The regular season ended with a thrilling 15 minutes of football, featuring four lead changes. There was almost a fifth, but Ravens kicker Tyler Loop’s 44-yard attempt sailed wide.
Here’s something we discussed on Monday’s PFT Live: Should the Ravens have tried to get the ball closer?
After an incredible catch on fourth and seven by tight end Isaiah Likely, the Ravens had the ball at Pittsburgh’s 24. Fourteen seconds remained. The Ravens had one timeout left.
They could have tried to gain more ground before the field goal attempt. With a timeout in hand, the Steelers defense would have been required to defend the entire field. A safe play call would have minimized the chances of a turnover. Getting the ball closer to the end zone would have reduced the chances of a miss.
Instead, the Ravens surrendered two yards, with quarterback Lamar Jackson receiving the snap and taking a knee in the middle of the field. A 42-yard kick became a 44-yard attempt.
If the kick had been good, it wouldn’t matter. But the possibility of a miss, even in the current age of cyborg kickers who make 60-yard field goals seem like chip shots, misfires still happen. And Acrisure Stadium has never been a kicker-friendly venue.
It’s always better, and safer, to try a shorter kick. But for the rare effort that starts wide and somehow glides back to the target, the shorter the kick, the greater the chance of making it.
The same thing happened on Saturday night. The Seahawks, after using a formation on fourth and a long one that wasn’t going to fool the 49ers into jumping early, took a five-yard penalty for delay of game in lieu of calling a timeout. Five yards back, the 26-yard kick clanked against the upright.
The miss didn’t matter, because the Seahawks continued to throttle the San Francisco offense. But the point stands: Always embrace a closer kick.
The Ravens had a chance to do that on Sunday night. The fact that the strategy they employed didn’t work makes it fair to ask whether they should have taken advantage of it. And it’s a factor for other coaches to file away when making critical decisions at the end of a game.
Entering Sunday night’s game against the Steelers, the Ravens were focused on the unexpected opportunity to parlay a down season into another AFC North title. Now that yet another season has failed to fulfill preseason expectations, decisions will need to be made.
Most immediately, owner Steve Bisciotti has to decide whether to bring coach John Harbaugh back for a 19th season. The same questions that emerged when it appeared the Steelers were destined to miss the playoffs apply to the Ravens.
Is it time for a fresh start, for the team and/or the coach? Does it make sense to part ways mutually? Could a trade to another team be engineered?
Harbaugh has a say in this. He has earned that much. If he’s ready to move on, the Ravens should respect that, the same as the Steelers should respect a desire by Mike Tomlin to make a change after nearly two decades on the job.
If Bisciotti thinks it makes sense to change coaches, he needs to be confident he can find someone as good or better. He also needs to be willing to witness what Harbaugh would do with another team. Possibly in the same conference, with a team like the Titans. Possibly in the same division, with a team like the Browns.
Then there’s the Lamar Jackson factor. Both sides are saying all the right things. But there’s enough smoke to get someone to make the call and see what it would take to get the two-time MVP quarterback. (If, of course, another team is willing to pay a steep price to the Ravens and is able to work out a new contract with Jackson, who is signed for only two more seasons.)
The lone Super Bowl appearance under Harbaugh now resides 13 years into the rear-view mirror. The same concerns that have been expressed about the Bengals’ inability to win a Super Bowl with Joe Burrow and the Bills’ inability to win a Super Bowl with Josh Allen apply to the Ravens and Lamar Jackson.
For the Ravens particularly, the failure to get to the AFC Championship more than once is glaring. They’ve been the top seed twice since Jackson became the starter. Far too often, they can’t deliver in the big moments.
This year, they weren’t even able to get a ticket to the dance, thanks to way too many blown leads.
Maybe it’s just time. Few coaches have been with any team for as long as Harbaugh has been with the Ravens. And, yes, there’s a very good chance Harbaugh would be immediately more successful with a new team than the Ravens would be with a new coach.
That has to be a factor in Bisciotti’s decision, even if there’s no reason to think that a trend dating back to 2019 will suddenly change if the status quo extends into 2026.
It looked like a kicker would be wearing the goat horns at the end of Sunday night’s game between the Ravens and the Steelers, but it turned out to be Ravens rookie Tyler Loop instead of Steelers veteran Chris Boswell.
Boswell’s missed extra point with 55 seconds to play left the door open for the Ravens to win with a field goal and Lamar Jackson’s 26-yard pass to tight end Isaiah Likely on a fourth down with less than 20 seconds to play set up a game-winning field goal attempt for Loop. The rookie pushed it wide to the right, however, and the Steelers celebrated a 26-24 win that sent them to the playoffs as the AFC North champs.
