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A heroic understudy turn from Tyler Huntley and a string of clutch defensive plays gave the Ravens the 30-16 win they needed to keep their playoff hopes alive. Here are five things we learned from the game.

It’s just 1 win, but the Ravens are off life support

This would have been a big day for Ravens inside linebacker Roquan Smith no matter what. He came back from a hamstring injury to play his second-best game of the season and help the Ravens defeat his original team, the Chicago Bears.

But Smith understood the significance went beyond personal stakes. The Ravens needed to be reborn coming out of their bye week, needed to flush a 1-5 start and become something better before it was too late. A loss to Chicago would likely have been the death knell, and they staved it off with clutch defensive stands and a smart offensive outburst led by a quarterback no one wanted a few months earlier.

“I feel like the team got a fresh start,” Smith said afterward. “We’re just getting started on who we are.”

It must be said that the Ravens are still 2-5, with a mighty hill to climb if they’re to flirt with the lofty goals they carried into the season. But several veterans said they felt more like a 1-0 team Sunday afternoon, one that proved its mettle by beating a surging opponent without franchise quarterback Lamar Jackson.

“By no means does this mean anything is over,” Harbaugh said. “But this was a really important game for our team.”

Four teams have come back from 1-5 starts to make the playoffs. Only one, the 1970 Cincinnati Bengals, started 1-6 and made it. The Ravens will still have precious little margin for error over the next 10 weeks, but they looked into their grave and turned the other way.

Harbaugh liked that key players such as running back Derrick Henry and safety Kyle Hamilton did not seem overjoyed with the win, recognizing it as merely the first of many steps. But a resurrection has to begin somewhere.

This new beginning depended on Huntley’s accurate arm and chill resilience, on the deployment of an underused weapon in Keaton Mitchell, on a healthier defense rediscovering that it could be the aggressor after ceding ground early. It could be felt in the stands at M&T Bank Stadium, where previously disgruntled fans mustered familiar chants to egg on a team that clearly came to fight for its season.

A revival spirit pierced the gloom that had smothered the Ravens through six dismal weeks. They’re still at a fragile point, with a Thursday night win in Miami imperative if they’re going to make any of this stick.

But the season ain’t over, and for this weekend, that was the mission.

Buoyed by Todd Monken’s game plan, Tyler Huntley became an unexpected savior

Third-and-7 with the Ravens at midfield protecting a 23-16 lead. Huntley had to drop back and throw. The Bears knew he had to drop back and throw. A conversion might be the play to revive Baltimore’s playoff pulse.

Huntley looked calmly to his left and saw the one-on-one matchup he wanted: DeAndre Hopkins against press coverage, in perfect position to box out his defender. The throw arrived on target — 14 yards and the Ravens were on their way to a decisive touchdown.

Huntley, who wasn’t in the team’s plans — even its practice squad plans — until late August, was the unlikely hero plugging the breach left by his injured pal Jackson.

“He just kept great poise in critical moments,” Harbaugh said. “I don’t think you can play any better than that.”

Huntley can’t push the ball downfield like Jackson, but beleaguered coordinator Todd Monken put him in good positions to move the offense with short, quick throws and the occasional rollout to set up something bigger.

“Todd, his play-calling was just incredible,” said Harbaugh, who had expressed dissatisfaction with the Ravens’ offensive approach in a Week 4 loss to the Chiefs.

“I think he did a lot of great things with different personnel groups to make us less predictable,” said fullback Patrick Ricard, who returned from the calf injury that had sidelined him for the first six games. “He put guys in the right positions, and it showed with the way we were moving the ball, getting first downs, getting points on most of our drives.”

Huntley’s first-half line — 11-of-12 for 110 yards with no turnovers against the NFL’s most takeaway-happy defense — was close to a best-case scenario. If anything, he was better when it was time to salt the game away.

The Ravens’ signing of Cooper Rush as a hedge against a Jackson injury flatly did not work. Rush played poorly enough in his second start that coaches felt they could not go with him in a de facto playoff game against the Bears.

