Childs Walker: Why Tyler Huntley and Declan Doyle couldn’t rescue the Ravens this time

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The Ravens’ offense scored on its first two possessions, then fell apart in an excruciating 13-10 loss to the Cleveland Browns. Here are five things we learned from a missed opportunity that could haunt the Ravens as they confront the meat of their schedule.

Here we go again.

How do you lose a game in which your opponent falls down 10-0, allows five sacks and averages a paltry 4 yards per play?

Even after the Browns seized momentum in the fourth quarter, they did their damnedest to hand it right back. Andre Szmyt’s go-ahead 48-yard field goal attempt stayed just outside the left upright, handing Tyler Huntley a golden chance for his second game-winning drive in two weeks. Browns safety Emmanuel McNeil-Warren then did Huntley a huge favor by dropping a would-be interception that hit him right in the hands.

But no reprieve was enough for Baltimore’s offense, which descended to shocking levels of ineptitude down the stretch of a game that should never have been so close.

Derrick Henry’s fumble at the Ravens’ 35-yard line served it up on a platter for a Deshaun Watson-led offense that had punted seven times on eight possessions to that point. But the collapse began long before that turnover, which led to Cleveland’s only touchdown.

After an authoritative first quarter, the Ravens’ run blocking broke down against a defense that had allowed 4.5 yards per carry coming in and was missing one of its best players in lineman Mason Graham. Henry’s first two carries produced 28 yards. He managed just 30 on 15 attempts after that.

We did not see offensive coordinator Declan Doyle mix up his ground attack with Justice Hill and Zay Flowers, as he had a week earlier against the Atlanta Falcons. Huntley can’t match Lamar Jackson as a scrambler or designed-run threat, so he was left to win the game with his arm, often in suboptimal down-and-distance scenarios. That’s not his forte, no matter how beloved an understudy he is to his franchise quarterback buddy.

Not that the Ravens haven’t blown games like this, in Cleveland, with Jackson at the helm.

But with heart-stopping wins in Atlanta and against the Dallas Cowboys in Rio de Janeiro, they had begun to convince us that this year might be different. Safety Kyle Hamilton said as much: Maybe they could finally stop following every leap forward with a confounding step back.

Nope.

This was the quintessential unserious performance from a team that desperately wants to take itself seriously as a Super Bowl contender.

“That’s one we definitely should have won,” Hamilton said. “In this league, you let a team in the game, especially at home in this division, you let a team stay around, and they’re going to find momentum.”

His exhaustion with a narrative the Ravens can’t escape was palpable.

“It’s ‘Groundhog Day’ with this question,” Hamilton said when asked to answer for another close loss. “I don’t know. I’m not going to give you an answer. I really don’t know. So, sorry, that’s the best I can give you, but we’ve had this conversation so many times. I don’t even feel like addressing it again.”

Yes, AFC North road games get weird every year. Yes, the Browns have found improbable mojo under former Ravens offensive coordinator Todd Monken. Yes, the Ravens will probably rediscover their dynamism once Jackson’s ankle is mended.

But this doesn’t feel like the week for perspective. The Ravens wobbled a shaky opponent in the first quarter and spent the next three giving that foe every chance to rise from the canvas. They allowed all the ghosts of losses past right back in the door, and suddenly they’re a 4-2 team without a lot to feel good about.

Creativity gave way to incompetence for Doyle’s offense.

The Ravens outgained the Browns 112 yards to seven in the first quarter, just the opening salvo they needed against an opponent ill equipped to play from behind.

We immediately saw how effective Doyle is at wrong footing a defense. On fourth-and-goal at the 2-yard line, he faked a Wildcat set, only to have Huntley scoot over, take the snap and flip a touchdown pass to tight end Josh Cuevas, who was unchecked after going in motion. So much visual distraction to make the result look easy.

To start the next drive, Doyle lined Cuevas up at left guard, off the line of scrimmage, and the (understandably) confused Browns did not cover him as he slashed downfield to catch Huntley’s 29-yard strike. That one explosive play, augmented by a roughing call on Cleveland’s Maliek Collins, was enough to set up an easy field goal.

As images of the Cuevas trickery circulated on social media, they were accompanied by paeans to the NFL’s latest play-calling prodigy. What would Doyle whip up next?

The Ravens stagnated on their next five drives, losing too many run-blocking reps and failing to make hay of poor field position. Their offensive operation fell apart, with a pair of delay penalties putting them in third-and-long.

Near the end of the third quarter, they reached the Cleveland 30-yard line, only to move back 9 yards on a sack and another 4 on a mishandled snap. Tyler Loop’s miss from 49 yards put the rotten cherry atop that crap sundae.

Henry fumbled away their next possession. Then they went three-and-out after Szmyt’s miss gave them their chance to regain the lead with the two-minute warning fast approaching.

So that’s seven punts, a fumble and a missed field goal on the last nine possessions for an offense that came in as one of the league’s most deadly by almost any metric.

Jesse Minter and his players gave the Browns credit for upping their level. “We just couldn’t get anything going,” Henry acknowledged. “Hats off to them; they played a hell of a game.”

But this was not a competent attack for the last three quarters of a game that could have been put away with even one more touchdown drive. It was a failure great enough to prompt a week of self-examination for a group that adjusted ably to Jackson’s absence against the Falcons.

