BALTIMORE — Ravens head coach John Harbaugh stood at the postgame podium and repeated an oft-used phrase in the NFL — “It’s a week-to-week league,” before adding, “and four wins later, we’re AFC North champions.”
Down by two games in the division with four to play, the Ravens completed a furious race to the finish line with their fourth straight win, pulling away for a 35-10 victory against Cleveland in the regular-season finale at M&T Bank Stadium on Jan. 4.
With that win, the Ravens (12-5) clinched the AFC North for the second straight year.
The Ravens never trailed against the Browns (3-14), who were down to a fourth option at quarterback in Bailey Zappe and were without several other key players. The Ravens came into the game as a 20-point favorite — a whopping margin by NFL standards — but didn’t look nearly as sharp as they had in December wins against the New York Giants, Pittsburgh Steelers and Houston Texans.
After Cleveland cut the Ravens’ lead to 21-10 early in the fourth quarter, Derrick Henry scored on a pair of touchdown runs, the last from 43 yards, to put the game away.
Ravens quarterback Lamar Jackson finished 16-for-32 for 217 yards and two touchdowns, and his passer rating of 92.8 was his fourth-lowest of the season.
Cleveland defensive end Myles Garrett, a leading candidate for the league’s Defensive Player of the Year award, had a lot to do with that, firing off the edge and getting Jackson out of rhythm.
Jackson also lost one of his favorite targets, wide receiver Zay Flowers, to a first-half knee injury.
The running game got little going early, with Henry held to eight yards on six carries in the first half.
The Ravens had five offensive possessions in the first half but came away with just seven points, as they turned the ball over on downs three times after failing to convert on fourth down.
Yet they took a quick 7-0 lead when rookie cornerback Nate Wiggins jumped a route, picked off Zappe and returned the interception 26 yards for a score with 8:32 left in the first quarter.
It was the first career interception for Wiggins — “took longer than expected,” he said — and the Ravens’ second defensive touchdown in three games; Marlon Humphrey had an interception return touchdown in the Ravens’ win against Pittsburgh.
Jackson then hit Mark Andrews with a 12-yard touchdown pass for a 14-0 lead early in the second quarter. With that pass, Jackson became the first player in NFL history with 4,000 passing yards and 800 rushing yards in a season.
It was also a historic catch for Andrews; he set a franchise record with a touchdown catch in his sixth straight game.
Jackson’s second touchdown pass of the game, a 7-yarder to wide-open Rashod Bateman in the third quarter, increased the Ravens lead to 21-3.
Zappe threw a 16-yard touchdown pass to tight end Jordan Akins early in the fourth quarter that cut the Ravens’ lead to 21-10, but Jackson ended any suspense with an eight-play, 70-yard drive that ended with Henry’s 2-yard touchdown run.
On the Ravens’ next possession, Henry bounced outside and down the left sideline for a 43-yard score, giving him a franchise-record 16 rushing touchdowns.
The Browns’ final possession ended when nose tackle Michael Pierce dropped into coverage and snagged his first career interception, setting off a wild celebration on the Ravens sideline.
Here are five quick impressions of the win, which wraps up the eighth division title in franchise history:
1. The season’s first big goal has been achieved.
The Ravens like to say that the first goal is go 1-0 each week, but the big-picture goals for this team come in a series: win the division, win the AFC, win the Super Bowl. To John Harbaugh’s credit, this team during his tenure has almost always convened in July with a realistic possibility of achieving them.
With their win against the Browns, the Ravens have checked off the first box, winning the AFC North title for the second straight year. That’s all the more impressive considering they trailed the Pittsburgh Steelers by two games with four to play. But during an 11-day crucible, the Ravens rolled to three straight wins — including a 34-17 triumph against the Steelers — and Pittsburgh stumbled to three straight losses.
The reward for the Ravens is another home playoff game, against the Steelers on Jan. 11 at 8 p.m. For a team that got within one game of the Super Bowl last year and began training camp with Super Bowl aspirations, it’s a first step, but one they know they can’t look beyond.
“We’re not guaranteed anything after next week,” said linebacker Kyle Van Noy, who notched another sack to finish the season with a career-high 12.5, “so our main focus is to get to next week.”
In one of his last “State of the Ravens” news conferences that he gave in the 2010s, Ravens owner Steve Bisciotti had lamented the team’s lack of home playoff games. The Ravens under Harbaugh played their first seven playoff games and 10 of their first 12 on the road, the consequence of failing to win the AFC North.
That’s shifted under Jackson; in Jackson’s seven seasons, the Ravens have twice finished as the No. 1 seed in the AFC and have won the AFC North title four times. Next weekend, they will play their fifth home playoff game in that span. And during the past month, they absolutely earned it.
2. All attention now shifts to Zay Flowers’ knee.
Other than winning the game, the Ravens’ top goal by far in this Week 18 contest was getting out of it without any serious injuries. They might not have done that, as wide receiver Zay Flowers went down and clutched his right knee after making a catch early in the second quarter.
Flowers slowly limped off and did not return. After the game, John Harbaugh said that Flowers would have an MRI on Sunday and sounded marginally optimistic.
“He has a chance to be OK with it, but we’ll probably have more details after an MRI [Sunday],” Harbaugh said.
