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BALTIMORE — The remnants of a celebration were still evident in the Baltimore Ravens’ locker room after most of the players and coaches had exited into a cold and windy Saturday night. The unmistakable smell of cigar smoke hung in the air. A few copies of commemorative newspaper prints with the headline “Champs Again” lay on the floor near half-packed equipment bags. The few players who remained wore T-shirts and hats adorned with “AFC North champions.”
A 35-10 victory over the Cleveland Browns on Saturday checked off the first goal from Baltimore’s ledger. Despite starting 0-2, and despite being two games back of the Pittsburgh Steelers as late as Week 14, the Ravens finished with four straight wins to end the regular season with a 12-5 record and repeat as AFC North champs. They’ll open the playoffs as the No. 3 seed at home next weekend.
GO DEEPER
Ravens beat Browns 35-10 to clinch AFC North, Jackson makes history: Takeaways
If the Los Angeles Chargers beat the Las Vegas Raiders on Sunday, the Ravens will face the Steelers, who lost to the Cincinnati Bengals on Saturday night. If the Raiders win, the Ravens will face the Chargers in another matchup of the Harbaugh brothers.
“We’re going to enjoy it tonight, and we’re going to watch games tomorrow and see who we play, but we’re moving on for what we’ve been working for,” Ravens coach John Harbaugh said. “Because last year when we were in the locker room after the AFC Championship Game, we knew we had a long road to go to get back to this very point. You get back in the playoffs with an opportunity to take the next step, and we’re not there yet. We have a next game. We have a wild-card game to get ready for, so that will be our next challenge.”
Harbaugh stayed in the interview room to listen to quarterback Lamar Jackson and linebacker Kyle Van Noy answer questions. He applauded when Van Noy brought up late offensive line coach Joe D’Alessandris and his family. Otherwise, the Ravens celebration that followed the win was neither raucous nor lengthy. Most of the players didn’t linger.
Maybe the celebration was tempered somewhat by the second-quarter knee injury sustained by wide receiver Zay Flowers, or maybe it was because of the knowledge that another big game was a week away. However, it was well earned, given the hole the Ravens dug out of to win arguably the AFC’s best division.
“I’m focused on the wild-card game, I’m not gonna lie to you,” said Jackson, who added two more touchdown passes and 280 total yards to his season’s resume. “I’m cool (with) what’s going on today. I’m cool, don’t get me wrong, but my mind is on something else.”
Jackson understands the mission. He’s been preaching it all season. Last year’s AFC championship loss at home to the Kansas City Chiefs, along with previous playoff failures, left this Ravens team in an unenviable position heading into this season. This team was never going to be judged by what happens over the grueling 18 weeks of the regular season. It was always going to be about the playoffs.
That’s the harsh reality after coming up short last year and losing in either the wild-card or divisional round in four of the five preceding seasons. It’s also the harsh reality of having an MVP quarterback in his prime. You only get so many chances to make a Super Bowl run.
But the Ravens still had to make the playoffs first while also putting themselves in the best position to succeed once they got there. They would have loved to get the AFC’s lone bye, but the chances of that were all but extinguished when they lost their first two games and the Chiefs won their first nine.
In many respects, Baltimore did this the hard way. It rebounded from a difficult start, then aced a brutal three-games-in-11-days stretch, winning all of them by double digits. If the Bengals or Denver Broncos get the seventh and final playoff spot in the AFC, the Ravens will have played every team in the conference’s postseason field, along with two certain NFC postseason clubs (the Philadelphia Eagles and Washington Commanders) and one likely one (Tampa Bay Buccaneers).
“I know all teams go through it, but just this specific group, coaches included, starting 0-2, just the journey of the season, to be where we’re at with the strength of schedule that coach just talked about, to be where we’re at, division champs in arguably the best division,” said Van Noy. “I know everyone thinks it’s the NFC North, but … still the AFC North, I think, is the toughest division. To come out champs, it’s awesome, and we’re grateful to celebrate that tonight. But we have bigger and better things to worry about, which is the wild-card weekend.”
So distraught about the 17-10 loss to the Chiefs last January and coming up one step short of the Super Bowl, Van Noy acknowledged that he didn’t leave his house for a week. The disappointment lingered throughout the offseason, and the Ravens got another reminder in September when they were the Chiefs’ opponent at Arrowhead Stadium for the opener.
“This is all great, but our mindset has changed to get this first game,” Van Noy said. “We’re not guaranteed anything after next week, so our main focus is to get to next week and to get that 1-0 mindset.”
The Ravens will certainly need to play better than they did Saturday night against a bruised and battered Browns team that seemed more interested in preserving a better draft pick than winning the game. Jackson (16-of-32 for 217 passing yards, and nine carries for 63 rushing yards) wasn’t particularly sharp. There were two failed fourth downs in Browns territory, a flurry of drops and 10 total penalties.
However, the game was never in doubt after rookie Nate Wiggins returned his first career interception for a touchdown about midway through the first quarter. Jackson threw touchdown passes to wide receiver Rashod Bateman and tight end Mark Andrews. He wasn’t at his best, but he made one final case for his third MVP award, finishing the season with 4,172 passing yards, 41 touchdown passes to four interceptions, 915 rushing yards and four more scores. He’s the first player in NFL history to throw for over 4,000 yards and run for over 900.
Nate Wiggins takes his first career interception to the crib!
📺: #CLEvsBAL on ESPN/ABC
📱: Stream on #NFLPlus and ESPN+ pic.twitter.com/X7qwgp4NiS— NFL (@NFL) January 4, 2025
The offense that he leads became the first in NFL history to throw for over 4,000 yards and run for over 3,000 yards.
“It’s almost like, ‘Say less.’ What else needs to be said?” Harbaugh said of Jackson’s body of work. “And, not just that, but the dude is a competitor. He’s a fighter. He’s just one of a kind. There’s nobody like Lamar Jackson. He’s in the locker room, and he’s not happy about the last drive, and we didn’t handle it great, and we had some personnel challenges and all of that stuff, and he wants everything to be perfect, everything. That’s why these numbers are the way they are, because of who he is.”
Derrick Henry had just 8 yards on six carries in the first half. He finished with 138 yards and two touchdowns, leaving him with 1,921 rushing yards and 18 total touchdowns on the season. Henry scored two touchdowns in a three-plus-minute span of the fourth quarter to turn the game into a laugher. And 355-pound nose tackle Michael Pierce set off a team-wide celebration with his first career interception of Bailey Zappe.
BIG BIG MAN INT! Michael Pierce drops and coverage at 355 pounds and picks it off!
📺: #CLEvsBAL on ESPN/ABC
📱: Stream on #NFLPlus and ESPN+ pic.twitter.com/sjMZjhmPuu— NFL (@NFL) January 5, 2025
The Ravens greeted Pierce after his awkward slide, mobbing him and bouncing up and down alongside him. The celebration continued to the sideline.
The Ravens know what comes next and are already looking forward. They don’t know yet whether they’ll have Flowers, who will have an MRI on Sunday. Harbaugh said the Pro Bowl receiver “has a chance to be OK” for the postseason. They also don’t know yet who they’ll play.
But they’re back in the playoffs, where their season was going to be judged all along.
“We’ve been in this position,” Andrews said. “We want to take advantage of it.”
(Photo of Lamar Jackson and Derrick Henry: Greg Fiume / Getty Images)
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