Five things we learned from the Ravens’ 17-10 loss to the Pittsburgh Steelers

The Ravens had every chance to blow out the Pittsburgh Steelers and instead came home with a stunning 17-10 loss thanks to late turnovers from Lamar Jackson, inexplicable drops from his pass catchers and a critical lapse on special teams.

Here are five things we learned from the game.

This was a disaster we’ll remember

Where to start?

Jackson is the franchise player, and he failed in the clutch, short-arming a pass to Odell Beckham Jr. in the end zone when the Ravens had a golden chance to capitalize on a Steelers special teams fumble. A touchdown or even a field goal might have put Pittsburgh away. Instead, Jackson’s interception fed into the Steelers’ go-ahead touchdown drive. He had time to answer that blow. Instead, he fumbled for the seventh time this season.

But Jackson would never have been in position to flub the game away had his receivers simply caught the beautiful passes he threw over the first three quarters. The Ravens shared their disgrace in this respect, with Zay Flowers, Mark Andrews, Rashod Bateman and Nelson Agholor passing around the dropsies like a highly contagious strain of flu. In an alternate reality, Jackson might have enjoyed one of the most productive passing days of his career.

Perhaps we want to look away from the offense to lament the Steelers blocking a punt in the end zone, another misfire from a Ravens special teams unit accustomed to being one of the NFL’s finest.

Or maybe we want to question coach John Harbaugh going for a fourth-down conversion instead of banking an easy field goal just before halftime. Harbaugh later clarified that he did want to kick a field goal and the play only went forward because of miscommunication — center Tyler Linderbaum snapped the ball, because he thought a Steelers player jumped into the neutral zone — but that too falls on him and his staff.

“That’s kind of an example really of where we’re at,” Harbaugh said. “We just have to get better at operational things and just clean stuff up and make those plays.”

Even the defense, which had cut off the Steelers at every turn for more than three quarters, faltered in the end. Pro Bowl cornerback Marlon Humphrey, playing for the first time this season, could not maintain contact with Pittsburgh’s most gifted receiver, George Pickens, on the 41-yard touchdown that buried the Ravens.

As we said after they lost to the Indianapolis Colts in overtime two weeks earlier, if they had converted on any one of a half dozen chances, they would have defeated an inferior opponent. The Ravens are oh so close to being 5-0 with a meaningful lead in the AFC North and as clear a path to the playoffs as you could have in the second week of October. Instead, they’re 3-2, headed for London with only their regrets to keep them company on the long flight.

We could laugh it off as more Ravens-Steelers wackiness, but this was not that. This was a Ravens team that seemed to be getting healthy and rounding into form against a wounded rival that might have been ready to crumble coming off an ugly 30-6 loss to the Houston Texans. Instead, the Ravens left the door wide-open, and eventually, it slammed back in their faces.

“I believe so,” Jackson said when asked if the Ravens gave the game away. “We didn’t want to, but [we had] little mishaps. We’re right there. We had [the Steelers] beat.”

As soon as their woes ended, the Texas Rangers commenced pounding the Orioles at Camden Yards. A day that dawned with so much optimism for Baltimore sports fans turned dark and stormy in the span of two hours.

The Ravens’ offense could be great if they stop undercutting themselves

They covered 33 yards by ground and 26 by air on their first touchdown drive. Their nine first downs matched the Steelers’ total number of offensive plays in the first quarter. They outgained Pittsburgh 244-88 in the first half.

They were balanced within the running game, where Justice Hill has become an ideal Mr. Outside to Gus Edwards’ Mr. Inside.

Jackson hit his receivers in stride again and again. He made a brilliant play in the two-minute drill, scrambling to his left on third-and-18 to buy time, pulling up short of the sideline and planting his feet to throw a 29-yard strike to Flowers.

As well as they moved the ball, however, their hands betrayed them when it was time to score.

Flowers clapped his helmet in self-rebuke after he dropped a pass that would have put the Ravens in the red zone on their first drive. Andrews and Bateman could not secure would-be touchdown passes that hit them in the hands early in the second quarter.

Hill lost a fumble at midfield with the Ravens driving again the next time they had the ball.

They looked flat-out confused going for it on fourth-and-2 after Harbaugh, in a puzzling move given the flow of the game, declined to take an easy field goal just before halftime. Harbaugh said afterward the plan was to kick it before a “miscommunication” derailed the drive.

They could have led 20-0 or even 28-0. Instead, they were up 10-3, letting an overmatched opponent hang around.

Agholor dropped a perfect deep throw that could have gone for a touchdown or put the Ravens close to the goal line in the third quarter.

