The Ravens are no strangers to a high-stakes December showdown with rival Pittsburgh.
However, the vibes are anything but great for either team ahead of Sunday’s showdown for first place in the AFC North. It doesn’t get much worse than Baltimore’s five-turnover upset loss to Cincinnati at home last Thursday, but the Steelers surrendered 249 rushing yards — the most ever by an opponent at the stadium formerly known as Heinz Field — and were blanked in the second half of a 26-7 loss to Buffalo. You know times are rough in Pittsburgh when the natives even booed the playing of “Renegade” in addition to chanting for the firing of 19th-year head coach Mike Tomlin late in that defeat to the Bills.
With both teams limping into the season’s final month with matching 6-6 records, this marks the first time neither Baltimore nor Pittsburgh is over .500 entering a December meeting since 1999. But a Week 14 win would still give either team sole possession of first place and a much-needed confidence boost after a forgettable Thanksgiving weekend.
For the Ravens, the biggest key to qualifying for the playoffs for the seventh time in eight years is two-time MVP quarterback Lamar Jackson getting back on track. It’s not a secret that 2025 has been an injury-plagued campaign for the 28-year-old, but the last three games have been particularly concerning with Jackson failing to register a single passing or rushing touchdown, committing five turnovers, completing just 55% of his passes, and registering a sub-40 QBR in three straight starts for the first time since his rookie season.
No one can deny the remarkable standard Jackson has created for himself over the years with star safety Kyle Hamilton noting after the loss to Cincinnati that even LeBron James has a bad game from time to time. But any vision of the Ravens winning the AFC North, let alone making noise in January begins with Jackson finding himself to a meaningful degree.
“You go back to work and you get in there and you practice and you study it, and you work together to be as precise as you can,” head coach John Harbaugh said Monday. “It was not a precise offensive performance in any way. There was nothing precise about it. It was imprecise in every way, and we all know that. We’re all not happy with it. We’re very disappointed by it, but you can’t live in it.
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“You have to move on and come out swinging the next time. If you watch the league, you’ll see that that’s very possible.”
After their shocking 1-5 start, the Ravens healed up from a number of early-season injuries and came out swinging to win five straight games after the bye to put themselves in this position. Even with the forgiving post-bye schedule and an unremarkable eyeball test accompanying the winning streak, that wasn’t a given when assessing this team’s flaws in the trenches on both sides of the ball.
The memory of convincing wins over the Steelers last December and January should give this group confidence after previous struggles against Pittsburgh, but Baltimore has to go win against another team licking its wounds and equally desperate not to fall below .500 and a game behind in the AFC North race.
Injury updates
After exiting late in the first half of Thursday’s loss to Cincinnati with a left foot injury, starting cornerback Nate Wiggins is considered “day to day right now,” according to Harbaugh.
The 2024 first-round pick’s availability for Sunday’s game may not be as critical as subsequent weeks with banged-up quarterback Aaron Rodgers and the Steelers’ passing game struggling mightily to push the ball downfield, but Baltimore certainly wants to have Wiggins healthy and available for as much of the stretch run as possible. Veteran Chidobe Awuzie would start opposite Marlon Humphrey if Wiggins is unable to suit up against Pittsburgh.
Harbaugh said there’s “a good chance” that outside linebacker Tavius Robinson and safety Ar’Darius Washington will return to practice this week. One would expect Washington to need a more extensive ramp-up of practice time returning from a torn Achilles tendon sustained in May, but Robinson would figure to have a much better chance of playing this week after missing two months with a fracture in his foot.
8Placed on injured reserve with a neck injury last week, running back Justice Hill could still return this season after sitting out the minimum four games, per Harbaugh. However, undrafted rookie inside linebacker Chandler Martin will miss the rest of the season after tearing his ACL on the opening kickoff of the Cincinnati game.
Left guard rotation
After missing the entire spring and summer as well as the start of the season recovering from shoulder surgery, rookie third-round pick Emery Jones made his NFL debut against Cincinnati.
Rotating with starter Andrew Vorhees at left guard, the LSU product played 16 snaps and was flagged for holding late in the third quarter.
“I thought he played hard and showed some athleticism and some fight and some gusto,” Harbaugh said. “He played like a rookie in a lot of ways. There are a lot of things to clean up for sure. I think he’d be the first to tell you that. But you can’t really start making those improvements until you play. … We’ll just have to see going forward how much we want to continue that as we go.”
Asked about Jones also seeing action at right guard moving forward, Harbaugh said that would “compound” his learning curve and didn’t sound as though that would be likely. That’s a reasonable position considering Jones missed an entire offseason of development time and even eight-time Pro Bowl guard Marshal Yanda acknowledged the challenge of switching sides on the fly when a shoulder injury forced him to move from right guard to the left side late in his career.
Harbaugh said both Vorhees and starting right guard Daniel Faalele “graded out highly” against Cincinnati.
8New role for Ali
With Baltimore trailing by multiple scores to the Bengals for much of the second half, second-year running back Rasheen Ali played a career-high 29 offensive snaps stepping into Hill’s spot as the third-down back.
Ali registered four carries for 17 yards and is expected to continue in that capacity in the short term.
“He played really well. The plays that he was in, he got the job done,” Harbaugh said. “He pass protected well. He ran his routes well. He chipped well. He had one run where I thought he was tentative. He could have hit it up in there in the A gap on a third-and-medium. … He played well.”
