The Baltimore Ravens and Buffalo Bills treated us to a game for the ages to complete the Sunday opening week action in the National Football League. The Miami Dolphins look like they are dead in the water and Russell Wilson looks like the oldest person still standing in New York.
What did that tell us about what to expect in second week and ongoing NFL action?
Well, the Ravens are just like they have always been; dynamic and look like world-beaters one moment, and then finding a way to lose in the most disheartening manner. Last year, they opened the season with a loss in Kansas City when Isaiah Likely was found to be out of bounds on the game's last play instead of scoring a touchdown that could have won the game for John Harbaugh’s team. He had already motioned to go for game deciding two-point conversion attempt.
If that wasn’t enough of a blow to send Baltimore fans into the bars, they ended the season with usually sure-handed Mark Andrews dropping an open pass that would have tied the game in Buffalo and sent the Ravens possibly onto Kansas City for a chance to earn a Super Bowl berth.
You think that hurts? Try this; the Ravens lead those same Bills in the same stadium eight months later and build a 40-25 bulge on the scoreboard with four minutes left on the game clock. Baltimore’s star runningback, Derek Henry, who is getting all sorts of acknowledgements during the NBC telecast for moving up on the all-time rushing touchdown list and having another game with more than 150 yards gained on the ground is about to become the goat. That is a goat when that group of letters indicated a negative.
Uncharacteristically, Henry fumbled, and Baltimore suffered their only turnover of the night … which invigorated the Bills like a new slip-and-slide does a six-year-old on a hot sunny day. Total meltdown by the visitors and a Josh Allen led victory for a Buffalo team still looking for their first Super Bowl berth since dropping four straight Roman Numeral games beginning in the 1990 season.