A wide-open Flowers fell down on a play that could have become a game-clinching touchdown in the fourth quarter.

Jackson, with a chance to put the game away late, made his only terrible throw of the day, undershooting Beckham in the end zone to hand the Steelers an unacceptable interception.

The litany of critical errors defied belief.

There’s an excellent offense lurking here with coordinator Todd Monken keeping defenses off balance and Jackson throwing as well as he ever has. Can the Ravens execute cleanly and consistently enough to bring it into the light? In Pittsburgh, the answer was no.

“It’s almost like a sleeping giant,” Andrews said. “We need to wake up.”

The offensive line also started well and crumbled late

As on target as Jackson was in the first half, he could not have done it without tackles Ronnie Stanley and Patrick Mekari — aided by an army of chip blockers — keeping T.J. Watt and Alex Highsmith out of his personal space.

Stanley, playing for the first time since he hurt his knee in the season open, is still a game-changer for this offensive line, and Mekari reiterated his versatility by flipping from the left side to the right to fill in for an injured Morgan Moses.

Watt is almost impossible to stifle for 60 minutes, but he did not seem on track to wreck the game. Then, Mekari suffered a chest injury, and second-year tackle Daniel Faalele stepped into the breach. Whether or not you believe the gargantuan Faalele has the potential to become a long-term starter at right tackle, he is not quick enough out of his stance to deal with Watt, who finished with two sacks, two passes defended and a fumble recovery. To be fair, Stanley also let Highsmith get by him for a sack as the Ravens’ offense went cold, failing to score on seven straight possessions in the second half.

Again, there was a version of this game in which the Ravens might have led by three scores and salted away an easy win by running the ball throughout the second half. That was their formula a week earlier in Cleveland. In reality, Jackson had to throw in the fourth quarter, and his pass protection did not hold up.

Moses did practice Thursday, so there’s a chance the rugged veteran will be back sooner rather than later and the Ravens will have their intended offensive line. They need stability up front if they’re going to fix what ails them elsewhere.

Mike Macdonald continues to find cool ways to scheme up a pass rush

With the Steelers finally on the move in the second quarter, Macdonald fooled them, dropping a pair of interior linemen into coverage and sending cornerback Arthur Maulet torpedoing at Pickett from his blind side. That schemed sack, a Ravens specialty this year, erased a rare scoring opportunity for a struggling offense.

The Steelers again moved into Ravens territory as the third quarter bled into the fourth. Again, Macdonald pulled the right trick from his bag. Pickett dropped back on third-and-7 and saw linebackers Patrick Queen and Roquan Smith stunt in front of him, only for defensive tackle Justin Madubuike to come looping around Queen into a clear rush lane. With Pickett’s pocket gone, Queen finished him off to end Pittsburgh’s scoring threat.

It’s no secret that the Ravens lack an elite pass rusher on par with their AFC North nemeses, Watt and Myles Garrett. Jadeveon Clowney has played well. Madubuike and Michael Pierce are delivering interior push. They just don’t have a guy who’s going to accumulate 15 sacks beating blockers one-on-one.

That means Macdonald has to use his imagination, unleashing Queen, Smith and seemingly every defensive back on the field in unexpected combinations. Through five weeks, he and his players have risen to the task.

We have to talk about the punt team

Whatever questions we had about the new offense and the battered secondary, did anyone envision special teams becoming an Achilles’ heel for the Ravens?

To review, they ranked third, first and second in special teams DVOA the previous three seasons, with punt coverage at least a modest strength in each case. They came into the Steelers game 26th in special teams DVOA, with their punt coverage at 31st thanks to long returns and penalties. It’s hard to imagine that score will improve after the Steelers blocked Jordan Stout’s punt for a safety that could easily have been a touchdown in the fourth quarter.

“It’s just an A-gap rush,” Harbaugh said. “We didn’t block the guy we were supposed to block, and another situation where we can … to me, that’s kind of an example of the whole game right there. We did not do the things that we needed to do in certain situations that we’re capable of doing, we can do, we will do going forward, but we didn’t do them today.”

The unit actually performed well otherwise, with Stout dropping three punts inside Pittsburgh’s 20-yard line and the Steelers coughing one of them up, a turnover that might have secured victory for the Ravens. But one blown play is enough to make for a bad day on special teams, and the Ravens have accumulated a season’s worth in just five weeks.

Week 6

Ravens vs. Titans

Tottenham Hotspur Stadium, London

Sunday, 9:30 a.m.

TV: NFL Network

Radio: 97.9 FM, 101.5 FM, 1090 AM

Line: Ravens by 4

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