Sunday night’s game was the first time that the Ravens have lost a game while scoring 40 points, but there was a familiar feel to watching them go from being up 40-25 to losing in Buffalo.
It was the seventh time since the start of the 2022 season that they have lost a game they were leading by double digits in the second half. They have blown 17 such leads since John Harbaugh became the team’s head coach and he acknowledged on Monday that the number is too high.
Harbaugh said the team has to “be really intentional” when they find themselves in those positions in the future.
“Maybe part of it is we’ve been ahead a lot,” Harbaugh said at a press conference. “We’ve had a lot of two-score leads. We’ve kept a lot of those, but I think we’ve lost six of them if I’m not mistaken. That’s too many. I don’t care how many two-score leads you have. I do believe we need to be really thoughtful of how we approach the situations going forward. Let’s give it some thought. Let’s give some thought to our play-calling, let’s give some thought to our defensive play-calling, let’s give some thought to our mindset.”
The reasons why the leads disappear have varied and Harbaugh said they feel they have a “pretty good handle” on what went wrong in Buffalo. That starts with not doing a good enough job against Bills quarterback Josh Allen and the Ravens will have to come up with a better plan for that because there’s a good chance that they’ll have to beat the Bills to get through the AFC in January.
