025 could lead to many believing that his 2024 finish is not representative of him as a coach.
Baltimore will be one of the most competitive teams in the league throughout the 2025 season as long as Jackson and the offense are operating at peak efficiency, but the Ravens won't be able to stomach many more games like this if they want any shot at home field advantage in the playoffs.