CLEVELAND — The Ravens’ offense didn’t save its worst for last Saturday afternoon, not quite, but it came close. For three quarters, the Ravens had stopped and started, thrown away points, dropped passes, squandered momentum, done everything but put a scare into one of the NFL’s worst defenses.
Midway through the fourth quarter of a dispiriting 13-3 loss to the Browns, the Ravens authored their own special kind of masterclass in ineptitude, replete with all the markings of their wasted afternoon.
With nine-plus minutes left, the Ravens (9-5) faced fourth-and-4 in their own territory, a 10-point deficit and swirling Cleveland snow. They’d run all over the Browns for most of the afternoon, but they weren’t going to pass. They were barely going to get the ball snapped in time. The whole operation looked rushed — the hurried claps from quarterback Tyler Huntley, the pauses of uncertainty on offense as he scrambled to his right; the pass to wide receiver James Proche II, who landed out of bounds with the ball, another flop of a drive ending with a thud.
