The Ravens never hit fourth gear in Minnesota, but they were the more poised team in a 27-19 road win over the Vikings that juiced their playoff push. Here are five things we learned from the game.

Now we can say the Ravens’ quest for an improbable playoff berth is no long shot

Rock bottom was only a month ago. The Ravens mustered all of three points against the Los Angeles Rams as their home fans booed and chanted for mass firings. Their flock’s serenade of discontent hit hard, as did the mathematical reality that only four teams had rallied from 1-5 starts to make the NFL playoffs.

Coach John Harbaugh and his team’s senior stars maintained that a resurrection was possible, but we wondered if their words amounted to little more than perfunctory dressing on a dead turkey.

Hope glimmered in a spirited win over the Bears coming off their bye week, then hardened into belief with quarterback Lamar Jackson’s triumphant return in a thumping of the Dolphins. With a string of going-nowhere opponents on the schedule, a lengthy winning streak no longer felt like a wild fantasy.

The Vikings, another 2024 playoff team looking to climb back from an unsightly start, were the catch in this vision. They too came into Sunday’s game believing they were back on track, ready to double down after a stirring victory over the Detroit Lions. They would feed on the disruption caused by cacophonous home fans, egged on by the bellicose war horns at U.S. Bank Stadium.

If the Ravens could maintain their upward trajectory in the face of all that, we could take them seriously. If not, their ascent from NFL purgatory would look a heck of a lot steeper.

They did not exactly meet this test with a display of beautiful football. Too many futile trips to the red zone. Too many frayed nerves in the wake of Minnesota’s desperate touchdown drive to pull within one score deep in the fourth quarter.

The thundering Ravens we saw down the stretch last season would have won by three touchdowns.

But that wasn’t really the point. They just needed to hold it together in a difficult environment and move one stroke closer to above-water. By that standard, they passed a crucial test.

“They make it tough on you. So [we knew] it was going to be a grinder type of a game, especially in this environment,” Harbaugh said. “I think both sides of the ball did a great job of handling the grind of the schemes and the good players that they have, and also the environment of the sound and all that.”

The Ravens still cannot afford to take any week for granted. “Everyone’s happy when they win, but I feel like our mood hasn’t changed,” Jackson said. “We’re still locked in. We still feel like we’re 1-5, because we’re still behind in our division.”

They go to Cleveland next Sunday, and they need to think back only a year (29-24 Browns on Oct. 27, 2024) to remember what a viper pit that can be, no matter how badly the Browns struggle to score. The Bengals and old friend Joe Flacco will be eager to throw a drumstick-shaped wrench in their playoff plans on Thanksgiving night. The Steelers, Lady Luck’s eternal favorite, loom in early December.

But, man, this thing looks doable, especially if the Ravens sharpen up on short yardage and in the red zone while continuing to play with sticky hands on defense.

It was refreshing to see the Ravens be the more poised team

All week, we heard how they’d have to maintain their composure in the face of Minnesota defensive coordinator Brian Flores’ blitzes, with the crowd’s din complicating every step. Could the Ravens, defined by squandered opportunities and amateurish miscommunication during their 1-5 start, avoid self-immolation in this unwelcoming environment?

As it turned out, they were not the combustible outfit in Sunday’s reclamation square-off. It was the Vikings who turned the ball over three times, committed 13 penalties (including eight false starts) and played like decapitated chickens in the two-minute drill.

The Ravens didn’t maximize their chances on offense, which we’ll get to in a moment. But they also did not self-destruct. For this bunch, that’s progress.

“I think that’s what won the game for us; I really do,” Harbaugh said. “I think the poise under pressure, handling the noise — one presnap penalty, no turnovers in this environment. And it’s the twofold noise. It’s the noise of the crowd, which is incredible, and it’s also the noise of the defense and the noise they create with all their schemes and the way they play.”

We’re so used to saying the Ravens won because Jackson was miraculous. He really wasn’t in Minnesota, finishing without a completion longer than 27 yards or a run longer than 8. He failed to surpass a 100 passer rating for just the fourth time in his last 21 regular-season starts.

Jackson’s greatest achievement in Minnesota was not getting flustered. He didn’t take terrible sacks or cough the ball up. His young Vikings counterpart, J.J. McCarthy, did.

After spending the first six weeks of their season in a takeaway desert, the Ravens have won the turnover battle three weeks in a row. They’ve been whistled for 13 fewer penalties than their opponents over the three-game winning streak.

It turns out that not beating yourself is the first step toward beating everyone else.

We’re still waiting to see a true Ravens offense

Jackson acted decisively against the Vikings’ pressure but faced too many third-and-longs because Minnesota smothered the Ravens’ ground game for most of the first half.

We’ve seen it again and again. This offense just isn’t consistent in obvious running situations, a strength the Ravens took for granted in past seasons with Jackson at quarterback. We thought fullback Patrick Ricard’s return from a calf injury might be the fix, but he was among the culprits who failed to execute key short-yardage blocks Sunday.

It was dodgy enough that the Ravens felt compelled to have tight end Mark Andrews take a direct snap and pitch the ball to Jackson just to convert on third-and-1 in the third quarter. Cool play, but you’d like to be able to get that yardage straight up.

