In each of Baltimore’s three losses this year, the team has held a double-digit lead.
In two of those losses — including last week’s to the Giants — the Ravens have had a double-digit lead in the fourth quarter.
It feels odd to see a team like Baltimore with a quarterback like Lamar Jackson blow advantages like that. It’s not sitting well with Jackson or his teammates either.
“We’re pissed off about losing — everyone is,” Jackson said in his Wednesday press conference. “Our fans are pissed off and all of us are pissed off, but at the same time, we can’t dwell on it. We’ve got to move on here and get focused on the Browns. And the young guys, they’re dialed in, as well. Everybody is focusing up. We’re just ready to go out there and put on a show, because we’re so mad — real talk.”
Jackson had two critical giveaways that ended Baltimore’s last two drives last week — a poor interception and a lost fumble on a strip-sack. Jackson was asked about the balance of trying to make a play versus doing too much.
“Oh, man, it’s football,” Jackson said. “Like you said, I’m very competitive, and sometimes things don’t go as planned. Sometimes mistakes happen when you don’t need them to, when you don’t want them to; you’re going to have to live with them. But hopefully, it doesn’t happen again.”
Interestingly, Jackson said the Ravens need to stop thinking about how to finish games because it’s something the club needs to be doing anyway.
“We’re the offense; [when] we get in the red zone, we should score points; not over-emphasize that like, ‘We’re in the red zone; we need to score!’” Jackson said. “We’ve just got to go out there and do us, because we’ve been doing it without thinking about scoring in the red zone or scoring from here — we just went out there and did it — and we need to get back to it.”
Jackson added that the offense isn’t trying to rely on kicker Justin Tucker, except for extra points.
“That’s how I feel,” he said. “We need [to] go out there and score points as much as we can, because I feel like we’ve got the guys to do it. We’ve got all the talent in the world. We’ve just got to execute. And we had opportunities; we just missed them. We’ve got to try not missing our opportunities.”
Fortunately for Baltimore, Cleveland’s defense has had trouble stopping every offense it’s faced in 2022. If there were ever a game for the Ravens to put everything together and finish, it’s Sunday’s matchup with the Browns.