Harbaugh called going with Huntley an “easy decision,” though that will surely leave fans wondering why he didn’t make the switch sooner, given the Ravens’ offensive impotence in their previous two games without Jackson.

Huntley has greater credibility in the locker room, not because he can play like Jackson but because he has led the Ravens to tough wins (not to mention a competitive 2022 playoff loss). His relaxed, sunny demeanor never dims, even when the context — no Jackson, offense sputtering to 13 points over two games, playoffs a long shot — is bleak.

He texted Harbaugh during training camp, when he wasn’t with a team, wondering if a reunion might be possible. They talked on the phone shortly after, and Harbaugh recalled telling Huntley he might just win his old team a game this season.

Little did he know Huntey might be the one to save the 2025 Ravens.

2 early stands allowed the defense to seize the initiative

The Bears had kept the Ravens off-balance for eight minutes of a game-opening drive that seemed sure to conclude in the end zone. Until Mike Green came screaming around the outside shoulder of Chicago left tackle Theo Benedet to drop Caleb Williams for a 9-yard loss.

Ravens edge rushers had won precious few encounters over the season’s first six games. Green, who’d flashed again and again in preseason, was a key character in this woeful tale, with no sacks and just six pressures. But here, finally, was the play the Ravens had drafted him to make. Chicago had to settle for three points.

The Bears marched again on their next drive, eating up the remainder of the first quarter as they reached the cusp of the red zone. There was no dramatic sack to stop them this time, just sound run defense and coverage that forced them to accept another three points. Every statistic said the visitors owned the first quarter, but they led just 6-0.

“That was massive,” Harbaugh said. “That gives us life.”

Having survived its trial, the Ravens’ defense went on the attack, holding the Bears without a point on their next three drives. Hamilton blitzed in to drill Williams on third down after a 50-yard kickoff return by former Raven Devin Duvernay gave Chicago golden field position. Smith prowled the entire field, leading the Ravens with 12 tackles and stabilizing their pass coverage. Cornerback Marlon Humphrey delivered nasty hits and a near strip in his best performance of the season. After he was picked on in the first half, cornerback Nate Wiggins made the defensive play of the game in the second, picking off Williams to set up a 9-yard touchdown drive.

This was defense as the Ravens imagined they’d play it coming into the season, before disastrous outings against the Bills, Lions, Chiefs and Texans, before the raft of injuries that had them cursing the fates. They found something in their pre-bye loss to the Rams, and this was another important step.

“It was clear that we were the more dominant defense,” Green said. “I think everybody was sticking together, cohesive off one another.”

That collective confidence would have remained elusive without the early stops. Smith said that’s how it’s supposed to work; the Ravens learned how Bears coach Ben Johnson intended to attack them and then settled down once his scripted opening was complete.

“Throughout the season, we’ve been a bend-and-then-break team,” Hamilton said. “We gave up long drives and then touchdowns, and I feel like just growing up throughout the season as a defense, we have become a bend-but-don’t-break team.”

Murky communication around Lamar Jackson is part of what ails this franchise

In the moments after his team fell to 1-5 with a loss to the Rams, Harbaugh sought to kindle hope by reminding reporters and fans: “Our quarterback is going to be back.”

That was the message of hope meant to carry a wobbling franchise into its bye week.

When the team returned to practice last Monday, no Jackson. Two days later, he trotted out late but apparently took few enough reps that Hamilton seemed flummoxed by a question about how the franchise quarterback had looked. By Friday afternoon, however, Harbaugh said Jackson had participated fully in that day’s practice. Would the Ravens have their most important player for a do-or-die game against the Bears? Harbaugh did nothing to rule out the possibility.

A day later, optimism crumbled as the Ravens not only announced Jackson wouldn’t play but retroactively listed him as a limited participant in Friday’s practice.

Did Harbaugh really think Jackson might still play when he spoke to reporters Friday? Was he unaware of the NFL rule that says a starter must be listed as a limited participant if he takes only scout team reps? Did the Ravens perhaps not fully grasp their signature player’s health status?

