Better health and a forgiving post-bye schedule were always the recipe for the Ravens to bounce back from a 1-5 start, but Sunday’s tilt in Minnesota always felt pivotal.
Not only was it a critical step in the quest to have a winning record by Thanksgiving, but the Vikings were the last opponent with as much as a .500 record that Baltimore would face until the first of two critical showdowns with Pittsburgh come Week 14. Even the Ravens’ harshest critics acknowledged they were better than they looked at their worst a month ago, but it’s still fair to question just how good they are, which made the Vikings a litmus test as they were coming off their best performance of the season last week.
A 27-19 win may not suggest the Ravens are the juggernaut they’ve been at their best in recent regular seasons, but a third consecutive victory — including two straight on the road — and another strong second-half performance speak for themselves, especially when you’re trying to assess an AFC that makes little sense on a week-by-week basis. Just ask the Buffalo Bills (6-3) after their shocking 17-point defeat in Miami on Sunday or the Kansas City Chiefs (5-4) as they sat on their bye already holding more losses than they suffered all last season.
Are Indianapolis, Denver, and New England the AFC’s new elite or merely good teams who’ve taken advantage of soft schedules to this point?
Baltimore just needs to keep winning and keep getting better, and the rest will sort itself out eventually.
The improvement continued to be most evident on the defensive side of the ball Sunday as the Ravens registered 14 stops on third and fourth down, two interceptions, and 14 passes defensed, which marked the fourth most in a game in franchise history. The Vikings certainly helped with an inexplicable eight false starts in their own stadium and J.J. McCarthy looking the part of a young quarterback making his fourth NFL start, but the Ravens have now allowed fewer than 20 points in four straight games after getting off to the worst defensive start in franchise history.
Though the pass rush remains a substantial concern, the defense has shown a much higher floor with the arrival of safety Alohi Gilman and the move of Kyle Hamilton to the nickel spot — and closer to the line of scrimmage. And the Ravens will hope the trade deadline acquisition of outside linebacker Dre’Mont Jones — who registered two quarterback hits in his Baltimore debut — pays similar dividends in the coming weeks.
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After surrendering a touchdown on the Vikings’ opening possession, the Ravens didn’t give up more than 29 yards on a drive until a weird fourth quarter that threatened to get a little too weird with some lapses and penalties.
“I think we’re starting to hit our stride. It’s not a surprise to us. I think we’re playing to our potential now, and that has to be sustained,” Hamilton said. “We’re happy we got the win, but we’re not ecstatic about what our record still is. We still have stuff to do and people to prove wrong [and] people to prove right. This is a good building block going forward in the season.”
For the second straight week, the offense was sluggish in the first half with three field goals, three three-and-outs, and difficulty running the ball against the tough Minnesota defense. But save for a couple bad drops early in the game and their persistent struggles inside the red zone, the Ravens mostly limited their mistakes while doing just enough to put points on the board.
Not losing the game is often as important as making the biggest plays to win it, especially in a hostile environment. Quarterback Lamar Jackson may not have put up big numbers by his MVP standards, but he protected the football and took only one sack against a blitz-heavy Minnesota front.
“I think that’s what won the game for us. I really do,” head coach John Harbaugh said. “I think the poise under pressure, handling the noise [with] one pre-snap penalty and no turnovers in this environment. It’s the two-fold noise. It’s the noise of the crowd, which is incredible, and it’s also the noise of the defense and the noise they create with all their schemes and the way they play. They’re a very physical, tough defense.”
Of course, the Ravens didn’t make things easy on themselves late in the game, which is an all-too-familiar problem predating their bad start to 2025. After the impressive 11-play, 67-yard touchdown drive that lasted more than 6 1/2 minutes to grow the lead to 27-13 with under 11 minutes ago, Baltimore managed only one more first down the rest of the way. That left the door cracked for the Vikings to make it a one-score game and even get the ball back with a chance to tie with under two minutes to go.
It was a bit too reminiscent of the Week 1 collapse in Buffalo, but fortunately, McCarthy is no Josh Allen.
8Now sitting at 4-5, the Ravens are right on Pittsburgh’s heels in the AFC North after the Steelers’ listless showing against the Chargers that dropped them to 5-4 on Sunday night. But there still isn’t room for complacency as Hamilton suggested that part of Baltimore’s problem early on was too much of a feeling that opponents were “just going to lay down and let us win games.”
That lesson is sure to be preached this week as the Ravens prepare to play a third straight road game against a last-place Cleveland team that still has a good defense and would love nothing more than to hand them a loss in a fifth consecutive year.
Just keep winning in an AFC looking as difficult to predict as ever.
“We got punched in the mouth early in the season, but now, I think we’re responding well,” said Hamilton about Baltimore’s current mindset. “We’ll just have that scar tissue going forward when we just start stacking wins.”
