The Baltimore Ravens’ season was in Lamar Jackson’s hands, and it felt so right. A transcendent player who may well win his third NFL MVP award next month, Jackson had been granted a golden opportunity to fight through some early struggles and do something epic Sunday night, and he valiantly met the moment.

Trailing the Buffalo Bills by eight points with 3:23 remaining in a divisional-round playoff game at snowy Highmark Stadium, Jackson wasn’t fazed by the hostile crowd, his two first-half turnovers or his stigma as a quarterback who wilts in the postseason. He drove the Ravens 88 yards, showcased his improvisational brilliance on a 24-yard touchdown pass to Isaiah Likely and needed only 2 more yards to level the score with 1:33 to go.

Then, abruptly, the Ravens’ fortunes, like Jackson’s reputation, were in Mark Andrews’ hands. So, too, was the football — until it wasn’t.

In the indelible instant when everything slipped away, it felt so wrong.

Football at its highest level can be cruel, and this spirited clash between two gritty teams and two exceptional quarterbacks came down to a ghastly gaffe. Andrews, one of the NFL’s best tight ends and long Jackson’s most reliable target, dropped a short pass while falling toward the right end zone pylon, depriving Baltimore of a score-tying two-point conversion.

The two-point conversion is no good 😳

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— NFL (@NFL) January 20, 2025

It also kept the football-watching world, potentially, from enjoying a scintillating and far more satisfying finish to an eventful divisional-round weekend.

Worst of all, it kept the overstated narrative surrounding Jackson’s postseason deficiencies alive for at least another year, and perhaps even longer.

Final score: Bills 27, Ravens 25, Jackson 3-5. That’s his postseason record, a pejorative stat that can and will be used against him in the court of public opinion, unless and until he takes his team to the Super Bowl (or, most likely, until he wins one).

On one level, that’s entirely fair. Quarterbacks largely get measured by playoff wins and, especially, championships. Jackson, for all his consistent regular season brilliance, has reached one conference championship game and lost three times in the divisional round.

He has had bad playoff outings, including as a rookie (in a first-round defeat to the Los Angeles Chargers), as a second-year player (in a divisional-round loss to the Tennessee Titans) and in his third season, when he struggled against the Bills before being knocked out with a concussion in Baltimore’s eventful 17-3 defeat.

Four years later, in the same stadium, Jackson looked like he might be mired in another regrettable effort. After opening the game by driving Baltimore 73 yards for a score, culminating in his 16-yard touchdown pass to Rashod Bateman, Jackson sullied his second possession by sailing a ball over Bateman’s head that was picked off by Bills safety Taylor Rapp.

“I threw a bulls— interception,” Jackson told reporters afterward.

Then, with the score tied at 7 early in the second quarter and the Ravens closing in on the red zone, Jackson lost the ball while attempting to spin out of a sack attempt by Buffalo safety Damar Hamlin. The Bills’ Von Miller recovered the fumble and returned it 39 yards to the Baltimore 24, setting up Josh Allen’s 1-yard touchdown run.

When Allen scored again with 20 seconds left in the half, the Ravens were in a 21-10 hole and set to begin the third quarter by kicking off to the Bills.

In circumstances such as that — on the road, in bad weather, without his injured Pro Bowl wide receiver (Zay Flowers), against a formidable foe, with another MVP-level quarterback (if Jackson doesn’t win the honor for a second consecutive year, Allen will likely be the reason why) in a comfort zone — quarterbacks who “suck in the playoffs” recede.

Jackson elevated, and we should appreciate his resilience.

I’ve seen Jackson do some amazing things during his seven-year career, not all of them in the regular season. Four years ago in Nashville, after the Ravens faced an early deficit against the Titans, Jackson drifted forward in the pocket, made a decisive cut and raced 48 yards for a touchdown to turn around the game, spurring his team to a first-round playoff victory. His strong second-half effort in last January’s divisional-round drubbing of the Houston Texans, punctuated by a touchdown run that continued through the end-zone tunnel at M&T Bank Stadium, remains fresh in my mind, too.

To me, Sunday’s second half was right up there with his most impressive achievements. He locked in, leading the Ravens to two touchdowns and a field goal in four possessions. The only time they didn’t score came when Andrews, after catching a 16-yard pass from Jackson in Bills territory, fumbled away the ball.

Andrews, who also had an earlier drop, picked a terrible time to have his sloppiest game.

