The Baltimore Ravens lost their opening game of the 2021 season, falling to the Las Vegas Raiders by the final score of 33-27 in overtime. Baltimore played well in some aspects, but struggled in others, and the miscues that they had ended up deciding the outcome of the game alongside some great situational football by Las Vegas.
When grading each team based off of their Week 1 performance, John Breech of CBS Sports gave the Ravens a “B-” grade. When explaining his decision, Breech talked about quarterback Lamar Jackson’s performance, as well as the late-game collapse by the Baltimore defense.
“The Ravens offense will only go as far as Lamar Jackson will take them and although he had a big game, he made two crucial mistakes that ended up killing Baltimore’s chances of winning. The Ravens QB lost two fumbles — one in the second half and one in OT — and both fumbles led to touchdowns for the Raiders. The fumbles were highly uncharacteristic for a QB who only lost four fumbles all of last season. Jackson’s fumbles overshadowed a strong performance from a Ravens offense that was able to steamroll their way to nearly 200 rushing yards (187) despite losing their top three running backs to season-ending injuries. Besides the turnovers, the Ravens other problem on Monday was that their defense melted down late in the second half. In the fourth quarter and overtime, the Ravens allowed the Raiders to pile up more than 300 yards and 24 points.”
If just a few more things went in the Ravens’ favor or a few mistakes weren’t made by the team, Baltimore’s Week 1 game with Las Vegas could have looked a lot different. However, what’s done is done, and the Ravens will now look to clean up those mistakes ahead of their Week 2 bout with the Kansas City Chiefs.