Ravens win thriller over Cowboys in Rio, 34-31, on Loop's last-second kick

Brian Wacker, The Baltimore Sun on Sep 27, 2026

Published in Football

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RIO DE JANEIRO — Not this time.

With the game tied at 31 and only seven seconds remaining on Sunday afternoon at Maracanã Stadium, quarterback Lamar Jackson connected with Zay Flowers for a 27-yard gain, then called a timeout with one second left.

Tyler Loop then drilled a 56-yard field goal as time expired, lifting the Baltimore Ravens to a wildly entertaining 34-31 win over the Dallas Cowboys to avoid a 1-2 start in coach Jesse Minter’s debut season.

Thanks to Loop’s heroics, the Ravens could enjoy a happy 10-hour flight home after squandering another second-half lead.

Jackson completed 15 of 20 passes for 186 yards and two touchdowns; Derrick Henry had 89 rushing yards and two scores; and Flowers, playing for the first time since injuring his hamstring in Week 1, finished with five catches for 84 yards, none bigger than his reception with time winding down.

The victory prevented the Ravens from adding to a dubious total.

Since 2019, no team has blown more leads in the final 15 minutes than the Ravens. Fifteen times they led by 10-plus points and lost during that span, and 14 occasions they led by at least 7 points in the final 15 minutes only to lose.

Both are NFL highs.

For the first 30 minutes, the teams traded blows in a tightly contested affair.

The stats were nearly identical. The Ravens had 10 first downs, the Cowboys 11. The Ravens were 1 of 4 on third down, the Cowboys 2 of 6. Baltimore had 149 yards, Dallas 142.

The Cowboys made things look easy early, marching 66 yards on their first 10 plays before finally facing a third down. A yard from paydirt, though, linebacker Roquan Smith raced up the middle and sacked Dallas quarterback Dak Prescott, forcing a 28-yard field goal.

It took the Ravens a while to get going.

A week after Henry got just five carries, he had touches on five of Baltimore’s first seven plays, including four of them on the ground. He managed just six yards rushing.

Then, with the Ravens facing a fourth-and-1 from their own 30 midway through the opening quarter, offensive coordinator Declan Doyle didn’t opt for a deep shot as he had in a similar situation on third down a week ago. Instead, he handed the ball to Henry, but the future Hall of Famer was stonewalled, giving the Cowboys the ball in prime real estate.

A 15-yard facemask penalty on Ravens linebacker Trenton Simpson only moved the ball closer, and it took just a handful of plays for Williams to put the Cowboys up 10-0 in under five minutes.

With things potentially teetering toward desperation, the offense finally got rolling thanks to its two most explosive players.

Jackson ripped off a 22-yard run. Two plays later, Flowers hauled in his first catch of the game and the balky hamstring that had sidelined him since late in the second quarter of Week 1 looked just fine. He raced for 22 yards, and three plays after that Henry plunged in on a direct snap for a 4-yard touchdown to cut the deficit to 10-7.

The Cowboys’ first punt of the game didn’t come until the start of the second quarter following a pretty pass breakup by Hamilton on third down, and the Ravens’ offense — or at least its play calling — stirred to life.

Jackson sent a deep pass to Flowers, but the receiver was taken down by cornerback DeRon Bland, and the pass-interference penalty gave Baltimore 19 free yards.

Seven plays later, it was Tez Walker’s turn.

On a third-and-11 from his own 48, Jackson chucked deep for the speedy third-year receiver. Safety Marquese Bell — one of two defenders back on the play — was flagged for pass interference to give Baltimore the ball at the 3. Henry finished it off on the right side to give the Ravens their first lead, 14-10.

Then, after each team had stopped the other on a fourth-and-1 through roughly the first quarter-and-a-half, the Ravens took over at the 48 of the Cowboys.

They methodically marched to the 9 before the drive stalled. Loop tacked on a 27-yard field goal to extend the lead to 17-10 with 4:44 left in the second.

But with under 90 seconds remaining in the half, the Cowboys responded, covering 45 yards in 11 plays, including a critical third-and-8 conversion from the Ravens’ 47 on a pass to CeeDee Lamb just after veteran cornerback Chidobe Awuzie entered the game for the first time. That set up a 38-yard field goal to chip away further, leaving the deficit at just four points.

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