In pregame introductions, Flowers was one of nine Ravens recognized as Pro Bowl selections after a breakout second season. With one catch for 12 yards against Cleveland, Flowers finishes the season as the Ravens’ team leader in receptions (74) and receiving yards (1,059) and became the first Ravens wide receiver ever named to the Pro Bowl.
Flowers’ absence in the postseason would be a major loss, as he leads the Ravens in targets (116) and yards after the catch (449). He and Jackson have developed a strong rapport, and his shiftiness is always a weapon.
The Ravens would need to lean more on Rashod Bateman, who capped his best NFL season with his ninth touchdown of the season against Cleveland, as well as Isaiah Likely and Nelson Agholor, who did not play against the Browns after dealing with a concussion last week.
Flowers’ availability will be the top storyline of the week for the Ravens.
3. The Ravens know they’ll need to be better against playoff competition.
Both John Harbaugh and quarterback Lamar Jackson sounded pleased but tempered after the game, basking in the win that clinched the AFC North title but cognizant of the fact that their team was far from perfect.
“We can play so much better,” Harbaugh said. “We weren’t very clean in this game. We had too many penalties. Operationally, we weren’t probably as great as wanted to be.”
One of the reasons the Ravens rolled to three straight wins in December was they cleaned up the problem with penalties that had hampered them throughout the season. They came into this game ranked 30th overall, and 31st in penalty yardage assessed against them.
And the Browns’ lone scoring drives were largely aided by penalties, including a roughing-the-passer call on Travis Jones and a third-down pass interference penalty on Brandon Stephens.
The Ravens were also flagged for offensive holding, an illegal shift and a delay of game among their 10 penalties for 83 yards.
It also became clear by the second half that the Browns were going to go after Stephens. That probably should serve as a compliment to Marlon Humphrey, Nate Wiggins and Kyle Hamilton that quarterbacks want to steer clear of them, but Stephens has a bull’s-eye on his back and that’s not going to go away.
Coming into this week, Stephens had been targeted 95 times, the sixth-highest total in the league, according to Pro Football Reference, and quarterbacks throwing against him had a completion percentage of 65.3 and a passer rating of 104.7.
Officials have hit him with some key pass interference calls, though he also got the benefit of a rare offensive pass interference call by the Browns. But the Ravens can be sure that playoff opponents are going to find Stephens and go after him.
Offensively, the Ravens will need to start sharper and play sharper overall than they did against Cleveland. Jackson said he was frustrated that too many drives ended with missed fourth-down conversions, and his completion percentage of 50 percent won’t win many playoff games.
Maybe slogging through this win will be for the best. There shouldn’t be any complacency after seeing problems that could prove to be fatal in the postseason.
4. Amid all the offensive accolades, Ronnie Stanley hasn’t gotten enough credit.
The Ravens’ offense has put up some record-setting numbers this year, including Lamar Jackson’s mark as the most prolific rushing quarterback of all time. The Ravens also became the first team in NFL history with 4,000 passing yards and 3,000 rushing yards in the same season.
Jackson and Derrick Henry deservedly get much of the credit, but it wouldn’t have happened without strong offensive line play, including a major rebound year for left tackle Ronnie Stanley.
The line went through a painful transition early this season, and then the unit was rocked by the death of beloved line coach Joe D’Alessandris in August. With three new starters, the onus was on Stanley to return to his Pro Bowl level, and the pressure was on him too: The former first-round pick took a pay cut of roughly $7.5 million in what became essentially a prove-it season before he hits free agency.
Prove it he did. Stanley responded by playing in every game for the first time in his nine-year career. He hardly missed a practice dating back to training camp. He was a major reason that Henry was able to run for more than 1,900 yards and the team piled up 3,189 rushing yards.
With a left guard position that was unsettled in training camp — and changed during the season from Andrew Vorhees to Patrick Mekari, and then to Ben Cleveland in this game — and with few good alternatives behind him, Stanley was always going to be one of the more under-the-radar factors in the Ravens’ offense.
Stanley wasn’t one of the nine Ravens named to the Pro Bowl, but without his quiet consistency all season, this offense might have looked much different and much less potent.
5. The Lamar Jackson test begins now.
As much as he’d probably like to, Lamar Jackson can’t run from his postseason history the way he has eluded defenders en route to becoming the most prolific running quarterback of all time.
Jackson rolled to a historically good season in 2024, better in almost every measurable way than his MVP performance last season. But whether Jackson claims a third MVP prize this year — or loses out to Josh Allen — his postseason performance was always going to be part of the narrative.
That was the case back in August, and in October, and in December: Jackson is tremendous, an otherworldy talent with highlight-reel potential on every play. Now let’s see it in January.
Fair or not, all his NFL records aside, Jackson’s legacy is going to be tied to his postseason play. He is 2-4 as a postseason starter, including 1-3 at home. Twice, he has lost at home as the No. 1 seed. Jackson’s postseason passer rating of 75.7 pales in comparison to his career regular-season mark of 102.0. There have been plenty of reasons for the postseason losses, but Jackson hasn’t played particularly well.
No one needs to remind him, or anyone else in the organization, of that. But there might not be more pressure on anyone else in the league to finally deliver his team to the Super Bowl.
Photo Credit: Kenya Allen/PressBox