HEAD COACH JOHN HARBAUGH
Opening statement: "We are just going to have to regroup and get ready to go play a long season. We've got 16 games in front of us. [The Buffalo Bills are a] good football team. [It was a] tough environment. Obviously, we did many good things, but we didn't play well at the end. [There were] two big situations – the fourth-down play, that's kind of a play that you don't really expect to happen. It was a pretty lucky play, but they made it. Between the scrambles ... Josh Allen played a great game, obviously, especially at the end in the fourth quarter to make those plays, the scramble plays, extended completions and then a couple big pass plays. So that's it. We're disappointed, but we'll be fine."
How will you go back and regroup? (*Brian Wacker)* "Yes, we'll go back to work. We'll go back to work like we always do. We've been here before. This is how the NFL works. It's a tough league. You play tough games in tough environments, and hopefully you learn from it and keep getting better; you get better throughout the course of the season and become the team you're going to be. It's a long journey."
There's been a few of these losses of two-score leads in fourth quarter over the last two seasons. For this one, what's the pattern, and why does it keep repeating? (*Kyle Goon)* "Well, you have to make plays. You have to make plays on the ball; you have to get sacks; you have to turn the ball over. They got four downs, so it's kind of hard just to play even. You've got to come up with a turnover somewhere. You've got to knock the ball out, get a stop. The fourth-down stop would've been a play, but [Josh Allen] threw it back there, and they made the play on the extended scramble. So that's what you have to do. You have to make a play and get off the field. You've got to extend [and] stay on the field. We've had situations where we have done that in the past, but there've been too many of them, but we'll get ready for the [Cleveland] Browns."
What were your thoughts on QB Lamar Jackson's performance? (*Reporter)* "I thought Lamar [Jackson] played great."
How big of a shift did you feel when RB Derrick Henry fumbled the ball? (*Jamison Hensley)* "Yes, it's a big shift."
What happened late in the second quarter when you guys ran off the field with the late field goal ...? (*Jeff Zrebiec)* "The clock ran out. The clock said '0:00' on it. I don't need to be out there for the field goal block play. I came back out."
How disappointing was it to allow them that sideline play? It also looked like, offensively, you snapped the ball a little early on one of those, the field goal... (*Jeff Zrebiec)* "Well, you try to run the field goal. The idea is to save the timeout because you might want to use it, which we did use a timeout to get lined up, because in that situation, we ran the clock down to – I think it got down about two seconds. So that's a 'milk it' field goal. We practiced that before, and that's one of the things we do. You can do it the other way. You can run it down and call timeout at one second. You can do it that way, too. We decided to do it the other way. We had six seconds. It's pretty crazy that they got it done."
How disappointing is it that those small things ended up looming so large in a game like this? (*Jonas Shaffer)* "I don't really rank it that way. It's just disappointing, but we have a game to play next week, and that's what we'll be focused on."
Did you get an explanation at the end of the first half with the clock? (*Jarrett Bell)* "No, I didn't. They didn't tell me anything."
Did you think the clock definitely ran out? (*Jarrett Bell)* "Well, I couldn't tell, but you guys saw it probably more than I did. You probably saw it on the TV."
It was called; it looked like it hit zero. It had hit zero. With the replay, when they slowed it down, it looked like :01. So, it was very close. (*Jarrett Bell)* "I guess that's how they do it now. They didn't use to do it that way."
Did you think of going for it at all on that fourth-and-3? (*Jeff Zrebiec)* "I did think about going for it. If it's fourth-and-3, if you don't get it, they're in field goal range. So, I think punting it is probably what most people would do there."
What about when it was 40-25, you guys had just scored. Did you consider going for two there on the extra point where K Tyler Loop missed? (*Jeff Zrebiec)* "No, 16 [points ahead] would've been good."
CB JAIRE ALEXANDER
On how he's feeling following the loss: "Annoyed. I'm a little annoyed. I'm disappointed. Yes, that's how I'm feeling."
On if he wished he practiced more during training camp: "I'm not one to make excuses. I feel like if I am out there, then I am ready to go, regardless. More practice, obviously, would have been nice, but that's just not how the cards fell."
On losing the lead tonight and the biggest problem that the defense faced: "I'm not going to say it was a problem. We were playing against a good team, with a good quarterback [in Josh Allen]. That was the problem. It's Week 1, so we just have to learn from it."
On if there was a point in the game where the momentum shifted: "No, that was just the duration of the game. It was a long second half, for sure."
On how to make sure the disappointment of this loss doesn't carry into the next few weeks: "You have to reset. We'll watch the film, we'll reset and then get prepared for our next opponent."
On if he felt a disconnect within the different levels of the defense tonight: "That's just how football is [sometimes]. It's a game of ups and downs. I am not really sure. I would have to look at the film to tell you that."
