The Buffalo Bills suffered their first loss of the season to the Baltimore Ravens 35-10 on Sunday night football in front of a crowd of 70,636 at M&T Bank Stadium.
The Bills ran into a team that was much better than their 1-2 record indicated heading into the game. Baltimore dropped their first two games by narrow margins against Las Vegas and Kansas City, before dismantling Dallas on the road last week.
The Bills, coming off a huge win against Jacksonville last Monday night, entered this game 3-0 looking like real contenders.
Buffalo found out early that this was going to be no walk in the park as Derrick Henry took a handoff to the right 87 yards for a TD on the Ravens first possession.
Buffalo wasted little time responding, as struggling kicker Tyler Bass put Buffalo on the board with a 50-yard field goal with 4:38 left in the 1st quarter making the score 7-3.
Baltimore would keep the pressure on however, as Derrick Henry caught a five-yard touchdown pass from Lamar Jackson early in the second quarter putting the Ravens ahead 14-3.
Lamar Jackson threw his second touchdown pass of the game to Justice Hill on a 19-yard pass. Hills touchdown reception put the Ravens up 21-3 as Baltimore held all the momentum heading into halftime. As for the Bills, they looked beaten, as they had no answer for the Ravens relentless ground game.
Josh Allen was under immense pressure most of the 1st half and couldn’t get any rhythm going for the Buffalo offense. The Bills finally got a drive going and hit on a big pass play from Josh Allen to Khalil Shakir for 52 yards, which the Bills capitalized off of when running back Ty Johnson walked in to give the Bills hope now down 21-10.
The Bills now had life as Josh Allen was pumping his teammates up on the sideline. Buffalo forced Baltimore to punt on their next possession and suddenly the moment was back in Buffalo’s favor.
At this point, Buffalo was starting to look like they had just forgotten what had happened in the first half and then in one play it seemed like all the momentum was gone.
The Bills ran a questionable trick play, as Josh Allen ended up with the ball last and was hit while attempting a pass and fumbled with the Ravens Kyle Hamilton recovering the ball.
There was no looking back for the Ravens after that, as they gained the momentum back for good. Lamar Jackson scored from nine-yards out on a run to the right putting the Ravens up 28-10, and Derrick Henry ended the scoring for the night in the 4th quarter from one-yard out as he rushed up the middle but fumbled and the ball was recovered by the Ravens fullback Patrick Ricard in the end zone to put the Ravens up 35-10.
The Bills would get the ball back three more times in the 4th quarter but couldn’t come up with any more points in the blowout loss.
The Bills defense looked horrendous in this game and the loss of Milano and Bernard at linebacker really showed up big time against the Ravens run game. The Bills offense didn’t show much life as Josh Allen was 16-29-180 and had no touchdown passes and was sacked three times.
Derrick Henry finished with 199 yards rushing and Baltimore as team had 271 yards on the ground. And Lamar Jackson finished with 210 total yards (154 passing, 54 rushing) and three touchdowns (two passing, one rushing).
This was Buffalo’s first loss by more than one possession in 43 games, as they look to quickly put this one behind them, as they gear up for a reunion with Stefon Diggs in Houston next Sunday at 1:00 p.m.
