ORCHARD PARK, N.Y. — As Lamar Jackson spoke Sunday night, the Baltimore Ravens quarterback kept smacking his hands together as though he were awake, but trying to snap himself out of a bad dream.

“I tried to squeeze the ball, it slipped”…SMACK ... “out of my hand.”

“Tonight, the turnovers, we can’t have that s***”… SMACK …”you know?”

“It’s hold on to the f***ing ball. I’m sorry for my language”… SMACK …”but this s*** annoying. I’m tired of this s***.”

It seemed like a momentary physical tick born out of angry energy. Or disappointment. Maybe some combination of disbelief and frustration. And it was unquestionably fitting. Almost any of those emotions — and maybe all of them — painted the proper picture of the Ravens after a 27-25 AFC playoff loss to the Buffalo Bills that was nothing if not a summary of mistakes and missed chances in the divisional round.

A dropped pass by a wide-open-with-room-to-run Derrick Henry. A bad snap to Jackson that snowballed into a fumble. A misread safety and a costly interception. A wildly rare catch-and-fumble by tight end Mark Andrews — only to be eclipsed in infamy when he dropped a 2-point conversion that should have tied the game late in the fourth quarter.

When it was finally over, Jackson remarked that in the process of undercutting themselves, the Ravens never punted Sunday. They didn’t have to. Instead, they were operating at peak efficiency in giving the Bills the ball for free.

Taken as a whole, with all of the necessary and cruel context of what could have been, this will end up standing as another addition to the annual media anthology detailing how Jackson’s elite status as a quarterback continues to be dogged by a playoff record. He’s now 3-5 in the postseason, growing the ugly wart on his résumé that won’t be ignored by his critics.

Of course, the disparagement is rarely accompanied by the fact that one of the Mount Rushmore quarterbacks of our time, Peyton Manning, went 3-6 in his first nine playoff games. Or that during that stretch of Manning’s futility, there was lamenting about how he sometimes couldn’t seize wins in the biggest of moments, most especially in losses to the New England Patriots and Tom Brady.

In that respect, Jackson is not alone in his playoff tribulations. He’s just taking the arrows now because he has not yet done what Manning did the rest of his career: going 11-7 in his final 18 playoff games and winning two Super Bowls in the process. With Sunday’s loss to the Bills — who now advance to the AFC title game to meet their own familiar foil in the Kansas City Chiefs — the Ravens go home.

They depart with a loss that can’t be pinned entirely on Jackson. He made mistakes. Two costly ones. But when the moment arrived to take control late in the game, he masterfully led Baltimore on an eight-play, 88-yard drive, punctuated by Jackson wizarding a 24-yard touchdown pass that suddenly had a raucous Bills crowd at Highmark Stadium squirming in their seats, if not nearly suffocating altogether.

On the next play, the savage backward momentum of Andrews and his own freezing forearms led a perfectly catchable ball from Jackson caroming off the chest of his tight end and straight into the nightmares of Ravens fans. The groans of disbelief would have been heard all the way from Maryland, if they hadn’t been washed out by a Bills crowd that exploded in jubilated relief.

Afterward, naturally, the pressing question was whether Jackson had a moment to speak with Andrews in the aftermath of the mistake. And, like the teammate and leader he is known to be in the franchise, he stepped in front of the narrative.

“We’re a team,” Jackson said. “S***, first half I had two costly turnovers. Me not holding the safety — me just knowing the coverage and me knowing it was man, threw a b.s. interception. It was 7-7 at the time, I believe they scored after that. Battled back. A fumble. [On the] snap, tried to make something happen. It was like an RPO play, so I couldn’t really throw the ball to [Isaiah] Likely. The offensive line was down the field. So I was trying to make something happen. I tried to squeeze the ball, it slipped out of my hand. Von Miller picked it up, got some yards. I think that led to points for them. It’s a team effort out there.

“[Mark has] been busting his behind. He’s making plays happen out there on that field for us. Came up short. Like I’ve been saying all season, every time we’re in a situation like this, turnovers play a factor, penalties play a factor. Tonight, the turnovers, we can’t have that s***, you know? That’s why we lost the game. Because as you can see, we [were] moving the ball wonderfully. It’s hold on to the f***ing ball. I’m sorry for my language but this s*** annoying. I’m tired of this s***.”

That was the aforementioned monologue that had Jackson slapping his hands. And it didn’t end there.

“I’m just as hurt as Mark,” Jackson said. “All of us played a factor in the game. It’s a team effort. I’m just not going to put that on Mark. … We didn’t do what we’re supposed to. Protecting the ball, that’s the number one priority. We didn’t do it. Especially me. I’m the leader. I gotta protect that ball. So I’m hot.”

He wasn’t alone. Head coach John Harbaugh painted it as a team loss, too, deflecting attention away from Andrews and just extolling the realities of football this season for the Ravens. And those are this: For the vast majority of the season, the Ravens protected the ball as well as any team in the NFL. On Sunday night, they didn’t. Why it happened on this day for Baltimore is the fabric of the game that ends up unraveling for 31 NFL teams every single season.

“It’s football,” Harbaugh said. “This is how football works. If you want to draw some big cosmic thread, you draw it for every single team in the league except the team that wins. It’s tough to win. It’s a big challenge. That’s why the [Kansas City] Chiefs, you’ve got to admire what they’ve done. It’s tough to win playoff games. It’s tough to get in the playoffs. Then it’s tough to win playoff games. Now you’ve got to stack four playoff wins to win a championship. Then you don’t win it, then you go and want to start drawing threads. There’s no thread. It’s football. This game went the way it went.”

And for the Ravens, the way it went was a step back from last season’s No. 1 seed and a trek to the AFC championship game. This leaves Baltimore again picking up the pieces and dealing with the inevitable hypothesis about what is keeping it from breaking through to the other side of this postseason logjam. It’s a problem the Ravens tackled in the offseason by giving Jackson an elite running back in Derrick Henry to ride as his partner and take some of the burden off his shoulders.

Now? Only the Ravens, Jackson and all the remaining pieces of this team can figure out what comes next. Just as it was last season, when the Ravens were haunted by a 17-10 loss to the Chiefs and costly fumble by wideout Zay Flowers. Not long after that one was over, Jackson’s inability to power the Ravens into the Super Bowl became the overriding theme of the offseason. And maybe that’s how this one will be remembered, too — as much for his turnovers as the miscues by the players around him.

Whether it is or not, it’s clear this one impacted Jackson emotionally. You could see it in his fidgeting and feel it in his energy on Sunday night. The frustration is there. For the fans. For every part of the team. And most certainly for the quarterback who is still likely going to have this loss mostly attributed to his two turnovers rather than what happened after them. But as frustrating as that might be, it’s the getting close that might linger most for Jackson.

As he said Sunday night, “I’m tired of being right there. We need to punch it in. We need to punch in that ticket.”

SMACK.