CB CHIDOBE AWUZIE
On the communication in the secondary: "We're really close. [We're always] talking on the field [and] talking off the field. We had a great plan going into the week. We are very confident in our plan – even thinking back to the plays that they ran, I am still confident in the things that ... We should have been able to defeat them. Like I said, it is Week 1. A lot of these things you can clean up when you go back to the film room. It probably won't be a fun film session, but that's a part of it. It's just about getting through those moments, because success is never a straight line. Everybody wishes it was a straight line, but it's never a straight line; it's a winding, weird road. For a lot of teams that make it to the last dance [the Super Bowl], it's not the cleanest road. This is just part of our road, and I hope everybody looks at it that way so we can continue to get better, because it's a long season."
On how much of this game came down to the small details: "A lot [of it came down to the small details]. Yes, a lot. I feel like we gave them a lot of things. I think we gave them a lot of things. Personally, I feel like I could have done better, of course. I am sure a lot of players [on our team] are feeling the same way. The details are always what it's going to come down to, because it's a game of inches."
S KYLE HAMILTON
On how close he was to blocking Buffalo's field goal at the end of the game: "I swear, I thought I blocked it. I don't know if it went over, under or through my hands, but I want that one back. It shouldn't come to that point, but it is what it is."
On what the status of his hand injury during the game is: "It was just something with my finger. I'm fine."
On his thoughts about the Ravens losing games with double-digit leads in the fourth quarter and what is the pattern: "I don't know; I wish I knew. [We are] banging our heads on the wall about it at this point. First and foremost, the offense put up 40 points. [There is] no way that we should be in that position as a defense. I don't know. We just need to figure out how to win games. We are winning them for 45 minutes, but you have to win for 60 minutes. [It's a] new week next week, and we will get it fixed. We will try to be 1-1."
On if there was anything specifically that was giving the defense issues in the fourth quarter: "I'll have to watch the film. There were too many catch tackles for eight yards. That's something that we will have to coach on film."
On if it is doubly annoying that the Bills had to pass to move the ball down the field: "We talked about it all offseason how we struggled last season at the beginning. Then [we said], 'It's a new year, and it's a new team,' and then we come out here and do that. We are saying the same things. Well, we are saying something different, but we are doing the same things. I don't know if there is something mentally that we have to get over or if there is a mental block, but I looked up at the scoreboard when they were about to kick the field goal, and it said they had 400 passing yards or something. I'm about to throw up on the field. It's something that we have to get fixed, and I know that they were in 'two-minute mode' for pretty much the whole fourth quarter, but still, we had opportunities to get off the field."
On how the last playoff game of last year affected this year's team: "No. That was a completely different game, just with how the game flow went. It brings back memories of us doing this multiple times in the past few years. I don't want the Ravens to be known as the team that up gets up big and blows the lead. It's not who we are, and we have to prove that to everybody else. As of right now, that's what we have been doing in those games. It's up to us to go back and fix that. I know that we have the people in the building to do it. It's a matter of getting it done, honestly."
On what the message from head coach John Harbaugh was in the locker room after the game: "'It's Week 1.' Obviously, we wanted this one. It felt like we should have won this one, but [we are] on to the next week."
RB DERRICK HENRY
On what changed offensively in the fourth quarter: "First of all, I have to take care of the ball. I told my teammates after the game that the loss is on me. I own it like a man. We emphasize taking care of the ball since we got back. It's a big emphasis, especially in our room with the running backs: taking care of the football, keeping it high and tight. I got lackadaisical. They made a play, but I put this loss on me. If I take care of the ball, I feel like it would be a different situation. But as far as the offense, we just have to execute. We didn't do as well at the end, so we just have to look at the film and correct it."
On what the team can take away from this loss: "No more self-inflicted wounds. Taking care of the football. Like I said, I put that on me. It gives a team like that a chance to get the momentum and flip the game and put yourself in a bad spot, and I put the team in a bad spot by not taking care of the ball."
On how to prevent this loss from carrying on to other games: "You just go back and watch the film, make the corrections. This one is definitely going to sting for a while. It's Week 1. We still feel that we should have won, but it's over now. We're just focused on getting better, deciding on the things we need to work on and go to work. We look forward to the next one."
QB LAMAR JACKSON
On the loss: "We just have to finish the game. It's never over until it's 0:00 on the clock. We found that out tonight."
On if he was in the conversation to go for it on fourth-and-3 in the fourth quarter: "No, I was cramping, so that's why I pretty much jogged off the field, because if I wasn't [cramping], everybody in here knows I would've been trying to go for a fourth-and-3."
On what changed for the offense in the second half: "We just kept getting off the field. That's pretty much it. We should have kept converting when we should have, when we needed to. Obviously, we just have to do better. Like Coach [John Harbaugh] said, we have the Browns next week, so we have to shift to them. Our mindset has to shift to the Browns."
On the pattern of the Ravens giving up leads and losing games in the fourth quarter: "I don't really know about the pattern part, but all I know is when we're up in the fourth quarter, like I said, the game is not over until it's 0:00 on the clock. We just have to keep converting on third downs, keep putting points on the board as much as we [can]."
