Credit: Michael Dwyer/AP

FOXBOROUGH – It’s not hyperbole to call the Patriots’ 37-26 home opening loss to the Ravens on Sunday afternoon one of the worst losses in recent memory.

This was primed to be one of those special sports weekends in New England, with Vince Wilfork being inducted into the team Hall of Fame to kick the festivities off.

The Patriots got the offensive performance fans had been desperately clamoring for, but also turned the ball over four times at the most inopportune times, gave up 447 yards of offense and to make matters worse, may have lost Mac Jones to a leg injury late in the game.

“All right. I mean, we all saw it here. We certainly had our chances today. We weren’t able to take advantage of some of them. The Ravens made more plays than we did,” said Bill Belichick. “They’re a good team. They were able to take advantage of our mistakes. We weren’t able to capitalize on I would say probably as many of theirs, so. All the way across the board, just a few plays here and there that we need to play better, need to coach better, need to do better. But, you know, certainly made too many mistakes today to be able to win.”

The game turned on a wild sequence in the fourth quarter.

Trailing 31-26 after scoring a touchdown on a one yard run by Rhamondre Stevenson, Jonathan Jones stripped Rashod Bateman one play later, with Jabrill Peppers recovering the fumble at the Baltimore 39. A 15 yard scramble by Jones eventually set up first-and-goal, but Jones was intercepted by Marlon Humphrey in the end zone.

“Just some miscommunication,” said DeVante Parker (5 catches, 156 yards), who was the intended receiver on the play.

The Patriots’ defense forced a punt and the offense took over at its own 29 with 6:36 to go. Three plays later, Nelson Agholor had a huge catch and run for 30 yards into Baltimore territory, but he was stripped from behind and the Ravens recovered.

“It’s tough for me to see fundamental things like ball security be a big factor,” said Agholor. “They’re a good team…but ball security was a big factor and my part in it on that ball security at the end.”

Seven plays after that, Lamar Jackson made it 37-26 with a nine yard TD run on third down. Justin Tucker had a rare miss on the PAT, but Marcus Peters iced the game on the next drive with a pick. Adding injury to insult, Calais Campbell fell on Jones’ leg and the young QB writhed in pain briefly before hopping off the field without putting any weight on it.

This one was a roller coaster of emotions for the sellout crowd on hand all afternoon.

After trading punts to open the game, Baltimore embarked on a 10-play drive that ended with Marc Andrews taking a five yard shovel pass into the end zone for a TD to make it 7-0. New England responded with a seven play drive, but had to settle for a 35 yard Nick Folk field goal early in the second to cut the deficit to 7-3. The field goal was Folk’s 57th straight inside 50 yards, setting an NFL record.

The defense hounded Jackson (11 carries, 107 yards, 218 yards passing, 4 TD) quite a bit on Sunday – with Deatrich Wise earning three sacks – and forced a punt on the next drive. New England oddly ran the ball on third-and-nine then turned it over on downs on fourth-and-three the ensuing possession, but quickly got the ball back a few snaps later on a Jonathan Jones interception.

With the offense set up at the Baltimore 32, Mac Jones made sure the turnover hurt soon after, scampering in from three yards out for his first career rushing touchdown with 5:58 left in the half, putting New England up 10-7.

Jackson and the Ravens responded with a nine play drive spanning 75 yards and 5:58, ending with Jackson throwing a ball up off his back foot at the 16 yard line backyard football style. Andrews went up and came down with it in the back of the end zone, out-leaping Devin McCourty to put the Ravens back up 14-10 with 30 seconds to go.

Jones led a fantastic five-play, 43 yard drive in the waining moments of the half, setting up Folk for a 50 yard field goal as time expired to make it a one point game at 14-13 while also setting up the old double score possibility to end and start the half.

In what was arguably the best drive of the season aside from the close out drive in Pittsburgh, New England opened the second half with a seven-play, 75 yard march. DeVante Parker made three catches, including one where he had to fight through a holding call on a 36 yard dime down the left sideline from Jones. Damien Harris punched in a two yard run to end it and put the Patriots back in front 20-14 less than three minutes in.

The back-and-forth affair continued as Jackson and the Ravens put together another 75 yard drive and capped it with a one yard TD catch for Josh Oliver, going back up 21-20. The Patriots were quickly forced to punt and Devin Duvernay ripped off a 43 yard return to set up Jackson and the Ravens’ offense at the Patriots’ 44. Four plays later – including a 38 yard Jackson run – the talented wide receiver made an acrobatic four yard TD catch in the back of the end zone to push the lead to 28-20.

Jones was picked off by Josh Bynes two plays later and Tucker absolutely drilled a 56 yard field goal to increase the lead to 31-20. The kick was Tucker’s 50th make of 50-plus yards in his career.

Facing fourth-and-one deep in Ravens territory on the ensuing drive, Mac made a broken play work and found Jonnu Smith for an eight yard gain and the conversion. Two plays later, Stevenson punched it in. New England went for two, with Mac hitting Stevenson on a quick screen pass. Stevenson tried to flip the ball to Jones as he was being dragged down and seemed to get it off, allowing Jones to cross the goal line, but it was reviewed and determined Stevenson was down, leaving the score at 31-26 with 13:39 remaining and setting up the frantic finish.

“When you play against a team like this, an offense like this, we battled, we had some really good possessions, we had some good I would say back-to-back drives where we were able to get off the field. We had good moments. But against a team like this, an offense like that, it’s 60 minutes consistently of trying to show up, doing a good job with some of the sudden change opportunities we had,” said Devin McCourty.

“One of the things we’ll walk away with is just playing better in the red area.”