There’s no good look to be found in any of these scenarios. Fans, analysts and bettors have ripped the Ravens for blundering into this mess less than 48 hours after an NBA gambling scandal dominated national headlines. Punishment from the NFL will likely come next.

Harbaugh said after Sunday’s game he didn’t know the rule that should have kept the Ravens from listing Jackson as a full participant. “As soon as we found out, we changed it,” he said. “It really is an honest mistake. I can tell you this: Nobody is trying to hide anything. There’s no advantage to be gained with that. [Lamar] practiced. His status was what it was. He was questionable.”

But confused messaging around Jackson’s health is nothing new for this franchise. When No. 8 is playing brilliantly and the Ravens are winning, there’s no team more exhilarating to follow. When the Ravens lose with their best player missing in action, things get weird.

We need to look back just three years to recall the vague information and paranoia that percolated after Jackson injured his knee in a Week 13 win over the Denver Broncos. Week after week, Harbaugh publicly nurtured hopes that Jackson would be back, if not by the end of the regular season, at least for the first round of the 2022 playoffs. But Jackson never returned, and near the end of the saga he tweeted out his own update on what he called a Grade 2, borderline Grade 3 injury to his PCL. A few months later, at a negotiating impasse with general manager Eric DeCosta, he requested a trade, only to reverse course and sign an extension a month after that.

Could we be in for a similar period of disquiet this time around, with the team’s playoff chances again imperiled and another Jackson extension looming? It’s too early to say, but it can’t be ruled out.

These situations are difficult to parse, even for those who cover the team daily. Does the confusion flow from Jackson’s communication (or lack thereof) with his coaches and front office? Is it more how the Ravens choose to talk about their franchise quarterback?

Or is it C: all of the above?

Fans leap to blame Harbaugh, already the chief subject of their ire. But that’s not entirely fair.

DeCosta conferred with Harbaugh at length before the coach spoke about Jackson’s status Friday. The general manager doesn’t take questions from reporters during the season, but he’s (at least) an equal architect of the Ravens’ roster and messaging.

Then there’s Jackson, a joyous, magical player who can do no wrong in the eyes of many. It’s rarely a good look to shame a great athlete for not playing before he feels healthy. That’s not what we’re doing here. But Jackson is not just another player. He’s powerful enough, within the franchise and without, to insist on clearer messaging about his health, his contract, etc. Yet here we are again.

Regardless of how we apportion culpability, owner Steve Bisciotti needs to demand better, because fans’ faith in the franchise is at stake.

Now, the Ravens really are set up to make a run

They won’t face a better opponent than the Bears, on paper anyway, until they host the Pittsburgh Steelers the first Sunday in December.

The Dolphins thrashed the Falcons on Sunday, but they’ve been a laughingstock for most of the season. The Vikings, up after that, were just blown out by the Chargers and don’t have a starting quarterback they can feel good about. The Browns usually play the Ravens tough in Cleveland but struggle to score against almost everyone. The Jets, despite a stunning comeback Sunday against the Bengals, might be the most woebegone of all.

We spent much of the last month saying the schedule would aid the Ravens’ quest for an improbable turnaround, and now, here we are, staring at a long string of games in which they’ll be favored.

Of the five teams that have beaten them, four ranked in the top 10 in DVOA (Aaron Schatz’s metric measuring team efficiency) going into Sunday, and the other was perennial contender Buffalo. Their next five opponents ranked 30th, 22nd, 26th, 27th and 29th in DVOA going into Sunday. That’s a massive shift, no matter what notes of caution we want to issue about the Ravens not being good enough to take any win for granted.

Jackson returned to practice last week, probably with an eye on facing the Dolphins more than the Bears. Harbaugh was careful to make no promises, saying only that he’s hopeful, but if Jackson does play in Miami, he’ll lead the healthiest version of the Ravens we’ve seen since mid-September.

Urgency shouldn’t be a problem, because the Ravens understand they’ll probably still need to win eight of their last 10 to feel good about their playoff chances.

They have a chance.