CLEVELAND — The stench of defeat to a previously one-win football team playing with a backup quarterback and what had been a largely listless offense lingered in the Ravens’ locker room at Huntington Bank Field late Sunday afternoon.

Less than 20 minutes after the conclusion, Baltimore’s All-Pro linebacker and pregame motivational speaker Roquan Smith along with All-Pro safety Kyle Hamilton had exited stage left, preferring not to stick around to dissect it before reporters arrived.

Perhaps they were already in search of a cure for the ills that continue to plague a defense that a season ago was historically great, but through eight games this year has been anything but.

The Ravens had roared into their AFC North showdown against the floundering and wounded Browns on the high of a five-game winning streak and the strength of the NFL’s best offense. Even with a consistently porous defense, Baltimore had largely been able to overcome that shortcoming. But against Cleveland, the Ravens limped out of Ohio frustrated over the same inability to make a big stop, haunted by mistakes and missed opportunities and looking nothing like the Super Bowl contender they seemed shaping up to be.

One step forward, two steps back.

Baltimore’s defense, already the worst in the NFL against the pass coming in and without starting cornerbacks Marlon Humphrey (knee) and Nate Wiggins (shoulder/illness), couldn’t stop Cleveland quarterback Jameis Winston, who was making his first start since 2022 in place of injured Deshaun Watson. Winston completed 27 of 41 passes for 334 yards and three touchdowns, including a 38-yarder to a wide-open Cedric Tillman with 59 seconds remaining in the fourth quarter to lift the Browns to a shocking 29-24 upset.

“It felt amazing,” Winston said.

On the other side, there was only vexation.

“We pride ourselves on defense,” defensive tackle Nnamdi Madubuike said, shaking his head in repugnance. “This is a game we shoulda won and we didn’t, so it’s frustrating.”

Particularly when there were so many chances to bury the Browns (2-6) long before the end of the game.

Baltimore safety Eddie Jackson dropped at least two would-be interceptions. Hamilton dropped another on the Browns’ final possession before Winston and Tillman connected on the next play. And safety Marcus Williams, a starter who has struggled through the first seven games of the season, didn’t contribute at all, benched over what coach John Harbaugh called a “personnel decision.”

“Left a lot of opportunities out there,” said Jackson, whom Tillman beat for the game-winner against a cover-zero blitz that never got close to disrupting the play. “Just not making those plays when they come to us. Simple as that. We just got to make them. It’s no big theory behind it. We’re just in a funk right now. A lot of those is big, game-changing plays.”

Added Madubuike: “Those are things — we’re supposed to pick a ball off, we’re supposed to get the ball from them, and we didn’t do those things. What can you do? Go to practice, get on the JUGS machine; even myself, I need to get better. We all need to get better.”

Still, the Ravens (5-3) and quarterback Lamar Jackson had a chance till the end.

The early favorite for the NFL Most Valuable Player Award, Jackson drove Baltimore to the Browns’ 24-yard line in the game’s waning seconds before his final heave into the end zone fell incomplete.

He finished 23 of 38 passing for 289 yards with two touchdowns while running eight times for 46 yards and led a six-play, 91-yard scoring drive that ended with a 2-yard touchdown run by Derrick Henry with 2:36 remaining to momentarily give the Ravens the lead. But it wasn’t enough to overcome his own defense’s woes.

Jackson wasn’t nearly as sharp as usual, posting a season-worst completion rate of 60.5% and taking a season-high three sacks.

Baltimore was also just 2-for-10 on third down and 0-for-2 on fourth down, including on a fourth-and-1 from the Browns’ 7-yard line on the game’s opening series when Henry curiously took a direct snap in a Wildcat formation and was stuffed for a 3-yard loss.

“We just didn’t do a good enough job with it,” Harbaugh said of the play. “As a call, you look back, you wish you hadn’t called that. You wish it would’ve been better as a play. But that’s football.”

It was a tone-setter, too.

The Ravens managed 149 yards, including only 84 passing, in the first half. Their vaunted running attack also never got going, as Henry finished with 73 yards and a touchdown on 11 carries. And even kicker Justin Tucker, who righted his season after missing several long kicks early in the year, came up left and short on a 50-yard attempt that would’ve tied the game at 20 early in the fourth quarter. Rashod Bateman lost a deep pass in the sun and dropped it on third-and-14, also in the fourth.

“Every loss is frustrating,” Lamar Jackson said. “We’ve just gotta play better.”

Especially on defense.

The Browns rolled up 401 total yards on Baltimore, the majority coming in the second half with a patchwork secondary that included cornerback Jalyn Armour-Davis, who only this week returned from injured reserve, and safety Ar’Darius Washington, who started in place of Williams. The Ravens also couldn’t stop them on third down, allowing the Browns to convert 8 of 15, including 5 of 8 in the second half.

And unlike six days earlier in Tampa, Florida, where a pair of interceptions by Humphrey helped turn the tide of that eventual blowout, Baltimore’s defenders simply and inexplicably couldn’t hold onto the ball no matter how many chances they got.

“We just gotta execute,” cornerback Brandon Stephens said. “We gotta make plays on the ball and just get off the field. It’s gonna take want-to and will to want-to in the game. We pride ourselves on finishing, and we haven’t done that.”

For the third time this season, they paid for it.

Have a news tip? Contact Brian Wacker at bwacker@baltsun.com, 410-332-6200 and x.com/brianwacker1.