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The chore of putting on socks is not a difficult one, but it can require some contortion. Knee bent, back arched, arms extended. As Lamar Jackson finished dressing inside M&T Bank Stadium for likely the final time this season, one sock at a time, his look of pain hung as thickly as the locker room silence early Monday morning. He grimaced. He squirmed. He seemed like he’d rather be anywhere else but sitting on a cushioned seat, preparing to pull his shoes on.

But the Ravens are here, on the brink of a lost year, and the misery is palpable. A season that began with Super Bowl dreams is one result away from playoff elimination. A team that entered Sunday in control of its postseason destiny now requires outside help. A quarterback who was almost unstoppable in Week 1 and resurgent early Sunday night now could be unavailable in Week 17, sidelined by another injury.

The Ravens (7-8) lost so much in Sunday’s 28-24 loss to the New England Patriots — Jackson (to a second-quarter back bruise), a double-digit fourth-quarter lead (for the second time this season), ground in the AFC North (to the Pittsburgh Steelers, now two games clear) — that the most important casualty might actually be hope. The Ravens now no longer need just a win Saturday against the Green Bay Packers (9-5-1); they need a Christmas miracle, too.

If the Ravens lose at Lambeau Field, their playoff hopes will be extinguished. If the Ravens win, but the division-leading Steelers (9-6) beat the Browns (3-12) in Cleveland on Sunday, the offseason planning for Cancún can begin. The Ravens’ hopes for forcing a de facto AFC North title game in Week 18 in Pittsburgh rest not only on Jackson’s sore back and the Ravens’ disappearing prime-time defense, but also on Shedeur Sanders and Aaron Rodgers and the whims of the football gods.

“It’s BS, bro,” Jacksons said softly afterward. He’d left the game one play after Patriots safety Craig Woodson’s left knee collided with the left side of Jackson’s lower back on a read-option keeper called just after the first half’s two-minute warning. “I can’t control that. I’m on the ground. I’m down. I gave myself up. I got kneed in the back, but yes, for the most part, you can say that, because [I’m] getting injured, and then we’re fighting for a chance to make the playoffs. I can’t finish the game with my guys. It’s BS.”

Jackson (7-for-10 for 101 yards) said he hopes to play Saturday, but coach John Harbaugh did not have a timetable for his return. Jackson, who’s dealt with a range of lower-body injuries this year, said he was scheduled to undergo an MRI on Monday.

Jackson said he received a Toradol shot to alleviate the pain in his back, but that it still hurt to throw the ball. Backup quarterback Tyler Huntley (9-for-10 for 65 yards), who would be in line to make his second start this season if Jackson is unavailable, said Jackson could “barely move” on the sideline after returning from the locker room in the second half.

“If he could have gone [back into action], he would have gone,” Harbaugh said.

The Ravens’ biggest pain might be psychic. It was not just that they lost, or that they lost Jackson, but rather, how they lost.

At home. On “Sunday Night Football.” To a banged-up Patriots team (12-3). After leading by 11 points early in the fourth quarter. After not feeding running back Derrick Henry (18 carries for 128 yards) on their penultimate drive. After watching a similar script play out time and again, in regular-season flops and postseason upsets.

“It’s been a theme for the past couple years, honestly,” said safety Kyle Hamilton, one of many first-round picks on a defense that allowed 8.5 yards per play in the fourth quarter Sunday. “It’s frustrating at this point to keep having the same conversations with you guys, and I’m sure it’s frustrating on your end to keep asking these questions. It’s redundant, and no excuses at this point. … It’s cold outside, the stadium’s packed out, people have work tomorrow, and we’re not making it worth their while at the end of the day. So that’s on us to right that wrong.”

The Ravens had a win probability of 91.3% after Henry’s 2-yard touchdown gave them a 24-13 lead just two minutes into the fourth quarter, according to ESPN. Their defense had stiffened, their home crowd had roared back to life, their playoff chances had been reinvigorated.

Then the bottom fell out, just as it had in a Week 1 loss to the Buffalo Bills, a Week 3 loss to the Detroit Lions and a Week 13 loss to the Cincinnati Bengals. Patriots quarterback Drake Maye (31-for-44 for a career-high 380 yards, two touchdowns and an interception) needed less than four minutes to conjure a 73-yard touchdown drive and cap it with a 2-point conversion. The Ravens’ next possession lasted just six plays, covered just 13 yards and featured not one Henry carry.

New England’s decisive go-ahead drive started at its 11-yard line and ended in the end zone less than three minutes later, running back Rhamondre Stevenson bursting through a hole in an otherwise stout Ravens run defense for a 21-yard touchdown. The Ravens’ collapse was nearly complete. All that was missing was another signature setback.

The Ravens’ four-man pass rush had already been punchless against a questionable Patriots offensive line. Their coverage had already been shredded by another top-tier quarterback. Henry had already fumbled once. But as wide receiver Zay Flowers juked in the open field on the second play of the Ravens’ final drive, the end result seemed preordained: another blind-side punch-out, another lost fumble, another missed opportunity.

“You can’t fumble the ball,” said Harbaugh, whose Ravens have lost more fumbles this season (12) than any team besides the Seattle Seahawks. “You have to protect the football. It’s different circumstances. If the ball is too loose, you don’t see it coming. The ball has to be protected all the time, and that’s what’s coached. So as a player, you just have to do it. You just have to get it done. And if you don’t get it done, then you become known as a fumbler. And that’s what the defenses point to, and they come after it. We do the same thing on defense. It’s just a fact of football.”

Reality did not sit well with the Ravens afterward. Wide receiver DeAndre Hopkins said of a franchise-worst sixth home loss, “It sucks.” Center Tyler Linderbaum called the inability to translate the team’s talent to on-field production “frustrating.” Henry said the team “just hasn’t been good enough. It’s as simple as that.”

Now the Ravens will have to find hope in an increasingly hopeless winter. Their pain is raw, their control is lost, and the end seems near. One of the most disappointing seasons in Ravens history has reached its breaking point.

“Everybody is disappointed,” Harbaugh said. “Everybody is hurt because you work so hard. This is a team that fights. This is a team that works, and this is a team that prepares. This team is a confident team that wants to do well — A bunch of really strong men in there that do that. And so it’s disappointing to them. They’re more disappointed than anybody. All of us are. That’s how it is.

“So we’re all disappointed, but that doesn’t mean — it just means you have to come back. You don’t get what you want all the time in life, even if you work for it, but you have to earn it. You have to earn it by doing the things that are required, and we have not done a good enough job of that.”