Zay Flowers Vows to Learn From Successes, Shortcomings in Ravens' AFC Championship Loss
Zay Flowers was so excited to make a big play in the AFC Championship Game, that he wanted to tell everybody.
Alas for the Baltimore Ravens' championship chances, that included Kansas City Chiefs defender L'Jarius Sneed.
Flowers is the headliner of Baltimore's latest semifinal appearance for better and worse, as he was more or less responsible for the final margin: the rookie receiver was the only Raven to visit the end zone in Sunday's postseason thriller but his major mistakes put Charm City on the wrong end of a 17-10 defeat.
“It’s fun winning,” Flowers said after the game, per Barry Svrluga of the Washington Post. “When you get to the playoffs, you want to win. But sometimes the best team doesn’t always win.”
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Partaking in his second postseason experience, Flowers earned 115 yards on five receptions. Most of it came on a 54-yard reception in the final minute of the third quarter, one destined to serve as the turning point in a Baltimore postseason triumph that punched a ticket to the Super Bowl.
The momentum was gone as quickly as it game: Flowers pushed his tackler Sneed off of him and threw the ball down toward him, drawing the ire of officials. Fifteen yards were trimmed from Flowers' crucial catch, but Baltimore nonetheless seemed to be set up handsomely at the Kansas City 25.
The penalty didn't stop Lamar Jackson from targeting flowers, as he made up most of his penalty yardage with a 14-yard reception two plays later. But a chance at full redemption only yielded further agony: on the opening play of the final period, a would-be touchdown was knocked from Flowers' hands before he broke the plane of the goal line. The Chiefs' subsequent recovery set the tone for the de facto funeral march of the Ravens' otherwise magical season.
Flowers was far from the only Raven to make careless errors on Sunday though his undoubtedly stood out on the cursed ledgers. Adding literal injury to insult, he appeared to have injured his finger while venting frustration for his untimely turnover, one that required medical dressing for further participation.
"I had a cut already. It just opened up again,” Flowers said of that ailment, per Charean Williams of NBC Sports. "I thought I (scored), honestly, but I’ll learn from my mistakes.”
Thus ends an otherwise blooming season for Flowers, the Ravens' most recent first-round pick who finished among debuting receivers in yardage (858). Flowers opened the Ravens' meager scoring with a 30-yard touchdown from Jackson on the second offensive drive.
It's clear that Flowers is meant to play a sizable role in the Ravens' future, evidenced by the continued and immediate faith in his abilities after his egregious errors. That hardly played into teammates' decision to stand with Flowers after the game ended, as the postgame aftermath placed him in the lens of a human being and a companion rather than a metaphorical puzzle piece.
"We all make mistakes," Jackson noted, per Sam Cohn of the Baltimore Sun. "It’s his first season. It’s my first time in this situation. It’s his first time in this situation. We going to bounce back. Nobody played the game perfect.”
The greatest source of inspiration perhaps came from Odell Beckham Jr., who didn't let his own shortcomings (22 yards on six targets) prevent him from lending a mental hand. One of the game's enduring emotional images of Sunday's game saw Beckham embracing a tearful Flowers on the sideline and he was more than ready to defend his teammate's honor and Baltimore place during his own parting words.
“(I was) just letting Zay know he’s going to be a special player," Beckham said in Cohn's report. "This is a moment in your career that’s never going to break you. It’s always going to make you. (I was) just being able to be there for him however I can. I feel the same way they do. I wanted to win."
"I was just sharing that, you know, it’s going to be all right. It’s just unfortunate the way it ended.”
