With seven seconds left and the game tied at 31, the Ravens did not settle for overtime. Lamar Jackson dropped back and fired a 27-yard pass to Zay Flowers, and the play put Tyler Loop in range for a 56-yard field goal as time expired.
Loop converted it. Baltimore left Week 3 with a last-second win over the Dallas Cowboys in Brazil, and the final sequence was as sharp as the margin was thin.
Jackson said he never doubted the rookie kicker.
“I had no doubt in my mind [Loop was making it],” Jackson said.
The trust was not built on one kick alone. Loop is now 2-for-2 from 50-plus yards in 2026, and the finish against Dallas added to a season that already looks different from his 2025 line, when he went 30-for-34 but missed three attempts from beyond 50 yards. The 56-yarder at the buzzer was the kind of kick that can change how a team uses its kicker in the biggest moments.
It also came after a sequence that showed Baltimore was willing to attack instead of play for the clock. Jackson’s throw to Flowers gained 27 yards and, with the timeout that followed, gave the Ravens a clean chance to win it with the leg of Loop.
But the celebration did not erase what happened on the other side of the ball.
Kyle Hamilton did not soften his assessment of the defense after the game.
“Unacceptable,” Hamilton said of the unit’s performance.
He added that the Ravens should not need the offense to score 30 points to win, a blunt summary of how the defense viewed its own night after the Cowboys kept pushing until the end. Head coach Jesse Minter said he wanted more defensive stops, though he also acknowledged Baltimore did enough to win.
The final two Dallas drives were part of the problem. The Ravens missed tackles late, and the defense’s struggles were obvious enough that the win felt like two separate stories at once: a clean, decisive finish from Jackson and Loop, and a unit still searching for answers.
Nnamdi Madubuike, back in the lineup for the first time since Week 2 of last season after a serious neck injury, said the tape would have to tell the rest.
“We could have done better, so we are going to check the tape and get better from it,” Madubuike said.
The personnel concerns did not stop there. The Ravens have now had three centers go down with injuries this season, and two centers left the Cowboys game hurt. That forced another layer of adjustment in a game already defined by late pressure and narrow margins.
Baltimore had signed Ethan Pocic on July 23 as veteran insurance, and he brought 97 career starts with him, but the injuries still pushed the Ravens deeper into their contingency plans. K’Von Wallace was also elevated from the practice squad and appeared on the 53-man roster for the first time this season.
So the Ravens walked out of Brazil with the kind of finish teams remember: a last-second pass, a trusted kicker, and a win sealed at the horn. They also walked out with a defense that called its own performance unacceptable and an interior line situation that has already become a real problem.