On if he was surprised by the defensive struggles: "It was the first game of the season. I'm going to be surprised, just because I feel like our defense is the best in the league, but everything's not going to be perfect. Like I said, it's the beginning of the season. We have a lot of season left."
On putting the game into context that it's only Week 1 and not an end-of-season loss like last time at Buffalo: "Our defense held them to like 20-something points last time. A lot of things went their way. A lot of momentum shifts happened for them, and I feel like that's why things like that happened, but shoutout to the Bills, because they did a great job capitalizing."
On the interaction with the fan in the stands: "I [saw] him slap 'D-Hop' [DeAndre Hopkins], but I wasn't really ... He slapped me, and he's saying – he was talking – so I just forgot where I was for a little bit. You have to think in those situations. You have security out there; let security handle it, but I just let my emotions get the best of me. Hopefully, it doesn't happen again. I learned from that."
On if he won't go close to the visiting fans like that again: "No, because I've never seen our fans do that, so no, I'll probably do it again when we score a touchdown, but it's not nothing against the fans. I'm just celebrating when my teammates get a touchdown."
On if the Bills showed anything different that surprised him: "The Bills [are] the Bills. They're going to disguise defenses. They're going to disguise their pressures and hold certain coverages, so I just pretty much studied those guys, and I felt like we had a pretty good idea of what they were going to run today, and I feel like we capitalized."
On how disappointing it was to turn the ball over: "A lot of things go on in the game, and it was four minutes left. Our guys were trying to hold onto the ball and trying to milk the clock as much as we could, because that's a great offense over there, as well, and things are just happening. It's not like any one of the guys tried to [lose the ball]. They were trying to hold onto the ball as much as they could, but it just worked in the Bills favor."
On how to not let the emotional loss spill over into the rest of the season: "We'll probably let it linger for tonight, because we all hate losing on our team. I feel like anybody who's playing a competitive sport is going to hate losing, but [we'll] probably let it linger tonight and then forget about it, because we're going to have to get prepared for the Browns, our divisional rival."
On what he said to RB Derrick Henry after the night that he had: "I told [Derrick Henry], 'Let that go, man.' He's [already] did enough for us. He scored like an 80-yard or 50-yard [touchdown] one time. [He] popped another one. He was just going off, but things happen. Unfortunately, it just happened at the wrong time. I'm not going to knock him for that. Shoot, I fumbled in the playoffs. It is what it is."
On if there is something about playing at Buffalo and crazy plays happening: "I feel like crazy things happen throughout the league, not just [in] Buffalo. We have mishaps, and I feel like every year I've been in the league, we've had weird things happen. Even back in M&T Bank Stadium, we've had weird things happen. We've been up, and something weird happened. That's part of the game. I can't blame Buffalo's stadium or [anything] like that."
K TYLER LOOP
On his missed extra point attempt: "It was just bad timing."
On if it was bad timing with the snap or the kick: "It was with my start to the ball. So, I was just back there and kind of [had] a mental lapse in the process and kind of [went], 'Oh, here we go' and not the smooth process we've been working on, and it broke."
On what this game taught him about the margins in the NFL: "Every team in the NFL is a good team. If you don't show up and bring your A-game every day, someone's going to beat you. That's where I understand that, for me, I have to do my best. I've have to show up for these guys and make my kicks and do my job. That's something that I strive for and I care about deeply. Now, we have the Browns this week, and it's time to get back to practice and get back to work [on] hammering in [and] just continuing to grow in that area and make kicks."
On his takeaways from his first NFL game: "It's just another game. Unfortunately, it's not the result we wanted, but now, we have to control what we can control, and we have the Browns coming up on Sunday, so we have to move on to that. Out of this game, Nick [Moore], Jordan [Stout] and I can do it. We can go make kicks, and that's what we're going to do, and that's what we strive to do."
OLB KYLE VAN NOY
On how the Bills were able to come back and win tonight: "They had a bunch of quick passes, and then one of their long passes, I feel like there was some max [protect coverage] in there. I think it was just some rushed coverage, and they were good enough to make the finish and close out the game. Sometimes the pass rusher would win, and he would get the ball out, or sometimes the pass rush wasn't good enough, and they were able to have time [to throw]. So, we've just got to continue to work and get better. Luckily, this is the first game. Obviously, it's not how you want to start the season, but we're grateful to have 16 more chances and be at home against Cleveland next week."
On the plan to contain Bills QB Josh Allen and how the defense executed that: "At times, it was good. Then, when it came to closing time, it wasn't good enough. [Josh Allen] hit a couple of pass plays and plays that weren't acceptable by the group that we have. We're going to have to take a look at [the film] and really figure it out and figure it out fast. We don't want to start how we did last year."
On what surprised him about Bills QB Josh Allen's game tonight: "I would say I feel like [Josh Allen] did a good job of maneuvering in the pocket this time. Usually, he's gone a lot to his right, our defense's left. I felt like he was just kind of squirmy."
