BALTIMORE — Isaiah Likely cut across the middle of the end zone and snagged what appeared to be the go-ahead score with less than three minutes left. Ravens players threw their hands in the air to signal a touchdown and the M&T Bank Stadium crowd roared. But moments later, referee Alex Moore announced that the league’s review office ruled the play incomplete, as Likely had the ball knocked out of his hands before completing the catch.
The Ravens never scored on that drive, or on their last one, and suffered a 27-22 loss to the archrival Pittsburgh Steelers that puts a major blow in their playoff hopes.
The Ravens (6-7) landed on the wrong side of three controversial calls in the game, but they can also point to other issues in their second straight divisional loss.
Steelers quarterback Aaron Rodgers threw for 284 yards, including a 52-yard bomb on the Steelers’ first offensive snap. The Steelers turned a short swing pass into a 38-yard touchdown. Rashod Bateman dropped a third-down pass that might have gone for a touchdown on a drive that ended with a short field goal. Pressure forced Lamar Jackson into some throws that fell incomplete.
Basically, a team that has been flawed throughout the season had many of its same flaws exposed again, and now the Ravens probably need to win three of their final four games, including two divisional games on the road, to extend their season.
Still, the pass to Likely remains the game’s biggest talking point.
The Ravens had driven 65 yards to the Steelers’ 13-yard line when Jackson found Likely cutting across the middle of the end zone for what appears to be a touchdown. Holding the ball out in front of him, Likely took two steps but then had the ball knocked out of his hands by cornerback Joey Porter Jr.
“The third step is an act common to the game, and before he could get the third foot down, the ball was ripped out,” said NFL vice president of instant replay Mark Butterworth in a pool report. “Therefore, it was an incomplete pass.”
Asked about the play after the game, Likely said, “They made a call, and we have to live with what the referees say.”
That series ended three plays later with a fourth-down incompletion to Mark Andrews at the goal line.
The Ravens held the Steelers on their next possession and got the ball back with 1:56 left. They drove into Steelers territory with time winding down, but Jackson was sacked at the Steelers’ 38 on the last play of the game.
With Ray Lewis, Jonathan Ogden and other members of the Ravens Super Bowl XXXV on hand, the Ravens jumped to a 3-0 lead on their opening drive, but they never led again after Rodgers carried around the left side for a 1-yard touchdown run midway through the first quarter.
The Steelers built the lead to 17-3 in the second quarter before Jackson scrambled and found an opening up the middle for a 6-yard touchdown run that capped a 60-yard drive. A missed extra-point kick kept the Steelers lead at 17-9.
Jackson had not rushed for a touchdown since Week 1, and he had not had a rushing or passing touchdown in the past three games, the first such stretch in his career.
Jackson’s 4-yard touchdown pass to Likely midway through the third quarter cut the Steelers lead to 20-16, but then the Ravens’ defense got caught badly out of position as Jaylen Warren took a short swing pass in the flat and raced untouched 38 yards for a touchdown and a 27-16 Steelers lead.
The Ravens were limited to two field goals by Loop after that, including a 28-yarder that came one play after a third-down pass glanced off the fingertips of Bateman.
Here are five quick impressions of the loss, which drops Jackson to 11-2 as a starter in December games at home:
1. Three controversial calls went against Baltimore and swung the game.
The play involving Isaiah Likely drew the most attention, but two other questionable calls also both went against Baltimore and had a major impact in the game.
In the second quarter, with the Steelers leading 10-3, kicker Chris Boswell hit a 32-yard field goal. But Ravens defensive lineman Travis Jones was called for unnecessary roughness against Steelers long snapper Christian Kuntz. The Steelers took the points off the board, and on the next play, Kenneth Gainwell raced around left end for a 6-yard touchdown and a 17-3 lead.
Replays appeared to show Jones rushing between Kuntz and left guard Ryan McCollum, but referee Alex Moore, in a pool report, said, “The calling official felt like the contact rose to the level of being unnecessary against a defenseless player.”
Ravens head coach John Harbaugh didn’t see it that way.
“I didn’t see the head and neck contact,” he said. “You need to have head and neck area contact there, and it has to be forceful contact, not incidental contact. But, I didn’t see any contact myself.”
Jones declined to comment on the officiating.
Then early in the fourth quarter, Rodgers had a pass tipped at the of scrimmage by defensive lineman C.J. Okoye. Rodgers pinned the ball against his helmet as he went toward the ground before it was ripped away by linebacker Teddye Buchanan for an apparent interception.
But after being reviewed — as all turnovers are — officials concluded Rodgers had possession of the ball and a knee down before Buchanan gained possession.
“He never lost control of the ball, and then his knees hit the ground in control,” Butterworth said in the pool report. “So therefore, by rule, he is down by contact with control of the ball.”
Again, Harbaugh disagreed.
“When you’re making a catch, you have to survive the ground,” Harbaugh said. “[Rodgers] didn’t survive the ground.”
The Steelers had a four-point swing on one of the calls, the Ravens lost six on another of the calls, and they lost a turnover on the third. The debate can go on, but the calls stood and proved to be too much to overcome.
2. The path to the postseason just got much tougher.
The stakes for this game were enormous, and while the Ravens continue to insist — accurately — that the division title is still within reach, the road just got much, much tougher.
The Ravens probably need to finish 9-8 to win the division, which means they must win three of their final four games. That includes road games at Cincinnati (4-9), Green Bay (9-3-1) and Pittsburgh, with a home game against New England (11-2) sprinkled in on Dec. 21. Rarely this year has this team showed the consistency that will be required to put that kind of run together against that caliber of competition.
