BALTIMORE — Momentum is a fickle force of nature, one that has bit the Baltimore Ravens throughout the season. They caught the negative end of it again during Sunday’s 35-13 loss to the rival Cincinnati Bengals.
The Ravens started strong in their third consecutive game with backup quarterback Tyler Huntley, as Lamar Jackson continues to recover from a high ankle sprain.
On the game’s opening drive, Huntley found receiver Zay Flowers on a third-down screen. The speedy Boston College product did the rest. He weaved around defenders en route to a 48-yard score.
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He was the engine behind Baltimore’s offense as it jumped to a 13-0 lead at halftime. Flowers caught six passes for 120 yards before the Ravens retreated to the locker room after the second quarter.
Then, it all came crumbling down.
The Ravens’ defense allowed 35 points in the second half after stifling the Bengals for the first 30 minutes. The offense failed to score on any of its six possessions across the final two quarters.
“Tale of two halves” became a common refrain among the Ravens’ players and coaches after the game.
“We’re too much of a momentum team. We’re riding the wave when it’s good; we’re riding the wave when it’s bad,” first-year coach Jesse Minter said. “That’s a main focus for us, to be able to stay a little bit more even keel.”
There wasn’t an easy scapegoat for Baltimore’s second-half woes. Huntley, after an efficient first half where he helped the Ravens convert eight of their first ten third-down attempts, managed just 83 passing yards after halftime.
The Bengals extinguished Flowers’ hot start. He managed just two catches for 17 yards after the break. Running back Derrick Henry — a future Hall of Famer — never found his stride. The 32-year-old rushed for 45 yards on 17 carries.
“I’ve got to be better,” Henry confessed after the game. “Terrible. Not good enough at all.”
Several teammates echoed similar sentiments.
“We didn’t make the plays we needed to make in the second half,” Huntley said. “Our third-down rate in the first half was pretty decent. Got down to the second half, it fell out a window.”
The defense was just as culpable. They limited Bengals quarterback Joe Burrow to 43 passing yards in the first half. His star receivers, Ja’Marr Chase and Tee Higgins, couldn’t find their rhythm.
That shifted in the second half. Cincinnati’s passing attack became lethal, dicing up the Baltimore secondary with 249 yards through the air and four touchdowns.
Higgins and Chase finished with a combined 11 catches for 210 yards and a pair of scores.
“We let the game snowball on us,” Minter said. “We’ve got to find a way for that not to happen.”
This wasn’t a run-of-the-mill collapse for Baltimore, though. They found themselves in historical territory. The Ravens became the first team since the 1950 Baltimore Colts to lose a game by more than 20 points after leading by 13 or more at halftime.
This year’s Ravens aren’t first-time offenders, either. They’ve led by two possessions in each of their three losses. The Ravens’ last two opponents — Baltimore fell to the Cleveland Browns 13-10 last week — have outscored them by a combined 48-0 in the second half.
It’s a fatal flaw for a Baltimore team that has its eyes on a playoff berth.
“Once momentum got away from us, it was like quicksand,” defensive end Calais Campbell said. “We’re looking up like, ‘Wow. It’s 35-13.’”
When Burrow tossed his final touchdown with six minutes remaining, many Ravens fans decided they’d seen enough. They flocked to the exits, in disbelief that their halftime lead had been squashed so effectively.
The Ravens didn’t have any solutions available on Sunday to address their momentum woes. It’s easy to say they won’t let it happen again, but disappointed fans will need to see evidence.
“We have one bad drive and they have one good drive and we start to feel something happening in the game,” offensive tackle Ronnie Stanley said. “For us, it’s just a refocus. Just focus on our identity and what we need to do and just not look up at the scoreboard. I don’t think we’ve really put that into action. It’s easier said than done.”
The Ravens, now 4-3, have little margin for error in a competitive AFC North. They’re now last in the division, trailing the 5-2 Cleveland Browns, the 5-2 Pittsburgh Steelers and the 4-2 Cincinnati Bengals.
The opposition won’t get much easier. The Ravens head to Buffalo next weekend to face the 5-1 Bills, who are off this week. Baltimore will then have a short week before hosting the Jacksonville Jaguars for the Nov. 5 edition of “Thursday Night Football.”’
“It’s a big point in the season for us to determine what type of team we want to be,” Minter said.
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