The Ravens Will Just Have To Stew In Their Failure

Nothing lingers in the aftermath of failure quite like the decision not taken that could have become success. Thus, the Baltimore Ravens will spend the next eight months asking why, with their last chance to advance to the AFC championship game against Kansas City, they chose not to make the safe and logically defensible play to save themselves with their most reliable weapon. With two yards and two points to gain that would have put the Ravens in a 27-27 tie with the Buffalo Bills, they decided not to use running back Derrick Henry to get them, and the result will operate as a trigger for years of recriminations, because that's how sports works—the losses always linger longer.

And the most maddening thing for the Ravens and their fans is that the play they called that would have tied the game worked brilliantly, all the way until the moment that ultra-reliable tight end Mark Andrews dropped the sure-thing conversion pass from Lamar Jackson that brought the Ravens down. It was a simple physical mistake, not a miscalculation or a mental blunder, that sent the Bills to their annual date with Kansas City this coming Sunday, and for Andrews, who had also fumbled earlier in the fourth quarter to help the Bills take an eight-point lead, the agony will be a tattoo on his chest that can be summoned on demand by NFL Films.