The Steelers (7-6) now have a one-game lead, and host Miami (6-7), then visit Detroit (8-5) and Cleveland (3-10) before hosting the Ravens in the regular-season finale in early January. At this point, the Ravens’ goal needs to be to make that game matter.
And with the way the rest of the AFC is shaking out, it seems no team from the AFC North is advancing to the playoffs as a wild card. The only path to the postseason is a division title.
“We walk out of here with our chest out and our chin up, and we look to the next game,” Harbaugh said. “We are fighting, still, for everything that we want to accomplish. So, it’s tough. It’s been a tough, challenging road for sure, but that’s where we’re at, and we will keep fighting. We believe we can get it done.”
3. Aaron Rodgers can still make a throw. A huge breakdown helped him as well.
The Ravens had cut the Steelers’ lead to 20-16 in the third quarter and had some momentum after falling behind 17-3 in the second quarter. The defense needed to get a stop and give the ball back to the Ravens with a chance to take the lead.
Instead, Aaron Rodgers floated a perfectly placed pass to Calvin Austin down the left sideline for a gain of 31 yards on third-and-5. Three plays later, again facing third down, Rodgers hit Jaylen Warren with a swing pass in the right flat. The entire Ravens defense had been lured to the other side of the field, and by the time they recovered, it was too late. Warren raced untouched for a 38-yard touchdown and a 27-16 lead.
“There were a lot of breakdowns, a lot of misunderstandings,” Harbaugh said. We weren’t on the same page with assignments and things like that. That was one of our worst plays.”
The veteran Rodgers beat the Ravens in other ways as well.
Rodgers, who had not done much in the way of downfield passing this season, aired out a bomb to DK Metcalf on the Steelers’ first offensive play for a gain of 52 to set up their opening touchdown, a 1-yard run by Rodgers. He and Metcalf connected on the Steelers’ first play of the second half for 41. Metcalf finished with seven catches for 148 yards, his highest total in more than three years.
Rodgers might not be the Aaron Rodgers of his prime, but he made the plays he needed to — including his own “David Tyree”-type controversial catch of his own batted pass.
4. Lamar Jackson had his moments, but a lack of offensive rhythm remains a hallmark of this team.
After an opening drive that ended in a field goal, the Ravens’ next three drives netted two first downs, one interception and no points. They got back in the end zone late in the first half on a 6-yard touchdown run by Jackson, but for much of the season, offensive execution has seemed labored, with crisp, positive plays a nice surprise instead of an expectation.
There were bright spots in this game — Keaton Mitchell reeled off a 55-yard run before leaving the game with a knee injury, and the Ravens totaled 217 rushing yards — but many of the same issues that have hampered this offense were on display again.
More than once, Jackson’s pocket vanished because of an overwhelmed offensive line, and he was left to scuttle the ball into the ground to avoid a sack. He finished 19-for-35 for 219 yards, with one touchdown and one interception, which came on a third-down rollout when he opted against running and tried to float a pass to running back Rasheen Ali.
Jackson finished with a completion percentage of 54.3 percent, his fifth straight game under 60 percent. Before this stretch, he had never even had four such games in a row.
At times, the offense looked confused. At one point Mark Andrews frantically waved for Zay Flowers to move to another spot just before the snap. On third-and-2 from the Steelers’ 5-yard line in the fourth quarter, the Ravens looked a little disorganized before Derrick Henry was buried for a 3-yard loss.
“It was really chaotic,” said Harbaugh, who opted against taking a timeout. “There was a chance that we thought we were going to be able to get lined up right, and it didn’t work out that way.”
Then facing fourth-and-5, Jackson threw incomplete to Andrews at the goal line.
Derrick Henry and Rashod Bateman both dropped short passes while open, with Bateman’s coming in the red zone on third down.
Offensive coordinator Todd Monken and players week after week have stressed the importance of executing. What does that look like, exactly? Winning blocks? Catching passes? Lining up correctly? Something other than what it’s looked like most of this season.
The stark reality is the high-water mark for this offense might have been the first three quarters of Week 1 against Buffalo. The Ravens are running out of time to get to that level again.
5. If the Ravens lose at Cincinnati next week, this season of promise is all but finished.
After the game, head coach John Harbaugh declared, “The season is not over. [We’re] fighting for the AFC North for the next four games. That’s where we stand.”
Technically, he’s right, and the Ravens could yet rally to win the division title, a fact that is much more about the mediocre state of the division than the playoff worthiness of this team. Still, if the Ravens lose at Cincinnati next weekend, that might turn the lights out on that idea.
The Ravens would then have lost three straight games against divisional teams and could finish no better than 9-8 — and that would require wins over New England and at Green Bay and then a win at Pittsburgh in the season finale.
The Ravens must have fresh in their minds the 32-14 beatdown they took from the Bengals at M&T Bank Stadium on Thanksgiving night. They will need to be much better this time around.
One thing the Ravens have going for them: The Bengals are essentially already eliminated from the playoffs. After blowing a 10-point fourth-quarter lead in a 39-34 loss to Buffalo this week, the Bengals have fallen to 4-9 and are guaranteed a losing season. They’d probably like nothing more than to help get the Ravens to that point as well.
Lamar Jackson said after the game that his frustration level is “through the roof,” and he recognized that there is “no room for error.” But he still believes the division title is within reach.
“You just have to lock in and put it all on the line,” he said.
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