In the moment, Sunday’s instant classic between the Baltimore Ravens and Buffalo Bills seemed like a catastrophic loss for Lamar Jackson’s squad, while the win was euphoric for Josh Allen’s team. But moving forward, the final result might not be the indicator of what’s to come.
That’s how Greg Olsen feels about the Bills’ 41-40 win on Sunday night, in which Buffalo came back from a 15-point deficit in the fourth quarter. In fact, the NFL on FOX analyst feels slightly better about the Ravens moving forward than the team they took down because of how they were able to get out to a lead in the first place.
“When the dust settles, when you look at which model is more sustainable, it just seems like so much of the workload falls on Josh Allen,” Olsen said on FS1’s “Wake Up Barstool.” “It’s just really hard to count on Superman performances from one guy every single week throughout the course of the season. But if I’m Baltimore, I’m saying, ‘You know what? It took a Herculean effort by Josh Allen. Some things didn’t go our way. We were on the road in a really hard place to play.’
“As heartbreaking as the loss is for Baltimore, it sounds weird saying it after you lose, but I think Baltimore’s in a pretty good spot to have a great year.”
Between his 394 passing yards and 30 rushing yards, Allen accounted for 424 of Buffalo’s 497 total yards on Sunday night. In the fourth quarter alone, Allen threw for 251 yards and rushed for two touchdowns as the Bills scored 22 points in the final frame.
Of course, the Bills needed every single one of those yards and scores in order to win Sunday’s game because their defense struggled to slow down Lamar Jackson, Derrick Henry, Zay Flowers and the rest of the Ravens’ offense. Baltimore scored on seven of its 11 possessions in Sunday’s game, putting points on the scoreboard on each of its first five possessions.
In terms of yardage, Jackson was able to throw for 209 yards on just 19 attempts (11 yards per attempt), while Henry rushed for 169 yards on 18 attempts (9.4 yards per attempt). Flowers had a whopping 143 receiving yards on just seven receptions.
When you take an even closer look at the numbers, history said that a Ravens win should’ve been certain on Sunday night. Prior to that game, teams that had rushed for at least 235 yards (Baltimore had 238) and scored at least 40 points in the same game were 277-0.
So, it’s pretty clear that the Bills’ win on Sunday was a bit of an anomaly. Considering that this is a team with Super Bowl aspirations, Olsen believes that Buffalo knows that it can’t continue to pull a rabbit out of its hat like this moving forward.
“They’ve got to get their defense fixed,” Olsen said. “Buffalo, McDermott, they knew all offseason and through the draft that all their effort was getting their defense fit. Giving up 20 each half [isn’t great].
“At the end of the day, you don’t apologize for how you win. It’s hard to win in the NFL. I think relying on Superman every single week to win, it’s hard to count on that.”
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