BALTIMORE — The two overturned fourth-quarter calls going against the Ravens in Sunday’s 27-22 loss to Pittsburgh would have been even more infuriating in an alternate timeline.
A team many deemed the preseason Super Bowl favorite losing in such fashion would have been an extremely difficult pill to swallow if Baltimore were jockeying for the AFC’s No. 1 seed and home-field advantage right now. Regardless of the ramifications, good luck trying to reconcile the ruling that Steelers quarterback Aaron Rodgers completed the process of catching his own deflection — overturning what could have been a pivotal turnover in Pittsburgh territory with just under seven minutes to go — with the decision that tight end Isaiah Likely didn’t complete the catch on what would have been the go-ahead touchdown pass from quarterback Lamar Jackson with 2:43 to play.
These were the latest examples of the lack of consistency in what’s deemed a catch by NFL officiating. In fairness, we also don’t know what would have happened over the remainder of the game if either of these calls had gone Baltimore’s way.
But none of that masks the hard truth when you own a 6-7 record in December and haven’t looked anything like a serious Super Bowl contender since the first 3 1/2 quarters of the season opener in Buffalo.
In dropping back-to-back division home games to wipe away the momentum from five straight victories that came against a soft post-bye schedule, the Ravens look painfully mediocre, which is probably a kind description at this point. And even acknowledging the AFC North still being up for grabs, the odds of that getting better are looking bleak with three of Baltimore’s last four games coming on the road and three being against current division leaders. The Ravens have won just one game all season against a team currently sporting a winning record.
Even if they find a way to win enough — or Pittsburgh loses enough — to sneak into the tournament, is anyone remotely believing in this team compared to preseason expectations?
What was telling about Sunday’s game was how evenly matched these AFC North rivals looked with Pittsburgh deserving credit for making the biggest plays of the game. But that’s more a knock on the Ravens and what we’ve been waiting on them to become than a compliment to a Steelers team that was humiliated by Buffalo last week and continues to hear more chatter about the future of head coach Mike Tomlin than its chances in January. Few came out of Sunday’s game believing the Steelers are any more than what they’ve been for several years now — a fringe playoff team that hasn’t won a postseason game in almost a decade.
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The Ravens have merely fallen to Pittsburgh’s tier in 2025.
While Jackson and the Ravens ground game did come alive in the second half, this offense remains way too inconsistent to trust after another day of missed opportunities inside the red zone (2-for-6) and struggles to find rhythm. Jackson looked better than he did in the previous three games, but he’s still not playing like the two-time MVP quarterback Baltimore will need the rest of the way to steal the division, especially when he’s playing behind a below-average offensive line.
More disappointing than the offense was the Baltimore defense that surrendered 27 points and multiple deep shots over the first three quarters to a Pittsburgh passing game that hadn’t recorded a single completion of 20-plus air yards since October. The Ravens failed to put enough pressure on the 42-year-old Rodgers, who responded by throwing for a season-high 284 yards and a touchdown and running for another in what was his best game as a Steeler.
Baltimore did bow up to force three three-and-outs in the final quarter, but the sparkling statistical improvement shown since the 1-5 start is looking more like the product of facing a slate of bad quarterbacks after watching Rodgers and Joe Burrow make so many plays through the air these last two weeks. The Ravens defense is better than it was early in the season, but that was a low bar and doesn’t mean it’s anything special, especially with a feeble pass rush.
Not to be left out, the special teams units also put forth one of their worst performances of the season.
No, none of it was good enough for the Ravens on Sunday.
“We look to the next game. We’re fighting still for everything that we want to accomplish,” head coach John Harbaugh said. “It’s tough. It’s been a tough, challenging road for sure, but that’s where we’re at.
8“We will keep fighting, and we believe we can get it done.”
You’d hope so since the AFC North race isn’t over, regardless of how disappointing Sunday felt.
But it’s increasingly difficult to fight the feeling that the Ravens just aren’t a good football team and this simply isn’t their year. That was only magnified by being on the wrong end of a couple late calls to cap deflating back-to-back home defeats to division rivals.