They saved their most effective running for the 11-play touchdown drive that put them up 14 in the fourth quarter, so they can still wear opponents down. It’s just puzzling how often that old, familiar punch is missing.

The Ravens also kept themselves short of scoring position with outright sloppiness.

Andrews and Isaiah Likely couldn’t get their hands around second- and third-down throws that would have put Baltimore in the red zone on its second drive.

It was the offensive line’s turn on drive No. 3. Andrew Vorhees set the Ravens back to second-and-11 with a false start. Then Vikings defensive tackle Jonathan Allen wrecked a well-designed screen because Daniel Faalele couldn’t steer him out of the way.

All these hiccups kept the Ravens from blowing open a game in which they dominated the takeaway battle and lived on the Vikings’ side of the field.

No team moved the ball, picked up first downs or scored more efficiently in the red zone last season. This 2025 offense is still searching for its footing, a point Jackson made louder than anyone after Sunday’s win.

“[It gives] a lot of confidence,” he said, answering a question about the Ravens’ improved defense. “But I’d have even more if we were putting points on the board like we should.”

The three-safety look has made all the difference, and not just for Kyle Hamilton

When the Ravens traded for Alohi Gilman, we leaped to conclude that a third starting safety would free Hamilton to embrace his destiny as a nuclear rover.

It turns out that was only the most obvious benefit from adding an astute, rugged veteran to their defensive backbone. Gilman’s presence has helped rookie Malaki Starks become the back-end playmaker the Ravens envisioned when they picked him in the first round out of Georgia.

Starks, whose errors outnumbered his impact plays during the team’s 1-5 start, has graded as a Pro Bowl-level safety the last two weeks.

On Sunday, he dropped All-Pro wide receiver Justin Jefferson with a clutch open-field tackle that forced Minnesota to settle for a field goal in the second quarter.

On the Vikings’ next drive, Starks, playing classic center fielder, read McCarthy’s intention to throw deep and leaped over Jefferson to snare his second interception in as many weeks.

It’s not that Gilman deserves the credit for Starks’ maturation. Recall that we saw similar improvement from Hamilton over the course of his rookie season. Great players — and it’s too early to say Starks will climb that high — aren’t always great from day one.

“God forbid a rookie takes more than seven games in the NFL to get adjusted,” Hamilton said. “He’s 21 years old, but he acts like a 31-year-old, like he’s been in it for 10 years. He’s back there making calls. He’s back there encouraging guys in the locker room, all this stuff, and you can see why he was so high on the Ravens’ [draft] board and I’m sure a lot of other teams’ boards and why people at UGA speak so highly of him. …

“He’s just been showing you the past few weeks, and I told him after the game that he’s only going to build on that.”

But everything seems to make more sense with these three safeties on the field together.

Hamilton made just one assisted tackle and created no turnovers Sunday; he still managed to look like the game’s most impactful defender. He bolted across the field to blow up a trick play on which Jefferson whipped a pass back to the hard-running McCarthy. He was the team’s most effective pass rusher, hitting McCarthy once and batting down two of his passes. No role seems beyond him.

The safeties aren’t the only ones lifting this defense to respectability. Shoutout to tackle Travis Jones, who capped his stretch of recent dominance with a sack and three quarterback hits against the Vikings. And to rookie edge rusher Mike Green, who seems to make a memorable play every week.

Good health is also a major factor.

But there’s no denying the Ravens made an important course correction with their not-so-obvious decision to sacrifice edge rusher Odafe Oweh for a solid, unspectacular safety who has allowed them to reimagine their big picture.

Dre’Mont Jones made his presence felt, even if the sacks did not flow

Of course fans wanted more from general manager Eric DeCosta before Tuesday’s trade deadline. Couldn’t he conjure a replacement for dearly missed defensive tackle Nnaamdi Madubuike, even though no such player moved for anything resembling a reasonable price?

DeCosta addressed the team’s most pressing need when he traded a midround pick for Jones, a pass rusher more acclaimed for his durability and versatility than his sack totals.

A headline addition on par with Sauce Gardner to the Colts or Quinnen Williams to the Cowboys? Nah. An immediately useful supplement to an undermanned unit? Jones wasted no time showing he is that, playing nearly as many snaps as Green and Kyle Van Noy and registering two of the team’s 12 hits on McCarthy.

Jones powered around the outside shoulder of Vikings right tackle Brian O’Neill to force a McCarthy throwaway and give the Ravens a chance to add three points before halftime.

He also lined up inside, showing how he’ll give coordinator Zach Orr flexibility to employ stunts and other deceptions. Orr needs to reach for any tool he can to charge up a pass rush that will have to produce more if the Ravens are to be a dangerous team in January. Like Gilman, Jones will help the puzzle fit together, even if his statistics never scream Pro Bowl.

“I love his versatility,” Orr said last week. “He came in as an interior guy. I think that his ability to really kick out on the edge and continue to hold his power and show his athleticism is a testament to his hard work. But I love his versatility, in the run game and the pass game. [He is] a guy who can play across the line of scrimmage for us.”

Jones acknowledged he’s no longer carrying the 281 pounds listed as his official weight but added that he’s plenty big enough to play wherever he’s needed. “I’m probably 15 pounds less than that, but I’m doing my thing. I’m still pretty powerful, so I fluctuate between inside and outside. I think I can handle it.”