We laud Doyle for his creativity; we also have to ding him when his offense can’t execute the basics.

“I think there’s always something to be learned,” left tackle Ronnie Stanley said. “I do think since we did lose this game, knowing the guy that Declan is and how persistent he is, he’s going to look at this stuff in extreme detail and make sure that this stuff doesn’t happen again, because it shouldn’t.”

Minter’s defense was almost enough to win the game anyway.

There will be those who point to Watson’s 33-yard completion to Jerry Jeudy that set up Szmyt’s winning field goal or Keyon Martin’s (iffy) interference penalty that gave the Browns another crack at their game-tying touchdown. Another instance of a modern-day Ravens defense failing to slam the door, they’ll say.

Fair enough. The defense wasn’t at its best when its best was required, Minter’s favorite mantra. But the Ravens forced seven punts on Cleveland’s first eight possessions. Their downfield coverage worked hand in glove with their pass rush, which dropped Watson five times. They didn’t allow a run longer than 9 yards. They gave up one touchdown, when they had to defend a short field because Henry lost his grip on the ball.

Yes, the Ravens were up against an offense that hadn’t moved the ball consistently all season, further weakened by the absence of injured running back Quinshon Judkins. But the defense did enough to win the game if the offense had helped even a little bit down the stretch. It’s that simple.

The Browns finally advanced to the Ravens’ side of the field midway through the second quarter. But safety Malaki Starks showed the same hops he had two weeks earlier recovering an onside kick when he leaped to swat away Watson’s pass on third down, forcing the fourth of seven Cleveland punts.

Early in the fourth quarter, cornerback Nate Wiggins broke up a Watson pass to Denzel Boston that would have given the Browns a first down at midfield. That earned him a hearty embrace from Minter.

Martin played well in the slot, despite that critical interference penalty that could just as easily not have been called.

All that good work from his secondary mates freed Hamilton to be a wrecking machine around the line of scrimmage, with three tackles for loss off aggressive plunges into the backfield.

Special teams also feed a defense. Early in the second quarter, Keondre Jackson hustled to keep Ryan Eckley’s 62-yard punt from rolling into the end zone, forcing Cleveland’s struggling offense to start from its 4-yard line.

After the game, Henry apologized for putting the defense against a wall. Hamilton and others weren’t having that.

“It is what it is, [and] it’s up to us as a defense to pick our teammates up when they’re down,” the All-Pro safety said. “I think we did that for a lot of the game, but you just [have] got to do it a couple more times at the end.”

Ja’Kobi Lane offered a sliver of silver lining amid the offensive carnage.

The Ravens’ No. 1 training camp sensation had been absent since Week 1 as he recovered from a fracture to his left wrist. The rookie wide receiver looked fit and eager during recent workouts, feeding hopes that he’d contribute as soon as his minimum four-week stay on injured reserve was up.

Sure enough, Lane made his mark in Cleveland, catching four of the five balls Huntley threw his way. But perhaps his utility was different than some fans envisioned given his highlight reel — hello, one-handed touchdown grabs — coming out of USC.

The Ravens treated Lane almost like a tight end against the Browns, trusting him to use his length to win in tight spaces on third down. No pyrotechnics, but every ball he caught resulted in a first down.

Two of those extended the Ravens’ opening touchdown drive. He then boxed out his defender to convert on third-and-10 when they were buried at their own goal line late in the second quarter. His final catch, in the third quarter, again bailed the Ravens out on third-and-long.

With their tight end room thinned by injuries to Durham Smythe and Matt Hibner, and Mark Andrews now coming off a second straight poor — albeit nondisastrous — game, the Ravens need another big target on crucial downs. The 6-foot-4 Lane has given us reason to believe he can be that guy if his body holds up to the scary spills he takes (we saw another of those on the one ball he didn’t catch, down the sideline against Cleveland’s top cornerback, Denzel Ward).

Despite their winning record, the Ravens have not made the best of their opportunity set.

It’s somewhat easier to accept this loss given that the Ravens are one of three 4-2 teams atop the AFC North, having survived 2 1/2 games without Lamar Jackson, one of the league’s most important players.

But that’s not the right way to look at where they stand.

We’ve known since their schedule was released that the Ravens needed to build a cushion over the first six weeks ahead of a fearsome middle stretch against some of the AFC’s best teams. According to FTN’s DVOA measure of team efficiency, they had played the league’s easiest slate going into Sunday’s game, and Cleveland rated as the last cupcake they’d face before three weeks of Scylla and Charybdis.

At 5-1, with those thrilling victories against the Cowboys and Falcons balancing out a dumb home loss to New Orleans, we could have said mission accomplished. But now the Ravens have lost twice to teams that entered the weekend bottom 10 in DVOA.

They left something on the table, even though 4-2 looks much spiffier on paper than their 1-5 opening to last season. The Ravens faced the opposite dynamic in 2025, winning five straight October and November games over so-so opponents to vault back into playoff contention.

With Cincinnati, Buffalo and Jacksonville on tap over an 11-day stretch, they’ll have to raise their level considerably to avoid dropping to 5-4 or even 4-5. They might get a respite after that against the cratering Chargers, but then they’ll close out November on the road against the plucky Carolina Panthers and a Houston Texans team that might be surging by then.

It’s perilous seas ahead for a team that was justifiably elated coming off its Sunday night comeback in Atlanta.