CINCINNATI — An extremely frustrated JK Dobbins said he believes it would have been a different outcome if the Ravens had given him the ball — rather than quarterback Tyler Huntley — in a crucial fourth-quarter game near the goal line in Baltimore’s wildcard loss to the Cincinnati Bengals on Sunday night.
In the Ravens’ 24-17 loss to their AFC North rivals, Huntley made the most critical error of the game when he fumbled with the game tied at 17, lost the ball on a jump toward the end zone, and returned his turnover 98 yards for a Bengal defensive end Sam Hubbard touchdown. The Ravens were close to taking a touchdown lead and fell seven points behind with 11:39 points remaining.
“He should never have gotten into that situation,” Dobbins said. “I don’t get a single carry. I don’t get a single carry. He should never have gotten into that situation. I think I would have put it back in the end zone.”
The Ravens running back was upset that he was limited to 62 yards on 13 carries and didn’t get another touch in the red zone after fighting his way to a 2-yard touchdown in the second quarter. In that critical fourth-quarter streak, Baltimore ran three games inside the Bengals 3-yard line, and Dobbins never got the ball.
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“I’m a guy who feels like I should be on the field all the time,” Dobbins said. “It’s the playoffs. Why am I not out there?”
This isn’t the first time Dobbins has vented his desire for more possession. On Friday, he told reporters he wanted the game “on my back.” After Sunday’s game, Dobbins mentioned telling the coaches on the touchline that he wanted to be more involved.
“I should be the guy. I’m tired of holding that back,” said Dobbins, who had been averaging 6.9 yards per carry in four games since examining his knee. “I’m a playmaker. I’m a guy that my teammates feed off me when I’m on the field.”
Ravens coach John Harbaugh was asked if there were discussions about giving Dobbins the ball or running back Gus Edwards instead of going with the quarterback sneak.
“We felt like we had a good call; it was a push-sneak play. It wasn’t executed exactly right,” Harbaugh said. “Tyler overdid it. It’s a ‘cave’ game; he has to go deep. That’s how the game is designed. We felt like that was the best call; we just didn’t execute it right.”
Many of the Ravens players said they wouldn’t have thought about winning if their quarterback had been Lamar Jackson instead of Huntley, who also threw an interception on the opening drive. Jackson missed his sixth straight game with a sprained posterior cruciate ligament in his left knee.
Baltimore cornerback Marlon Humphrey estimates Jackson is 50 to 60 percent healthy.
“I just don’t think he was really healthy enough to actually go out there,” Humphrey said of Jackson. “There was a lot of speculation that he didn’t have the contract. I don’t even know if I should say this, but he likes to hobble around the facility. It’s such a crazy thing that people don’t see. Obviously we knew he wasn’t going to be out there with us but hopefully we sign him on a big deal and he’ll be a Raven with me forever.”
Dobbins also didn’t hold back on how much Jackson’s return would have impacted Sunday’s playoff game.
“If we had had Lamar, we would have won too,” Dobbins said.