Join the huddle. Sign up here for Ravens updates in your inbox.

The Ravens showed proof of life on defense and in their running attack but not enough to overcome critical mistakes that doomed them to a 17-3 loss to the Los Angeles Rams on Sunday. They’re 1-5, a chasm from which only four teams have climbed to make the playoffs. Here are five things we learned from the game.

The Ravens mustered enough will, barely, to suggest they’re not done with 2025

With Lamar Jackson nursing his injured hamstring, their chances of beating the Rams, who could easily have come to Baltimore undefeated, were not good.

The Las Vegas oddsmakers knew it. So did every rational fan in M&T Bank Stadium.

What the Ravens needed to do was produce evidence of a collective heartbeat. If they couldn’t avoid falling to 1-5, perhaps they could nurture hope for life after their impending bye week.

Another loss as humiliating as their 44-10 meltdown against the Houston Texans would have left no room for belief.

Graded on that merciful curve, the Ravens narrowly passed. They defended and ran the ball well enough to compete with an NFC playoff contender.

“We put ourselves in position where we could have won that football game,” coach John Harbaugh said.

He wasn’t wrong as far as that went.

But how much does a flicker of competitiveness mitigate the crushing disappointment around the Ravens? A team expected to play in the Super Bowl will need a desperate 11-game rally just to defy history and scrape into the playoffs. No one fathomed that the Ravens could go into their bye week as a beat-up dumpster fire with fans flocking for the exits and clamoring for regime change.

No, Sunday’s loss was not as pathetic as the one seven days earlier, but the Ravens did little to pierce the gloom that has settled over Baltimore’s football present.

“We know it’s rough right now,” said running back Derrick Henry, expressing empathy for exasperated fans. “They want to see a good product out there.”

So where do they go from here? Will we see fundamental differences when the Ravens host the Chicago Bears on Oct. 26?

Harbaugh tried to strike an optimistic tone in the moments after this latest defeat, arguing the Ravens have much to build on, especially with Jackson’s expected return against the Bears. Asked if he expects to change his staff during the bye week — defensive coordinator Zach Orr’s seat is probably hottest — he said he does not.

Players made their own cases for hope.

“I wish we could play tomorrow,” Henry said.

“Absolutely,” center Tyler Linderbaum replied when asked if the Ravens could rally. “Absolutely.”

Those are the words coaches and players are supposed to utter in these circumstances. Their tunnel vision has to be absolute. Will owner Steve Bisciotti and general manager Eric DeCosta take similar views of a roster that will be undermanned at key spots — edge rusher, both lines — even with the expected returns of Jackson and linebacker Roquan Smith? Or might the Ravens’ top decision-makers retrench with an eye on rebuilding quality depth for 2026?

With only two games left before the Nov. 4 trade deadline, the Ravens will need resounding wins over the Bears and Miami Dolphins to argue for continued investment in this season. They mustered just enough will Sunday to hint that they’re not dead yet. But only just enough.

For every wound the Ravens healed, two more opened

One direct-snap tush push by Mark Andrews? Fine, mix it up at the goal line. If he doesn’t get it, at least the clock runs.

But another on third-and-goal when you have Henry? That call strained credulity, and fans at M&T Bank Stadium rightly booed when it didn’t work.

That anger intensified after Rams star edge rusher Jared Verse stuffed Henry on fourth down, depriving the Ravens of their chance to go into halftime with an actual lead. A cluster of fans chanted “Fire Harbaugh,” an apt indication of where this town stands with its team’s coaching staff.

Harbaugh said the play calls weren’t the issue. “We didn’t get any push,” he said. “You’ve got to get pad under pad and push, and we didn’t do it. … That’s on us.”

“I mean, they were just better, better at the line of scrimmage,” Henry said. “It pisses me off.”

The sad thing was that red-zone travesty — boy has the goal line become a nightmare for this team — overshadowed a genuine rebound for the Ravens’ ground attack.

They came out stabbing at the heart of the Rams’ defense, running eight times for 51 yards on the game’s opening drive. That was more than they managed in four quarters a week earlier. Holding penalties on Daniel Faalele and Ronnie Stanley kept them from threatening the end zone, but at least they channeled the brute force that set them apart in years past.

Henry, running hard and benefiting from improved line play, was easily the team’s best weapon, just not potent enough to overcome the bumbling around him.

The Ravens’ maddening attraction to self-defeat resurfaced in the third quarter, when Zay Flowers — probably their most dependable playmaker through five weeks — cut short consecutive drives with a fumble and a botched jet-sweep exchange.

Without Jackson’s magic to bail them out, the Ravens could not afford 80 yards in penalties, three turnovers and another failure from the 1-yard line. But they’re sloppy to the core, and that buck has to stop with Harbaugh.

“We made some critical mistakes that cost us an opportunity to win the game, and that’s really what it boils down to,” he acknowledged.

The defense looked different enough to give Zach Orr a reprieve

When the Ravens traded outside linebacker Odafe Oweh for safety Alohi Gilman last week, the most interesting beneficiary was Kyle Hamilton. Gilman’s dependable presence on the back end would allow Hamilton to play closer to the line of scrimmage, as he had during his 2023 breakout season. Or so the thinking went.

