CINCINNATI — The roar from the visiting locker room at Paycor Stadium was deafening, the noise getting louder as Baltimore Ravens executives and assistant coaches filed in from upstairs looking to celebrate.
“That,” said center Tyler Linderbaum, “is the stuff that you play this game for, the experience in the locker room.”
Running back Derrick Henry didn’t so much as walk into the interview room as much as he bounded in with the same sense of speed and urgency that he showed on his 51-yard run in overtime that set up Justin Tucker’s game-winning 24-yard field goal.
DERRICK HENRY!!!!
📺: Sunday 1 pm on CBS pic.twitter.com/7qKcVgBmF7
— Baltimore Ravens (@Ravens) October 6, 2024
As John Harbaugh spoke to reporters, wide receiver Zay Flowers sat in a chair against the wall, wearing a wide smile and nodding in agreement as his head coach tried to put the Ravens’ improbable and wild 41-38 win over the Cincinnati Bengals into perspective.
Then, there was quarterback Lamar Jackson. He barely mustered a smile. He used words like “ticked off” and “furious.” The one who was most responsible for the Ravens winning acknowledged that he was probably the least excited player in the team’s locker room.
Jackson’s insane competitive drive and quest for perfection wouldn’t allow him to celebrate on a day when he deserved to be the loudest man in the room.
“I just don’t like how that situation happened (in) overtime,” said Jackson. “If that probably wouldn’t have happened, I would be the happiest person in a Ravens uniform right now.”
Jackson’s fumbled snap prevented the Ravens from scoring on the first possession of overtime. But when Evan McPherson sent the potential game-winning 53-yard field goal attempt wide left, Baltimore had another chance. As the Ravens saw it, Jackson deserved another chance. He had played too hard and too well to have made the decisive mistake in a Ravens loss.
Time and time again Sunday afternoon, as mistakes mounted for the Ravens in all three phases, as the defense seemed powerless to stop Joe Burrow, Ja’Marr Chase, Tee Higgins and the Bengals, Jackson gave his team hope.
Members of the offense kept urging the downtrodden defense to “just get us one stop.” There were times when it looked like that stop would never come, as Burrow threw for 392 yards and five touchdowns and Cincinnati scored touchdowns on four straight possessions.
“You go into a dark place for a minute,” said Harbaugh, whose team won its third straight to improve to 3-2, while the Bengals fell to a daunting 1-4. “There’s no doubt about it.”
With Jackson, though, the Ravens always have hope. When the Bengals took a 24-14 lead at the 8:51 mark of the third quarter, Jackson responded immediately, driving the Ravens down 74 yards in four plays and hitting tight end Isaiah Likely for a 1-yard score.
When Burrow threw his fourth touchdown pass of the day, a 4-yard connection with running back Chase Brown, to make it a 31-21 game early in the fourth quarter, Jackson answered with a 2-yard touchdown to tight end Charlie Kolar.
When Burrow and Chase connected on a 70-yard touchdown on the very next play to regain a 10-point lead, Jackson wouldn’t allow the Ravens to concede. He jogged into the huddle with full confidence that Baltimore was going to score.
All it took was one of the most remarkable plays of Jackson’s career. On second-and-goal from the Bengals’ 6, Jackson dropped Linderbaum’s snap. He went to the ground to corral it, got up and scrambled to his right with Bengals veteran defensive end Sam Hubbard giving chase. Jackson didn’t try to elude the 6-foot-5, 265-pound Hubbard. He instead stiff-armed him to the ground. Jackson then continued to his right, eyes downfield the whole time, and fired a strike to Likely in the back of the end zone as he was being drilled out of bounds.
MAKE SOMETHING HAPPEN!!!!!!!!!!
Tune in on CBS! pic.twitter.com/e2u8hXsNqI
— Baltimore Ravens (@Ravens) October 6, 2024
“It speaks for itself,” Harbaugh said. “I never cease to be amazed, but I’m always amazed. I just think so much of Lamar, and I think so much of his work ethic, and then just the way he plays the game. It’s unparalleled.”
