MIKE BURKE
Allegany Communications Sports
The Baltimore Ravens’ 28-24 home loss to the New England Patriots Sunday night was who the Ravens have been in recent seasons at the biggest moments of the biggest games.
The Ravens come up small. The offense makes mistakes at the worst times, the defense can’t get stops, and the decisions coming from the sideline and the booth continue to defy logic.
To wit, NBC analyst Cris Collinsworth asking play-by-play man Mike Tirico on-air late in the fourth quarter, “Do you think the Patriots have to send a thank you note to the Ravens for not putting Derrick Henry in the game for this drive? “
Stop me if you’ve heard this before: Future Hall of Famer Derrick Henry had rushed for 128 yards on 18 carries with two touchdowns, including the one at 12:50 of the fourth quarter to put Baltimore ahead, 24-13, and did not touch the football again. In fact, he wasn’t even on the field again.
Head coach John Harbaugh was asked why Henry wasn’t in the game when the Ravens got the ball back leading 24-21.
“He was coming back in the game,” said Harbaugh. “We had Keaton (Mitchell) start the game. Derrick and Keaton had talked about that. Keaton started the other drive, and Derrick came in and finished it off. So, it was part of that rotation. He was going back into the game, and then we got stopped.”
When asked if he did not want Henry in the game at that point, Harbaugh said, “Looking back, would I rather Derrick start that drive? Yeah, but Derrick was kinda ready for Keaton to start that drive. Then he was planning on coming in next. They work in that rotation. You look back on it, and it’s pretty easy to say, he should’ve been in there. But we’re rotating those guys throughout the game as two backs. But game-winning drive, do I want Derrick Henry out on the field? Sure, I do want him on the field.”
First of all, it doesn’t take a “look back on it” because as it was happening in real time, Ravens fans at M&T Bank Stadium and at home were screaming out loud, “Why in the hell is Derrick Henry not in the game?!”
Most importantly, if Harbaugh wants Derrick Henry on the field, he is the head coach, so he gets to say, “I want Derrick Henry on the field,” because, in theory, what the head coach says goes.
Asked Monday why he didn’t intervene and get Henry on to the field on the next-to-last drive, Harbaugh said, “There’s a lot of things you’re thinking about.”
Whuh?
The Ravens went down in another big game with their franchise quarterback, Lamar Jackson, injured and their best player, Derrick Henry, on the bench and have yet to solve the problems that have crushed them in so many big games.
The Ravens rallied behind back-up quarterback Tyler Huntley, only to unravel in familiar fashion. There were turnovers on key possessions, including by Henry in the first quarter, as well as the traditional big-game fumble by Zay Flowers in the fourth quarter.
Defensively, there is no pass rush, there is poor tackling, the unit cannot get off the field on third and longs and is incapable of holding a late-game double-digit lead.
Offensively, of course, there is the insane refusal to let Derrick Henry carry the team on his back, which begs the weekly question, What is the point of having Derrick Henry if he is not going to run the football?
Given the history, it’s not football malpractice at all, at least not currently in Baltimore. It’s routine Harbaugh.
Remember in 2019 when the Ravens were 14-2 and easily led the NFL in rushing, yet inexplicably did not run the ball in their 28-12 first-round home playoff loss to the Tennessee Titans, a team that understood how to close a big game because it had a great running back to close it with by the name of Derrick Henry?
Remember who the head coach of that Titans team was? Mike Vrabel, the same man who Sunday night as the head coach of the New England Patriots was likely wondering, “Why aren’t they running Derrick?”
I wonder, as he watched his team’s playoff hopes effectively die on Sunday night, if Ravens owner Steve Biscotti was wondering the same thing.
Be assured he’s been wondering something.
Have we come to the natural end of something after 18 years? Certainly not the preferred path for the owner to take, but in every big game the Ravens play anymore, the song remains the same and there appears to be no end in sight.
Based on the tone of Monday’s media conference, it just feels as though a different offseason lies ahead in Baltimore.
Mike Burke writes about sports and other stuff for Allegany Communications. He began covering sports for the Prince George’s Sentinel in 1981 and joined the Cumberland Times-News sports staff in 1984, serving as sports editor for over 30 years. Contact him at [email protected]. Follow him on X @MikeBurkeMDT