CLEVELAND — After his last Hail Mary went unanswered, Lamar Jackson took off his helmet and spiked it. The game was over, the Ravens’ comeback bid thwarted, and so their star quarterback, processing a loss for the first time since mid-September, sought catharsis within his limited means.

Considering Jackson’s heroics over the past month, it certainly seemed plausible, maybe even reasonable, to expect his helmet to rip a hole in the space-time continuum and take the Ravens to an alternate reality, one where they were beating the Cleveland Browns, or at least not out of time in a stunning 29-24 loss.

But Jackson is no superhero. His helmet spiraled harmlessly on the Huntington Bank Field grass before coming to a stop near the Ravens’ sideline. The Browns celebrated. Jackson fumed. He hadn’t been perfect, but he shouldn’t have needed to be, not against a team almost no one expected to win.

Every week, Jackson’s burden is immense. On Sunday, it was too much.

“Every loss is frustrating,” said Jackson, who finished 23-for-38 for 289 yards and two touchdowns and added eight runs for 46 yards. “We’ve been doing so good on the offensive side of the ball, the defensive side of the ball. We’ve just been putting points on the board, keeping teams out of the end zone. We just have to play better.”

Jackson, ever the diplomat, was half-right. Yes, the Ravens (5-3) had been putting points on the board, had been doing so well on the offensive side of the ball. Over their five-game winning streak entering Week 8, no team had averaged more yards per game (479) or more yards per play (7.7). Only one team had averaged more points per game (35).

But no, the Ravens hadn’t kept teams out of the end zone, and they couldn’t Sunday. They hadn’t been doing so well on the defensive side of the ball, either, and they didn’t Sunday. Against perhaps the NFL’s worst offense — No. 32 in efficiency, according to FTN, and No. 32 in yards per game (253.9), with error-prone quarterback Jameis Winston making his first start since 2022 — the Ravens’ defense played as if Jackson and the offense could win them another game on the All-Madden difficulty level.

Not long ago, that challenge seemed manageable, if not downright easy. Then Browns franchise albatross Deshaun Watson suffered a season-ending Achilles tendon injury in Week 7. Watson hadn’t passed for more than 196 yards in a game this season, hadn’t passed for more than two touchdowns in a game this season.

In his place, the Ravens got the mercurial Winston, who went 27-for-41 for 334 yards and three touchdowns, his last strike a go-ahead, last-minute 38-yard score to wide receiver Cedric Tillman. Defensive coordinator Zach Orr’s unit again lived down to its reputation as an offensive incubator, as Cleveland (2-6) easily finished with season highs in points, total yards (401) and yards per play (6.1)

Injuries were a factor — starting cornerbacks Marlon Humphrey (knee) and Nate Wiggins (shoulder/illness) were inactive, and reserve defensive linemen Brent Urban (concussion) and Michael Pierce (calf) were knocked out in the first half — but competence was the real culprit. The Ravens’ pass rush seldom bothered Winston. A communication breakdown led to Tillman’s first touchdown, a 22-yarder on third-and-5 late in the third quarter. Big plays waylaid the Ravens again and again, with five gains of 20-plus yards given up.

And there were drops, so many drops. Safety Eddie Jackson was in coverage for two of Winston’s touchdowns and let two would-be interceptions slip through his hands. Safety Kyle Hamilton, by far the defense’s most impactful player, dropped a gift-wrapped interception on the play before Winston’s go-ahead dagger in the fourth quarter.

“We’re just not making those plays when they come to us,” Eddie Jackson said. “It’s just [as] simple as that. We just have to make them. There’s no big theory behind it. We’re just in a funk right now that we have to get out of, because a lot of those are big, game-changing plays, if we make those.”

Lamar Jackson and the offense had been the Ravens’ deodorant this season, covering up the defense’s funk almost every week, even freshening up the occasional special teams stench. But every unit’s execution was foul for stretches Sunday.

On offense, Jackson had a 22-yard scramble in the second quarter wiped out by a questionable holding penalty on center Tyler Linderbaum; the Ravens punted three plays later. In the fourth quarter, with the Ravens trailing 20-17, left tackle Ronnie Stanley was flagged for a false start on second-and-3 at Cleveland’s 27. Three plays later, kicker Justin Tucker missed a 50-yard field goal attempt.

Jackson rarely found the peace of mind or rhythm he’d enjoyed over the Ravens’ dominant stretch. He missed wide receiver Zay Flowers (seven catches for 115 yards) on a would-be touchdown pass. He watched wide receiver Rashod Bateman drop two passes, including a high-arcing deep shot in the fourth quarter that Bateman blamed partly on the glare of the sun. The quarterback was under near-constant duress from the Browns’ pass rush (three sacks), which offensive coordinator Todd Monken rarely tried to temper with a screen pass.

Even running back Derrick Henry, who averaged 6.6 yards per carry, got only 11 rush attempts. Just one came on a late-down touch, and that was a red-zone Wildcat run on fourth-and-1 that the Browns stopped easily to end the Ravens’ first possession.

“I just don’t think we followed the script,” Bateman said. “First and foremost, I don’t think we executed at the highest level. We played behind the chains a lot, and we can’t do that. We’ve just got to continue to make plays — somehow, someway — and [be] consistent going down the field.”

Special teams were a problem, too. Tucker’s missed kick loomed large in the fourth quarter, as they tend to do. The Ravens had two kickoff returns pushed back by penalties. And, after Jackson led the Ravens on a six-play, 91-yard, go-ahead touchdown drive late in the fourth quarter, Cleveland started its final drive at its 31 after Tucker’s attempt at a short kickoff backfired, landing at the 13-yard line instead of near the goal line.

“You always want to do enough to win the game,” said coach John Harbaugh, who’s lost consecutive games to the Browns for the first time during his Ravens tenure. “We weren’t able to do that in this game. We’ll definitely break it all down. We’ll break every aspect of it down. When we sit there and watch the film, everybody will look at everything that they can do better and everything we did, and we’ll try to continue to keep improving.”

Some of it — the drops, the penalties — might be fixable. Other parts — the offensive line inconsistencies, the lackluster pass rush, the performance level that got safety Marcus Williams benched — maybe not so much.

As long as the Ravens have Jackson, they will have a chance. That is their saving grace. But sometimes he needs saving, too. Sunday’s loss laid bare that truth in excruciating detail: If it can happen against Cleveland, it can happen against anyone.

“This is a game we should have won, and we didn’t, so it’s very frustrating,” defensive lineman Nnamdi Madubuike said. “And I know a lot of guys feel the same way I feel. But we have an opponent coming into our house [in Week 9, the Denver Broncos], and that’s the next thing we’re going to focus on.”