It was happening again. The Ravens had ’em right where they wanted ’em. Big second-half lead. Locked-in defense. Revved-up offense. All the Ravens had to do there, late in the third quarter, was not do anything flagrant on a fourth-and-3 in the red zone. Don’t give in to their worst impulses.

The football gods, hearing those prayers Sunday afternoon, laughed a big belly laugh. Cornerback Marlon Humphrey fumbled a would-be interception into the hands of Cleveland Browns wide receiver Cedric Tillman for an 18-yard touchdown, and the 70,000-plus inside M&T Bank Stadium could’ve been forgiven for muttering some variation of the same message, with varying levels of profanity: Not again.

It was happening again, wasn’t it?

“It’s an NFL game, and wild things happen throughout Sundays, Mondays, whatever it is,” said Ravens quarterback Lamar Jackson, who over his time in Baltimore has become intimately familiar with the dumbest ways to lose a game. Only a week ago, he’d had to explain a stupefying collapse against the Buffalo Bills. “Like I said last week, we should have kept it going, but this week, that’s what we did. We got the job done, and shout-out to all phases. Everyone played their part.”

Late-game implosions require team efforts. So do late-game thumpings. And the Ravens’ 41-17 win in their home opener was indeed thorough, if a little unconventional. Never before in franchise history had they scored so many points with so few yards (242) or so little yards per play (4.6).

Style points, as the Ravens (1-1) learned all over again in Week 1, don’t mean much. So, facing another tipping point against a division rival that handed them a how-the-hell-did-that-happen loss last year, the Ravens did what they had to. They scored by any means necessary. They won by any means necessary. They did that well enough that they scored often and won easily.

“I thought we did the things we needed to do,” coach John Harbaugh said. “The guys already knew how to do those things, but to come out here and do them in this game, in terms of winning maturity, if you want to call it that. … It was something we had talked to the team about, that [idea of] maturing as a football team to win games like that. They did that in this game, and this was a tough game. The score doesn’t really indicate it, but this was a grind of a football game.”

Until the fourth quarter anyway. The Ravens entered the game’s final period with a 20-10 lead, carried by their defense and special teams, fitting tributes to Sunday’s 30th-season celebration.

In the first half, both of the Ravens’ scoring drives had covered just 24 yards. In the third quarter, they’d found their way to the goal line, only to turn first-and-goal at Cleveland’s 1-yard line into a field goal. A minute later, they’d taken over at the Browns’ 5, courtesy of cornerback Nate Wiggins’ winding interception return, and needed four plays to find the end zone.

The Ravens were winning ugly. The fourth quarter was the quarter they turned pretty. After Tillman’s improbable touchdown catch, Jackson took over. He hit wide receiver Zay Flowers for a 16-yard gain on third-and-13, then another first-down connection two plays later. On second-and-14, Jackson feathered a picturesque 24-yard throw to wide receiver Devontez Walker in the corner of the end zone for his third touchdown pass and Walker’s second score.

“They do a really good job letting you know you have to always be prepared for when those opportunities present themselves,” said Walker, who has three catches for three touchdowns in 11 career games. “It may not be many, but when you get in there, they expect you to produce. You have [reps with the] twos and threes in practice. When you get out there in the game with Lamar, you’re a one at that point. They expect results when you get out there, so that’s the mindset that they ingrain in you when you’re here.”

There was more to do. The scoreboard showed a 27-10 lead and 13-plus minutes remaining. Plenty of time for trouble. The Ravens had let a 15-point fourth-quarter lead slip away the week before in Orchard Park, New York. Inside linebacker Roquan Smith probably could have recited every defensive miscue on the sideline, chapter and verse. He recalled watching the game five times before the Ravens regrouped for practice Wednesday.

So they padded their margin for error, one big play at a time, until there was nothing the Browns could do. Four days after cornerback Marlon Humphrey called out the defense’s late-game maturity, the unit seemed to grow up, right before coordinator Zach Orr’s eyes.

On Cleveland’s next possession, outside linebacker Tavius Robinson’s strip sack of former Ravens quarterback Joe Flacco led to a scoop-and-score by Smith, punctuating one of his best games in Baltimore (15 tackles, three tackles for loss and two quarterback hits).

“I feel like last week, we all had a sour taste in our mouth,” Smith said, “and it was just more so about moving on and not letting last week beat you twice.”

With a 34-10 lead and a 99.9% win probability, according to ESPN, the Ravens kept beating up on the Browns. A turnover on downs gave Jackson another short field; four times Sunday, the Ravens started in Cleveland (0-2) territory.

Again, they did not play with their food for long. On their third play of the drive, Jackson (19-for-29 for 225 yards and four touchdowns) dropped back, looked for wide receiver DeAndre Hopkins, running down the left sideline, and lofted another pass only he could find. And find it he did, diving for a 23-yard score.

“We have enough veterans and guys who’ve played a lot of ball that knew we were making mistakes” in the first half, when the Ravens had just 81 of their 242 total yards of offense, Hopkins said. “And we knew ourselves we had to come out in the second half and correct it.”

“We don’t want to start 0-2,” said Flowers, who finished with a game-high seven catches for 75 yards. “We would rather start 1-1 than be 0-2. We should have closed it out last week, but stuff happened. That was the first game. We ain’t play in the preseason. So we know what we can do.”

It wasn’t what happened in Highmark Stadium. It was the exact opposite. And, for a week, the Ravens could revel in a game ending with everything going their way. That was a new feeling. That was a good feeling.