Jackson finished with 348 yards passing and four touchdowns. He also rushed for 55 yards, the only blip being the fumbled snap in overtime where he took his eye off the ball because he was checking out the play clock. When the Ravens were in must-score mode for nearly the entire second half and overtime, Baltimore’s final six drives went like this: touchdown, touchdown, touchdown, field goal, fumble, field goal.
“That was like third-MVP level for Lamar,” said Henry. “It was a one-of-a-kind game, especially the play where he was getting sacked, got out of the pocket, kept running down, almost went out of bounds and threw that ball back to (Likely). That’s why Lamar is the best player in the league.”
There were other Ravens heroes. They signed Henry this offseason to be their closer late in games. He got off to a decent start, scoring a touchdown on Baltimore’s first drive and then going over the 10,000-yard mark in his career in the second quarter. But the Bengals stacked the box and were determined to not let Henry — or Jackson — beat them with their legs. Yet, when the Ravens needed Henry in overtime, Jackson pitched the ball into his belly and he burst 51 yards down the near sideline to Cincinnati’s 6.
“I was trying to run after him, but he kept getting faster and farther away from me, and I was thinking in my head, ‘This is how the Bills felt last week,’” Kolar said. “He’s so fast. It doesn’t really make sense, but I was running hard.”
Defensively, the Ravens spent nearly the entirety of the second half chasing the Bengals to no avail. Veteran cornerback Marlon Humphrey said during the week that Baltimore’s defensive backs needed to win the matchup with Cincinnati’s highly touted pass-catching group. In the second half, it wasn’t a fair fight as Burrow, Higgins (nine catches for 83 yards and two touchdowns) and Chase (10 catches for 193 yards and two scores) got whatever they wanted against a Ravens secondary that continues to confound.
The Bengals were having so little trouble moving downfield with their passing game, they were using it instead of running to kill the clock. Yet, Burrow got greedy and the veteran Humphrey jumped a slant attempt to Chase, picking the ball off at the Baltimore 28 with just over three minutes to play.
MARLON HUMPHREY !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Tune in on CBS! pic.twitter.com/EC31ozHF1a
— Baltimore Ravens (@Ravens) October 6, 2024
“It just shows you, no matter what happens during the game, it just takes one play. It takes one play to reverse the whole game, man,” Flowers said. “I went up to Marlo and I said, ‘That’s you,’ because some people will get down in their head and just keep going down. He stayed up and made a big interception, so props to Marlon.”
Humphrey left the locker room without talking to reporters. He had a walking boot on his foot and was flipping the game ball he received in his hand.
Tucker got a game ball, too. When the Ravens’ post-Humphrey interception drive stalled at the Bengals’ 38 with 1:43 to play, Tucker jogged onto the field and stared down a 56-yard field goal attempt. He was just one for his last seven from beyond 50 yards dating back to last year, but the Ravens have said repeatedly that there’s no kicker they’d rather have in those situations.
Tucker’s kick into the wind started left — like many of his recent misses — but then sailed in the middle of the uprights to tie the game.
“I had all the confidence in the world,” Jackson said. “I know who he is.”
Baltimore’s defense still had to get a stop to force overtime, and it did. The Ravens then had to hope the Bengals missed the field goal in overtime, and they did, giving Jackson the reprieve that he so deserved.
“I was furious,” Jackson said. “I didn’t want that to happen. Like I said, we were driving the ball. I feel like we would have scored on that drive, but the time was going down, and I was just trying to hurry up and get the snap from Tyler. And as I’m looking to see if it’s a delay, I took my eyes off for a split second, and … yes. It was a fumble, but we got the win.”
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The Ravens got the win because Jackson is their quarterback. When things looked the worst on Sunday, he wouldn’t let them lose.
“That boy is different, man,” Flowers said. “We talk about it every game. He just proves it every game, so I’m just wondering when we’re going to stop talking about it. That man is different. He is everything.”
(Photo: Andy Lyons / Getty Images)
