OWINGS MILLS, Md. — We have all been there or at least heard the stories, right? The tales of long, late, wild nights in Vegas. Well, what happened there didn’t stay there for the Ravens on Monday. The overtime loss to the Raiders came back to the team facility and will stay in the standings as Lamar Jackson and company start the season 0-1.
"That loss hurt. Definitely," said the Ravens quarterback following the 33-27 overtime stunner.
It was an uncharacteristic season opener, the first time under head coach John Harbaugh the Ravens have lost a regular season game when leading by 14 points or more. Plenty went wrong for Baltimore, including Jackson's two lost game-changing fumbles.
"That ticked me off," he said. "I hate fumbling. I hate any type of turnover. It happens. [It’s] football."
Both fumbles led to touchdowns. The first was in the fourth quarter, the second was in overtime.
"Sometimes you can’t go through your reads, you got to make something happen and that’s what I tried to do on that last one," said Jackson. "I saw it breaking down. I tried to push a lineman, tried to get out of the pocket and he hit me while I was doing it. So, try to hold onto the ball next time though."
Jackson was under pressure all night long. The offensive line struggled for the most part. The defense allowed 491 yards of Raiders offense on the night. 327 occurred in the second half and OT.
"It falls on us. We just got to be better," said linebacker Patrick Queen. "We had chances to stop them and we didn’t stop them. So, it just comes back to us being able to stop them."
"We just didn’t close the game out when we had the opportunity to do it three or four times. That’s what you need to do," said Harbaugh. "When you have an opportunity to win you got to go win it and we just didn’t do that tonight."
The Ravens get back on the practice field on Wednesday. They’ll try to avoid falling to 0-2 on the season when they host the AFC Champion Chiefs on Sunday night.
On Tuesday the team placed offensive lineman Tyre Phillips on injured reserve. The starting left guard was carted off the field Monday with a knee injury. He will miss at least three games. The Ravens also released running back Trenton Cannon.
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