With everything happening on the field, the sideline, in his headset, John Harbaugh has plenty to take in while the game is going on.

But, in the fourth quarter against the Patriots, the Ravens might have won a needed game if Harbaugh had taken a second to listen to the folks in the crowd wondering aloud one big question.

Where is Derrick Henry?

It’s a weekly challenge that eludes the Ravens coaching staff in the biggest moments of close games. As much as any person, Harbaugh has to answer for why Baltimore’s future Hall of Famer winds up missing in the team’s game plan at the most critical times.

In the wake of a 28-24 loss to New England, in which the Ravens had three runs in their final eight plays (none of which went to Henry), Harbaugh backpedaled when he was asked (again) if Henry had been used enough in a game his team could have won. He cited the two-back rotation of Henry and Keaton Mitchell that has been ongoing for weeks as the reason Henry never saw the field on the final two drives.

Then he pretty much invalidated that explanation with two closing sentences: “Game-winning drive, do I want Derrick Henry on the field? Sure, I want him on the field.”

So why don’t you put him in, Coach? Isn’t that, like, your call?

That question will haunt the team for years after this bitterly disappointing season. Between Harbaugh and offensive coordinator Todd Monken, the Ravens have squanderd a season of the best running back ever to play for this franchise.

Henry has 1,253 yards on the ground this season, averaging 5 yards per carry with 12 touchdowns. In an injury-riddled season for Lamar Jackson, you can make a convincing case that Henry has been the offense’s best performer.

Yet, on key third-and-shorts and goal-line possessions, Henry has far too often not been on the field. He was conspiciously absent in goal-line packages against the Rams. He got just 10 carries on a forgettable Thanksgiving night. When the passing game has struggled, it almost seems as though the coaching staff has to be coerced to lean on the run.

On Sunday night — with nothing less than the season on the line and the starting quarterback lost with a back injury — Henry disappeared for the final two drives. His last appearance on the play-by-play was a 2-yard scamper for a touchdown with 12:53 left, putting the Ravens up by 11 points.

Henry didn’t get a touch the rest of the game.

It is coaching malpractice. It is mismanagement of a freak-of-nature running back who might as well have been constructed in a lab to chew yards and milk the clock. Harbaugh pointed to how the Ravens rushed on two downs on the second-to-last drive, which ultimately stalled at midfield and gave the Patriots the ball back with five minutes left.

“We tried a first-down run the second part of that drive and got nothing,” he said. “Those get stopped too, especially when they’re all up there at the line of scrimmage.”

Harbaugh’s analysis conveniently sidestepped that those runs were not with Henry, who had been destroying the Patriots for a 7.1 yards-per-carry average. Three of the Ravens’ four most explosive plays — 23-, 22- and 21-yard runs — were all Henry’s touches.

Although he is a great change-of-pace back, Mitchell is too small to be a great closer. Henry’s 6-foot-2, 250-pound frame makes him the ideal punishing bruiser who can pound a defense into submission. He had already done most of the job with 18 carries and 128 yards, but the Ravens simply would not use him to deliver the knockout blow.

As Henry stood on the sideline, the whole New England defense probably breathed a sigh of relief. Maybe Harbaugh and Monken could have asked Pats coach Mike Vrabel for tips — he knew well enough how to ride King Henry to victory when they were both in Tennessee.

The Ravens have the perfect tool to hold on to a lead — yet they refused to use him. Unsurprisingly, the season has gone down the drain.

You could not ask for a better soldier than Henry, who tried his best to deflate the tension that has been brewing for a long time between this offense and Ravens fans. He said Mitchell “is deserving” of the carries he’s gotten and the two have become accustomed to the rotation.

He was more self-critical of his early fumble, which led to New England’s first points of the game.

Still, Henry admitted he would want the ball on a game-sealing drive, if only he could get it.

“Any player would like to have the ball in his hands and like to make plays for the team,” said Henry, who was much more subdued than could be expected for someone who is snubbed by his own coaches. “But it just didn’t go that way tonight.”

It could have gone the Ravens’ way, if only they would be willing to feed the hot hand — the way plenty of coaches do in basketball, giving the best shooters the closing lineup nod. The same way a baseball manager might pinch hit a locked-in slugger.

A two-back rotation isn’t written in stone. Harbaugh and Monken can change the game plan to suit the team anytime they want. On Sunday night, it felt as if the Ravens coaching staff must have been the only people in the stadium who thought it was a good idea to sideline Henry.

At least for the final two games, the coaching staff doesn’t have to worry about limiting his workload to save him for the playoffs. Just like Henry’s carries, the Ravens’ postseason hopes are vanishing, too.