Take a quick look at Derrick Henry’s Week 1 stat line, and it’s a borderline MVP-worthy performance for the Baltimore Ravens superstar running back. However, one mistake cost them dearly.
Henry looked awesome, rushing for 169 yards on 18 carries with a pair of touchdowns, but a costly lost fumble helped facilitate a miraculous comeback from the Buffalo Bills, who won the season-opening thriller 41-40 on a last-second field goal.
After the game, Henry put the unfortunate outcome on himself.
“First of all, I’ve gotta take care of the ball. I told my teammates after the game put the loss on me. I own it like a man,” Henry told reporters after the game. “We emphasize taking care of the ball since we got back. It’s a big emphasis, especially in our room with the running backs: taking care of the football, keeping it high and tight, not lackadaisical. They made a play, but I put the loss on me. If I take care of the ball, it’ll be a different situation.”
Derrick Henry Takes Blame for Ravens’ Week 1 Loss
Henry’s willingness to take the blame will be well-received in the locker room, but Baltimore also wouldn’t have been in that spot without his performance. He looked sensational for just about the entire game. It appeared he iced the game early in the fourth quarter when he took a 46-yard rush to the house to give the Ravens a seemingly insurmountable 40-25 lead.
However, Josh Allen and the Bills clawed back into the game with a touchdown late in the fourth with under 5 minutes to play. Then, just two plays into the ensuing drive, Henry was stopped behind the line of scrimmage, and Ed Oliver ripped the ball out of Henry’s arms. Buffalo scored four plays later.
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Baltimore head coach John Harbaugh admitted the fumble was where things started to get away from the Ravens.
“Yes, it’s a big shift,” he conceded in his postgame press conference.
Ravens quarterback Lamar Jackson, meanwhile, told Henry to put the miscue behind him.
“I told (Henry) ‘Let that go, man.’ He’s (already) did enough for us,” Jackson told reporters after the game. ” … He was just going off, but things happen. Unfortunately it just happened at the wrong time.”
Ravens Found Ways to Lose Beyond Henry’s Fumble
It’s not that the Ravens didn’t get another chance to ice the game, either. Buffalo failed to convert a would-be game-tying two-point conversion and kicked it back to the Ravens with Baltimore leading 40-38 under the 2-minute warning.
While the Bills had all three timeouts left, the Ravens could have put the game away with a first down. Henry was stopped on first down after just a yard, Zay Flowers went for no gain on second down, and a third-down completion to DeAndre Hopkins came up just short of the sticks. The Ravens punted away, and the Bills needed just five plays to get Matt Prater into field-goal range for a game-winning kick at the gun.
“They haven’t figured out how to avoid self-inflicted mistakes,” Ravens beat writer Jeff Zrebiec wrote in a postgame dispatch for The Athletic. “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?”
Baltimore will look to right those wrongs against a divisional opponent, Cleveland, in its home opener in Week 2.
What Derrick Henry Told Ravens Teammates After Brutal Week 1 Mistake