In fact, Hamilton, back from a groin injury and wearing the green dot as the team’s defensive signal caller, did play more like a linebacker against the Rams. The entire defense did make more sense around him, holding the Rams to 3.2 yards per run attempt and preventing the sustained drives that had killed the Ravens the previous three weeks.

They benefited from poor red-zone throws by Rams quarterback Matthew Stafford and from the temporary absence of superstar wide receiver Puka Nacua after he hurt his ankle in the second quarter.

But, for the first time since Week 2, the Ravens’ defense was not the problem.

“I thought our defense played pretty darn well against a high-powered offense,” Harbaugh said. “We needed to see that. We added a safety [Gilman]. I thought that dynamic was a good dynamic for us on defense. When you watch that, you’re probably going to feel pretty good about that when you watch that tape again.”

Defensive tackle John Jenkins snatched the ball from Stafford after he bulled up the middle in the first quarter, a desperately needed spark that led to no points because the Baltimore offense sputtered.

Gilman fit in easily. Linebacker Trenton Simpson played well. The interior line delivered its best performance of the season.

Significant problems remain, most obviously the Ravens’ inability to create pressure and their alarming lack of quality depth on the edge (exacerbated when Tavius Robinson broke his foot Sunday).

But, if fans thought players had quit on Orr, their performance Sunday suggested otherwise. That doesn’t absolve him of blame for the confusion and poor fundamentals we have seen all too often. It does mean there’s basis to think a healthier defense will improve if he’s still leading it over the next 11 games.

“I’ve seen a lot of football,” the 36-year-old Jenkins said. “At the end of the day, Zach is a good [defensive coordinator].”

John Harbaugh and Todd Monken waited too long to go with Tyler Huntley

Harbaugh said the plan was to use both Cooper Rush and Huntley, so why didn’t we see a quarterback change until the Ravens were down 14 in the fourth quarter?

Rush had played better against the Texans than his horrid statistical line suggested, but he threw a bad interception in the first half Sunday and showed no capacity to push the ball down the field. When his pocket collapsed, he could not create any offense with his legs.

The Ravens gave Rush a two-year, $6.2 million deal in March, thinking he would be the stable backup Jackson had lacked. Instead, the team’s passing offense felt dead on arrival.

We saw Huntley’s limitations when he had to step in for Jackson in 2021 and 2022. His failure to stick as another team’s backup provided further evidence. But at least he provides spark as a scrambler when a play breaks down, and the offense started to move when he entered against the Rams.

Asked if he was surprised to be pulled in favor of Huntley, Rush said: “Maybe. Probably. You don’t think you’re coming out ever, but it’s part of the deal.”

He didn’t sound like a player who went into the game expecting to share snaps.

Huntley didn’t shed much light, saying, “The plan was, when they called upon me, I had to be ready.”

Harbaugh said he didn’t see an earlier moment to make the switch, but the start of the second half, after Rush finished the first with a 21.5 passer rating, would have made sense.

Neither Rush nor Huntley can do a passable Jackson imitation, and there’s no escaping the Ravens’ blah offensive identity without No. 8.

That stipulated, Harbaugh and Monken could have tried to spark something by turning to Huntley when a comeback was within reach.

History says the Ravens’ playoff chances are toast, but don’t throw them in the waste bin just yet

The Ravens’ post-bye assignment will be clear: Win every week with no letup. Three of the teams that started 1-5 and made the playoffs closed their seasons 9-1, 10-0 and 7-0.

The Ravens, working with a 17-game schedule, probably don’t have to be that good, but they will have to go 9-2 to feel good about their playoff chances.

Is that possible? Sure. We’ve seen them go on extended tears in the Jackson era: 12 straight wins to close the 2019 season, 12-3 after an 0-2 start last year.

Assuming Jackson looks fit and the defense doesn’t lose anyone else, the Ravens could be favored in every game they play until they visit the Green Bay Packers three days after Christmas. They have five dates left with their underwhelming AFC North competitors, meaning they’ll have many direct chances to alter the standings.

This sounds like fairytale talk, given what we’ve witnessed to date, but the Bears, Dolphins, Browns, Jets and Bengals are teams to get well against.

The mathematical hill in front of the Ravens is daunting.

Even with a healthier roster and an easier schedule, they’ll have to be a different team than the one we’ve seen. The feeble run defense, the negative turnover margin, the shoddy blocking, the fourth-quarter meltdowns — they won’t have room for any of that mess.

But somehow there is still a path, and it’s not impossible to imagine that we could be having a very different conversation about this team in two months.

“Like I told the guys, what we’ve got to be able to do is understand, really, how close you are sometimes, and you can’t allow the weight of the disappointment or the weight of the scrutiny — you can’t allow that to derail you or to sidetrack you or to push you away from your goal,” Harbaugh said. “Because we can accomplish what we want to accomplish. We can do it. We’re the kind of team that can do it.”