Terrel Bernard forces it.
Terrel Bernard recovers it.@BuffaloBills ball!

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— NFL (@NFL) January 20, 2025

That said, it’s senseless to expect perfection in the playoffs. These teams are too good; each play is intensely contested. Things happen. Elite players reveal their humanity.

In the end, Jackson threw for 254 yards, doubling Allen’s total, with only three more attempts, and outrushed Allen by 19 yards (39-20) with four fewer carries.

It didn’t matter, of course — Allen played a clean game, and the second-seeded Bills advanced to Sunday’s AFC Championship Game against the top-seeded Kansas City Chiefs.

Turnovers kill dreams, which Jackson acknowledged afterward, telling reporters, “Can’t have that s—. And that’s why we lost the game.”

The man speaks with authority, having just completed a regular season in which he threw only four interceptions (against 41 touchdown passes) and lost five fumbles. That’s part of what made Sunday’s first half so jarring: His most recent multi-turnover outing had occurred in last January’s AFC Championship Game, a 17-10 home defeat to the Chiefs.

Because of the giveaways, it’s easy for critics to pin Sunday’s defeat on Jackson. Yet think about how dumb that line of thinking is, and how much it depends on circumstances outside the quarterback’s control: If Andrews had caught his two-point conversion toss and tied the game — as the tight end would maybe 98 times out of 100 — the onus would have been on Allen to direct a game-winning drive. Had the Ravens held, they’d have felt good about their chances heading into overtime.

There are a lot of different ways it could have turned out, but scapegoating either quarterback would have been a stretch. Yet because Andrews dropped the ball, Jackson’s critics dropped the hammer. That’s absurd.

Lamar Jackson’s Ravens were a dropped two-point conversion pass away from a defining score-tying drive. (Mark Konezny / Imagn Images)

If I seem a little triggered by the Jackson-bashing, I have my reasons. Critics have tried to marginalize him from the jump — even before he was in the league. Remember in February 2018, two months before the Ravens drafted the former Louisville star with the last pick of the first round when Hall of Fame general manager Bill Polian proclaimed on ESPN that Jackson should switch to wide receiver? Polian called the Heisman Trophy winner “short and a little bit slight. Clearly, clearly not the thrower that the other guys are. The accuracy isn’t there.”

The accuracy wasn’t there: Polian was more off-target on that take than Indianapolis Colts quarterback Anthony Richardson on his worst day.

Two years ago, after Jackson requested a trade from the Ravens before being franchise-tagged, he was there for the taking, but no other team tried to force the issue. Devoid of options, he signed a five-year, $260-million deal with Baltimore — and has proceeded to make the teams that didn’t try to acquire him look silly.

Look, I know it’s tempting to view everything through the prism of “Did he win the big one?” I’ve also seen enough to know that’s a flawed perspective. Dan Marino only appeared in one Super Bowl and lost that game to Joe Montana, but if you somehow think he’s not one of the greatest quarterbacks ever to spin it, you’re either young, delusional, intellectually dishonest or all of the above.

Quarterbacks are important, but they’re not omnipotent. Nuance exists, even in the playoffs. These margins are so close, and yet outsiders attach such outsized import to their conclusions as if no other outcome was possible.

Remember the season opener between the Ravens and the Chiefs in Kansas City? Jackson sparked a late comeback and, with Baltimore trailing 27-20, appeared to throw a 10-yard touchdown pass to Likely on the final play. However, it was overturned by replay review, with referee Shawn Hochuli ruling that Likely landed with his toe on the end line.

When they say football is a game of inches, they aren’t lying.

Had the touchdown been allowed, and had the Ravens ended up winning, they might have hosted Sunday’s game against the Bills. Instead, they shuffled out of Buffalo to face an offseason of frustration amid unmet expectations, while the Bills moved on to battle the Chiefs for a shot at the Super Bowl.

Mahomes, who has won the last two Super Bowls and has captured three Lombardi Trophies, won’t be excoriated if he comes out on the losing end of Sunday’s game.

Allen, who has never captured a conference title and is 0-3 against Mahomes in the postseason, likely won’t be so fortunate if Buffalo loses.

Should that happen — even if he turns it over a couple of times, or fails to complete an epic comeback — show the man some grace.

Just because the sport can be cruel doesn’t mean the people who watch it have to be.

(Top photo: Al Bello / Getty Images)