BSJ Game Report: Ravens 37, Patriots 26 - Mac Jones hurt, New England misses chances

Everything you need to know from the Patriots’ loss to the Ravens in quickie form, with BSJ insight and analysis:

BOX SCORE

HEADLINES

Mac Jones leaves with apparently bad injury: After throwing his final interception, Mac Jones' left ankle was turned under the weight of mammoth DT Calais Campbell and Jones immediately grabbed for it in pain, hopped off the field without putting weight on it, and was carried down the stairs while screaming in pain.

BSJ medical analyst Dr. Jessica Flynn said the injury appeared to her to be "at best, a high-ankle sprain; at worst, a fracture." The fear is fractures to both the tibia and fibula would be the very worst scenario.

UPDATE: NFL Network is saying the x-rays were negative, which would lean it into the high ankle sprain category. Patriots have played three games, and Jones has needed x-rays after two of them.

"Mac Jones will not be able to play effectively next week. Glad X-rays ok, still think it’s a significant high ankle," Dr. Flynn said.

Patriots blow golden opportunity: Despite playing far from a perfect game, the Patriots had the ball down by one score on three-straight drives and turned it over three straight times. Down 8 points late in the third, Mac Jones threw a bad interception — on what appeared to be the team's first wide-zone bootaction — and the Ravens turned that into an 11-point lead.

The Patriots answered back to cut it to a 5-point game early in the fourth quarter and Jonathan Jones forced a fumble to give New England the ball at the Baltimore 39-yard line, and the Patriot drove into the red zone. But Jones threw his second interception — and didn't appear to be happy with DeVante Parker's effort to get on top of the cornerback.

Still, the defense got the ball back for New England and Nelson Agholor was treating into Ravens territory when he coughed up the ball. The Ravens scored three minutes later, and that was the game.

"I mean, we all saw it here," Bill Belichick said. "We certainly had our chances today. We weren't able to take advantage of some of them. The Ravens made more plays than we did. They're a good team. They were able to take advantage of our mistakes. We weren't able to capitalize on I would say probably as many of theirs, so. All the way across the board, just a few plays here and there that we need to play better, need to coach better, need to do better. But, you know, certainly made too many mistakes today to be able to win."

Defense limits Lamar Jackson ... kind of: The Patriots definitely made their fair share of plays against Jackson and the Ravens defense, but the QB led the charge for points on four-straight drives to take control of the game. Jackson accounted for five touchdowns (four passing, one rushing), posted a passer rating of 110.3 and ran for a game-high 107 yards on 11 carries. The Ravens scored on all 5 of their red zone possessions.

"Yeah, I mean, that's the thing when playing against him," said Devin McCourty. "Stat-wise, overall, can look like you did some good things, but he changes games with a couple different plays. Some of those QB run plays at the end of the game were huge for them, changing the field, big gains. That's the thing, when you play against a team like this, an offense like this, we battled, we had some really good possessions, we had some good I would say back-to-back drives where we were able to get off the field. We had good moments. But against a team like this, an offense like that, it's 60 minutes consistently of trying to show up, doing a good job with some of the sudden change opportunities we had. One of the things we'll walk away with is just playing better in the red area."

SECOND GUESS

Patriots called a timeout with 10 minutes left in the second quarter trailing 7-3 at the Baltimore 39-yard line before a 3rd and 9 play. After that, the Patriots ran a draw to Damien Harris for 6 yards, and on fourth down, Matt Patricia seemed to dial up a specific play in the late that went for zero yards. 

FOUR UP

Deatrich Wise: Had three sacks and another tackle for a loss. Continued a terrific start to this season.

DeVante Parker: Patriots exploited a mismatch against second-year CB Brandon Stephens to the tune of 5 catches for 156 yards. 

Rhamondre Stevenson: Averaged 6.1 yards per carry and you wonder why he didn't get it more, especially in the red zone.

Jonathan Jones: Had an interception and a forced fumble and played terrific coverage again.

THREE DOWN

Mac Jones: Made plays down the field and with his feet, put more points on the board, pulled a fourth-down play out of his rear end, but he still had three INTs (two, really) and five for the season to make the Patriots a minus-4 on the year. That can't continue. Have to take care of the ball.

Mack Wilson: He had his moments, but thought he was poor against the pass and run for much of the game.

Isaiah Wynn: Appeared to have another rough game, and had two penalties.

TOP PLAYS

INJURIES

QB Mac Jones (left ankle): Did not return and is expected to miss at least a game.

CB Jalen Mills (hamstring): Did not return.

DT Lawrence Guy (shoulder): Was ruled out.

TWO TAKES BEDARD WILL PROBABLY REGRET LATER

The season comes down to the Lions game: The Packers and Aaron Rodgers suffer letdowns more than most teams, so a Patriots road upset can't be ruled out, but it's going to be tough to avoid a 1-3, which is how it appeared when the season began. The Patriots still have seven winnable game after that. But the next home game against the Lions, is probably the most important game of the season. Being 2-3 is a lot different than 1-4 and could set the stage for a nice little winning streak — how does 8-3 sound? But Detroit is spunky this season and that will be a physical battle now.

Don't get fooled by Parker, offense in this game: The Ravens are not good on defense under first-time coordinator Mike MacDonald and with a host of injuries. The Parker breakout game was a little bit of an exploited mismatch against young CB Brandon Stephens. Marlon Humphrey and Marcus Peters only allowed 3 catches for 41 yards. And when the Ravens switched Humphrey on Parker, he shut him down and picked off a pass. And the Ravens are also soft on the ground. This might be as good as it gets, and it wasn't good enough.