ORCHARD PARK, N.Y. — The Baltimore Ravens have been saying for months that they’ve learned their lesson.
They spent the crux of training camp prioritizing taking care of the football on offense and taking the ball away on defense. They looked forward to their Week 1 return to Buffalo, where their maddening habit of self-destruction reared and knocked them out of the playoffs 7 1/2 months ago, to show precisely how much they’ve grown.
And yet, all they did in a stunning 41-40 loss to the Buffalo Bills before a prime-time audience to open their regular season is show they haven’t learned a thing.
They haven’t figured out how to avoid self-inflicted mistakes. They haven’t learned how to finish a game they had no business losing. And they haven’t mastered the little details that are often the difference between winning and losing close games. Wasn’t that what the organization spent all offseason obsessing over?
The details were different this time around, or at least most of them were. There was another fourth-quarter fumble by one of the team’s stars. In this case, it wasn’t tight end Mark Andrews, but it was Derrick Henry, who dominated for much of the first three quarters before making a crushing mistake.
“I put this loss on me,” said Henry, who delivered the same message to his shell-shocked teammates. “I own it like a man.”
Otherwise, there was a regrettable sequence late in the second quarter that handed the Bills three points on a silver platter. There was a doinked fourth-quarter extra point by rookie kicker Tyler Loop. There was a bail-out defensive pass interference penalty on cornerback Jaire Alexander that led to a touchdown. There was a tipped pass touchdown on fourth down that kept the Bills’ comeback hopes alive. And there was one defensive breakdown after another.
In the end, the agony essentially felt the same as it did in mid-January when the Ravens left Highmark Stadium following a 27-25 loss in the AFC Divisional round with plenty to lament and another lost season to ponder. In that game, Baltimore dug itself a multi-score hole because of mistakes, and then nearly got itself out of it before making more mistakes that sealed its fate.
On Sunday, the Ravens had a 15-point lead late in the fourth quarter. They then watched the Bills score 16 unanswered to steal a game they were thoroughly outplayed in for the majority of the first three quarters.
Matt Prater, the 41-year-old kicker whom the Bills signed earlier this week with Tyler Bass dealing with an injury, booted the game-winning 32-yard field goal with no time remaining to deal Baltimore one of its most crushing regular-season losses in the John Harbaugh era.
As Prater was hoisted in the air by the Bills’ offensive linemen in celebration, Ravens safety Kyle Hamilton jogged to the sideline with his head in his hands. Hamilton just missed blocking Prater’s kick. In fact, it appeared the kick may have grazed off one of his fingers.
“I swear, I thought I blocked it,” Hamilton said. “I don’t know if it went over, under or through my hands, but I want that one back.”
You know what else Hamilton doesn’t know or understand? Why do these kinds of losses keep happening to the Ravens with all their offensive firepower, highly paid stars on defense and their focus on special teams?
“We talked about it all offseason, how we struggled last season at the beginning,” Hamilton said. “ ‘It’s a new year, and it’s a new team,’ and then we come out here and do that. We are saying the same things. Well, we are saying something different, but we are doing the same things. I don’t know if there is something mentally that we have to get over or if there is a mental block.”
Hamilton said he looked at the scoreboard as Prater lined up to kick the game-winning field goal and noticed Bills quarterback Josh Allen had nearly 400 yards passing. It made him want to throw up on the field.
“The offense put up 40 points,” Hamilton said. “No way we should be in that position as a defense.”
The Ravens led 40-25 after Henry’s 46-yard touchdown run at 11 minutes, 42 seconds in the fourth quarter, which should have broken the Bills’ backs. It indeed sent some Buffalo fans to the exits. However, Loop missed an extra point that would have given Baltimore a 16-point lead.
At that point, the Ravens had racked up over 200 yards on the ground, averaged over 8.2 yards per carry and scored on seven of their first eight possessions. They looked like the reincarnation of The Greatest Show on Turf, getting chunks of yardage in the passing and running games and making highlight-reel plays, like DeAndre Hopkins’ nifty one-handed 29-yard touchdown catch.
Yet, on their final three possessions, they had two three-and-outs and a Henry fumble.
“All I know is when we’re up in the fourth quarter, the game is not over until it’s 0:00 on the clock,” said Ravens quarterback Lamar Jackson, who passed for 209 yards and two touchdowns and ran for 70 yards and a score. “We just have to keep converting on third downs, keep putting points on the board as much as we can.”
On the Bills’ final three possessions, they had a 10-play, 80-yard touchdown drive that ended with wide receiver Keon Coleman catching a deflected, desperation pass in the end zone. They had a four-play, 30-yard drive following Henry’s fumble that culminated in an Allen 1-yard touchdown. Then they staged the nine-play, 66-yard drive that put Prater in position to kick the game winner.
Keon Coleman TD off the deflection! This game!
BALvsBUF on NBC
Stream on @NFLPlus + Peacock pic.twitter.com/evTVV18xYm— NFL (@NFL) September 8, 2025
The Ravens rarely got to Allen, and when they did, they didn’t get him to the ground. Meanwhile, Bills receivers had all sorts of space near the sideline or the middle of the field against an experienced and highly thought of Ravens secondary that was not supposed to get victimized like this.
“We were playing against a good team, with a good quarterback,” said Alexander, who had a rough Ravens debut. “That was the problem. It’s Week 1, so we just have to learn from it.”
Alexander hasn’t been part of a Ravens collapse before, but he certainly hasn’t been the first Baltimore player to vow to learn from games like this over the years. It’s certainly not a new phenomenon.
According to The Associated Press, Harbaugh’s team has 17 blown double-digit leads in the second half, the most since at least 1991. Harbaugh is also one of just three coaches to have his team surrender two 15-plus-point fourth-quarter leads.
Harbaugh acknowledged the disappointment, but he predictably offered the reminder that it was still Week 1 and his team would respond, starting Sunday against the Cleveland Browns. The Ravens have rebounded from numerous tough losses in the past. The pattern, though, is undeniable.
“You have to make plays,” Harbaugh said. “You have to make plays on the ball. You have to get sacks. You have to turn the ball over. They got four downs, so it’s kind of hard just to play even. You’ve got to come up with a turnover somewhere. You’ve got to knock the ball out, get a stop.
“You have to make a play and get off the field. You’ve got to extend (drives) and stay on the field. We’ve had situations where we have done that in the past, but there’ve been too many of them, but we’ll get ready for the Browns.”
What else was there to do?
Maybe the result would have been different if the Ravens hadn’t allowed the Bills to get three points late in the second quarter, thanks to shoddy defense and poor clock management on their previous drive. Maybe it would have been different if Loop hadn’t missed an extra point or if Henry hadn’t fumbled. Maybe Harbaugh should have gone for it on fourth-and-3 from the Ravens’ 38 with 1:33 to play. The Bills had no timeouts, and a Baltimore first down would have iced the game.
Maybe, maybe, maybe.
The fact is, the Ravens seemingly have no answers as to why this keeps happening.
(Photo: Bryan Bennett / Getty Images)
