On the play that mattered most Sunday afternoon in Cleveland, the Ravens sent everyone. Yet Browns quarterback Jameis Winston might as well have been playing catch in his backyard.

The zero blitz sent seven rushers at Winston, the journeyman quarterback who was starting just his 11th game in his last four seasons. No one so much as got a hand in his face.

The closest defender, Odafe Oweh, didn’t touch Winston until the ball was well out of his hands on its way to Cedric Tillman for the deciding touchdown in a loss that, quite simply, should not have happened.

It’s gotten frustratingly familiar for the Ravens (5-3), who brought back most of the relevant cast from last year’s elite defense but have gotten carved up by almost every passer they’ve played this season.

There’s no fear factor to this defense — a problem that is rooted, I believe, in a pass rush that can’t get home even when the Ravens are sending the house.

Playing against Baltimore’s defense used to mean three hours of grueling, physical football that left quarterbacks feeling they’d been fighting a cage match. Going against Winston — an upgrade over Deshaun Watson, which isn’t saying much — the Ravens looked like the ones who needed an ice bath.

“Unwavering faith,” Winston said of the Browns’ hopes to break their five-game losing streak before his performance against the Ravens. “Ultimate belief.”

The Ravens couldn’t shake his confidence, which is what happens when you sack a quarterback only twice and drop no fewer than four intercept-able passes. Aside from one great sack-fumble forced by Kyle Hamilton, no one punished the Browns for their mistakes. Literally one snap after Winston almost gave away the game on an errant pass to Hamilton, he had no problem collecting himself for the game-winning play.

It’s a problem that has to be considered from every level: performance, coaching and personnel. But that last part is where general manager Eric DeCosta can make an impact before the Nov. 5 trade deadline with plenty of resources at his disposal. This team has the upside of one that can make the Super Bowl, but with an eight-game sample, the Ravens have to assume this defense will continue to underperform unless they shake things up.

Aside from a few standouts, the front line just hasn’t had much juice.

Kyle Van Noy’s seven sacks are an anomaly. Oweh’s 4.5 sacks are decent, but once again, he doesn’t finish as often as he wins at the line of scrimmage. From there, the sack production falls way, way off.

After racking up 13 last season, Nnamdi Madubuike (who signed a $98 million offseason contract) has two sacks. The only other defender with two or more sacks is Hamilton. Tavius Robinson and Yannick Ngakoue have had moments but aren’t players you bet on for every-down success. The hope for David Ojabo to deliver on his long-awaited potential is fading — he was inactive for Sunday’s game.

Let’s also not sidestep the losses of Jadeveon Clowney (9.5 sacks) and linebacker Patrick Queen (3.5), who had a knack for the big play last season.

If the players along the defensive front are the teeth of the Ravens’ defense, they need more bite. The Ravens had just an 18.6% pressure rate against the Browns, which is lower than their season-long 28.4% pressure rate — already in the bottom third of the NFL (last year, they were seventh). On average, opposing passers have 3.10 seconds to throw, according to TruMedia, which is the third-worst mark in the league (last year, it was 2.86 seconds, eighth best).

The regression of the passing defense can be traced to the lack of pressure. The defensive backs failed in their own way Sunday, but against the Browns especially — and down Marlon Humphrey and Nate Wiggins — they simply had to cover for too long. Winston looked extremely comfortable running play action and scanning for holes in the defense.

It feels like a long time since we’ve watched the Ravens’ front knock any opposing passer out of his rhythm — even if the team sack totals don’t seem totally off. Baltimore knows it is coming up short.

“It’s frustrating,” Madubuike said. “It’s just point-blank frustrating.”

Some of that might require more creative blitzing than new defensive coordinator Zach Orr has shown. An All-Pro as a player, Orr understands the standard this defense has failed to reach. On one of a few risks the Ravens took Sunday, Hamilton squeezed a sack-fumble out of it — frankly, this defense needs to be more exotic if the fundamentals are this shaky.

Former coordinator Mike Macdonald also excelled at confusing opposing quarterbacks, which helped buy the split seconds needed to wrap them up behind the line.

But the other end of this equation is getting more talent. The other teams in the AFC have focused on receivers — and, yeah, this game showcased some disappointing drops from that position group, too. But, if the Ravens want to make the most impact, pass rusher seems to be the position where an upgrade is most needed.

The Banner’s Jonas Shaffer went through the candidates who might be on the trading block. The most obvious plug-and-play candidate would be Clowney, who is wasting his talents in Carolina. New England’s Joshua Uche, a player who had a great 2022 and is on a cheap deal, could be another. Maxx Crosby is a pipe dream in the wake of Raiders owner Mark Davis vowing not to trade him, but could his teammate Adam Butler be had?

It’s on DeCosta to find out. It doesn’t feel like the current group is bound for a sudden turnaround.

The offense has been generally so good, the Ravens owe it to Lamar Jackson, Derrick Henry and the rest of the group to shake the tree branches for defensive help, on the front line or otherwise. After the Ravens went to the AFC championship game last year, the conference feels weak enough — especially given how beat-up Kansas City is — for them to break through. It’s also a good year to package picks because Baltimore is projected to have as many as four compensatory picks in 2025 for all the free agents it lost last offseason.

Jackson may never play better than this. Henry isn’t getting any younger. Hamilton will soon be getting very expensive. The time to mortgage at least some of the future is now, prying open the 2024 championship window as wide as possible.

Someway, somehow, the Ravens need to change this defense, which has to worry each week that a new quarterback will shred it to pieces.

It needs to get the fear factor back on its side.

Jonas Shaffer contributed to this story.