NFL winners and losers, Week 8: ‘The Ravens’ biggest opponent is the Ravens’

Each week of the NFL season, The Baltimore Sun will recap the best and worst from around the league. Here are our winners and losers from Week 8:

Loser: Ravens

Bill Belichick was right.

Speaking on the “The Pat McAfee Show” earlier this month — and later reiterating those comments on the “ManningCast” for Ravens versus Buccaneers — the seven-time Super Bowl champion coach said “the Ravens’ biggest opponent is the Ravens.”

“They just can’t let themselves beat themselves,” Belichick said. “When they’re hitting on all cylinders and they’ve got it going right, it really looks good. They’ve just got to find that consistency and eliminate some of the things that they’ve done that put themselves in a hole more than what the opponent has done to them.”

Well, the Ravens beat themselves again Sunday in a 29-24 loss to the Cleveland Browns.

Whether it was dropped interceptions, dropped passes, a failure to pressure quarterback Jameis Winston or poor coverage in the secondary, the Ravens couldn’t secure what should have been an easy win over a team that failed to score 20 points in each of its seven games.

This was a Cleveland offense with a new starting quarterback in Winston and new play-caller in Ken Dorsey, and the Ravens were playing without injured cornerbacks Marlon Humphrey and Nate Wiggins. That said, Cedric Tillman should not have been as open as he was for the game-winning 38-yard touchdown pass with 59 seconds left, and Winston should not have had as much time to throw as he did with the Ravens rushing seven players. In his first start since 2022, the 30-year-old journeyman threw for 334 yards and three touchdowns and was sacked just twice.

So far, attempts to fix the defense haven’t worked. The Ravens (5-3) brought in free agent pass rusher Yannick Ngakoue, hired former defensive coordinator Dean Pees as an adviser and benched safety Marcus Williams on Sunday in favor of Ar’Darius Washington and Eddie Jackson, yet they still rank among the league’s worst in terms of defending the pass and pressuring the quarterback.

It’s a complete failure for a unit that is running out of excuses under new coordinator Zach Orr.

“We’re going to continue to turn over every stone with our defense and with every other part of our team, too, to get as good as we can get it over the course of a long season,” coach John Harbaugh said Monday.

The defense isn’t the only problem. The Ravens rank second in the league in penalties (63) and penalty yards (549), and the special teams have taken a dramatic step back from their usual spot near the top of the league. Harbaugh was critical of some mistakes there Sunday, including three penalties on kickoff returns and a fair catch at the 6-yard line by Tylan Wallace on a fourth-quarter punt. Justin Tucker is now a bad bet on 50-plus-yard kicks.

One loss to Cleveland, as bad as it was, won’t derail this season. But if the defense can’t solve its biggest issues before the postseason, the Ravens could be in for another disappointing finish.

Winner: Washington Commanders

The legend of Jayden Daniels keeps growing.

The rookie quarterback launched a Hail Mary as time expired Sunday that bounced off a crowd of players at the goal line and landed perfectly in the hands of Noah Brown for a 52-yard touchdown, completing a stunning 18-15 win over the Chicago Bears and setting off a wild celebration in Landover.

“That’s kind of like a once-in-a-lifetime experience,” said Daniels, who has led Washington to a 6-2 start and first place in the NFC East.

The buzzer-beating finish overshadowed what was a mediocre day on offense for the Commanders and their young star, who played through a rib injury he suffered last week that cast doubt on his availability right up until game time. Washington went 0 for 3 in the red zone and 5 for 15 on third down and settled for four field goals from Austin Seibert, an uncharacteristically poor performance for the league’s top scoring offense.

“I’m happy that we won, but at the end of the day I know there’s a lot that we left out there, a lot that we could continue to get better from,” said Daniels, who still finished 21 of 38 for 326 yards while rushing eight times for 52 yards. “We’ve got to clean some stuff up on the offensive side. We’ve got to clean up some stuff — penalties, communication. We won the game, so it’s always better on a win.”