After the game, Loop said he knew the kick would miss the moment he made contact.
“It was a great situation, exactly what we wanted, and unfortunately, I just mishit the ball,” Loop said, via the team’s website. “We call it hitting it thin. It spins fast and goes off to the right. The second it made contact with my foot, I felt it lower. We talk about hitting on the fourth lace of the shoe. It felt a little lower down the foot and hit it thin.”
Loop’s miss capped a wild fourth quarter and a disappointing season for a Ravens team that could point to a number of other missed opportunities that cost them a chance at the postseason long before Loop’s kick sailed wide. That didn’t soften the blow in the moment on Sunday night, but dealing with the root causes of an 8-9 season will take a lot more than lamenting a missed field goal at the final second of Week 18.
As the Ravens struggled through a disappointing 2025 season, questions were raised about the future of coach John Harbaugh and quarterback Lamar Jackson. Moments after the season came to an end with a loss in Pittsburgh, Jackson said he isn’t ready to think about it.
Asked if he thinks he’ll be back with the Ravens in 2026, Jackson said that mere minutes after the end of the 2025 season is too soon to talk about that.
“We just lost a game, a divisional game, a game to put us in the playoffs,” Jackson said. “I’m not even thinking about that right now, to be honest with you. I’m still caught up in what just happened. That’s not my focus right now.”
Asked if he wants Harbaugh back as the Ravens’ coach, Jackson again said he couldn’t answer.
“You’re asking me about next year,” Jackson said. “I’m so caught up in what just happened tonight, I can’t focus on that right now. I just told you. I’m stunned right now. I’m still trying to process what’s going on.”
Those questions may take some time to answer, but after a bad ending to a bad Ravens season, those questions are not going away.
We haven’t seen the last of Aaron Rodgers just yet.
The Steelers have won the AFC North and clinched the conference’s No. 4 seed with a wild 26-24 victory over the Ravens to end the NFL’s 2025 regular season.
In a classic rivalry game between Pittsburgh and Baltimore, there were four lead changes in the fourth quarter as the two teams battled it out for the league’s final playoff spot.
It could have had a fifth. But on the game’s final snap, rookie kicker Tyler Loop missed his 44-yard field goal well wide right.
It was a wild end to what ended up as a wild game.
The Steelers were up 13-10 at the start of the fourth quarter and the defense had a chance to get off the field on third-and-4 when Alex Highsmith and Keeanu Benton had Lamar Jackson dead to rights in the backfield for a potential sack. But Jackson somehow evaded the pressure, stepped up, and fired a 50-yard touchdown pass to Zay Flowers to put Baltimore up 17-13.
Pittsburgh responded with a Kenneth Gainwell 2-yard touchdown to make the score 20-17 with 3:49 left. Followed by Zay Flowers’ 64-yard touchdown reception that put Baltimore back ahead 24-20 with 2:20 left. Though the Steelers had no timeouts, they were able to get into the end zone with Rodgers’ 26-yard touchdown deep down the left side to Calvin Austin.
But Chris Boswell missed his first extra point of the season, as it was blocked at the line of scrimmage and went wide to keep Pittsburgh ahead by just two points.
The Ravens seemed to have everything going for them as they started their final possession, as Keaton Mitchell started things off with a 41-yard kick return to the Baltimore 47. But an illegal formation penalty on left tackle Ronnie Stanley got the Ravens out of rhythm.
Pittsburgh forced a fourth-and-7 from the 50, which Baltimore converted with an outstanding 26-yard throw and catch to tight end Isaiah Likely, setting the Ravens up at the Pittsburgh 24. Jackson centered the ball on the next play with Baltimore taking its final timeout with two seconds left.
But when Loop struck the ball for a game-winning, 44-yard field goal, the attempt went wide right — well wide right.
The Ravens hadn’t completed the comeback. Their season was over, with the Steelers moving on.
Rodgers finished the contest 31-of-47 for 294 yards with a touchdown and no interceptions.
Jackson was 11-of-18 for 238 yards with three touchdowns and an interception. He ran just four times for 9 yards.
Derrick Henry had 20 carries for 126 yards, but had just five attempts for 14 yards in the second half.
As the AFC North champion at 10-7, the No. 4 Steelers will host the No. 5 Texans next Monday night to conclude the wild card round.
The Ravens finish a disappointing season at 8-9, missing the playoffs for the first time since 2021.