He left quite an impression on his teammates as well. Perhaps forgotten in the euphoria of the victory are the 11-yard pass to Zach Ertz and the 13-yard completion to Terry McLaurin in the final seconds that put Washington in position to try the Hail Mary.

“We’re blessed to have ‘5’ leading this team: The things he can do is special,” Brown said. “I wouldn’t want to play with any other quarterback.”

Loser: Chicago Bears

The Commanders’ miracle win included plenty of help from the Bears, including on that final play.

Cornerback Tyrique Stevenson had his back turned when Washington snapped the ball because he was focused on interacting with fans in the crowd. He eventually sprinted over after Daniels scrambled for 13 seconds and released the ball from his own 35-yard line, joining the mob of players at the goal line as the ball arrived. Coach Matt Eberflus said Stevenson was supposed to block out Brown, who ended up being uncovered when he caught the tipped pass in the end zone.

Stevenson later apologized to his teammates and addressed the team during a meeting Monday. “I let the moment get too big and it’s something that can never happen again and won’t ever happen again,” he said.

But that wasn’t the only mistake the Bears (4-3) made Sunday.

Facing third-and-goal from the 1-yard line earlier in the fourth quarter, Chicago inexplicably handed the ball to offensive lineman Doug Kramer, an occasional blocking fullback in goal-line situations who had never carried the ball in the NFL. Kramer predictably muffed the handoff from rookie Caleb Williams, and the Commanders recovered the fumble to preserve a 12-7 lead. The Bears forced a quick punt and scored the go-ahead touchdown with 25 seconds left — handing the ball to running back Roschon Johnson at the goal line this time — but the damage had been done.

Perhaps the Hail Mary was karmic justice for a team with the hubris to hand the ball to an offensive lineman with the game on the line, a truly unprecedented blunder. According to ESPN’s Bill Barnwell, there are no examples of a player who weighs at least 300 pounds scoring a rushing touchdown in a situation when his team was trailing.

The Lions at least had the good sense to wait until they had put away the Cowboys earlier this season before trying to get one of their offensive linemen to score. Leave the fun plays to Detroit, Chicago.

Winner: Los Angeles Rams

Things were not looking good for the Rams entering Thursday night.

Los Angeles was 2-4 and facing calls for wide receiver Cooper Kupp and perhaps even quarterback Matthew Stafford to get traded before next Tuesday’s deadline. Fellow receiver Puka Nacua had been out since getting injured in Week 1, and Kupp hadn’t played since Week 2. Only a thrilling comeback against the 49ers and a win over the lowly Raiders had kept the Rams afloat.

Then both star receivers returned, and Los Angeles looked like a team that could contend for a playoff spot and potentially a division title in a 30-20 win over the Minnesota Vikings.

Nacua caught seven passes for 106 yards, looking every bit the dynamic player who set the NFL rookie receiving record with 1,486 yards last season. Kupp had five catches for 51 yards and a score, and Stafford finished with 279 yards and four touchdowns after throwing just three touchdown passes in the first six games combined.

“They brought a lot of energy to our team, and a ton of confidence,” Stafford said. “It’s not only just the offense. I know the defense feels it too when those guys are out there making plays.”

The defense did benefit from a missed facemask call against Byron Young on his sack of Sam Darnold in the end zone for a safety that effectively ended the game, but it was unlikely that Minnesota would have been able to drive for a touchdown and a game-tying 2-point conversion with 1:46 left and no timeouts. The Rams sacked Darnold three times and limited the Vikings’ explosive offense to just two field goals in the final three quarters.

Now, Los Angeles (3-4) sits just one game behind the 49ers, Cardinals and Seahawks in a crowded NFC West race that could go down to the wire. Aaron Donald might be gone, but seeing Stafford, Kupp and Nacua all healthy and playing well with a chance to compete for another Super Bowl title under coach Sean McVay is a treat.

“I believe in this group,” McVay said. “I saw resolve. I didn’t see a flinch. … We’ve done a good job of getting ourselves back to where we wanted to be.”

©2024 Baltimore Sun. Visit baltimoresun.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.