The Baltimore Ravens are AFC North champions and will enter the playoffs as the No. 3 seed in the conference. This division title comes as Baltimore came away with a 35-10 win over the Cleveland Browns at home to wrap up the regular season. This loss drops Cleveland to 3-14 to end its 2024 campaign.
The Ravens were a bit slow to jump out to their lead, as the offense took a few drives to get moving. However, that didn’t stop John Harbaugh’s team from getting points on the scoreboard early. During Cleveland’s second offensive possession of the night, rookie corner Nate Wiggins picked off Browns starter Bailey Zappe for his first career interception and returned it 26 yards for a touchdown. From there, Jackson led a touchdown drive in the opening minutes of the second quarter to build up a two-score lead at the break.
Then the Ravens opened up the third quarter with a seven-play, 70-yard touchdown drive where Jackson found a wide-open Rashod Bateman to extend the lead. The second half — particularly the fourth quarter — was where Baltimore blew the doors open. After Zappe scored Cleveland’s lone touchdown of the game on a pass to Jordan Akins, Baltimore scored back-to-back touchdowns to make it a 25-point lead. Derrick Henry was the catalyst of that run as he piled up 130 yards rushing and two touchdowns in the second half en route to the win and the division title.
Lamar Jackson finished his night completing 16 of his 32 passes for 217 yards and two touchdowns. He also rushed for 63 yards. Thanks to those totals, Jackson became the first quarterback ever with 4,000 yards passing and 800 yards rushing in a single season. As for Zappe, he concluded his game 16 of 31 for 170 yards, a touchdown and two interceptions.
For more on how this game unfolded, check out our main takeaways below.
Why the Ravens won
Simply put, Baltimore didn’t beat itself in this game. They entered the matchup as roughly a 20-point favorite and largely executed as such. Defensively, they left little wiggle room for Bailey Zappe and the rest of the Browns offense to function. A first-quarter pick six by Nate Wiggins gave the Ravens the early lead, and the defense continued to smother the Browns, particularly on key downs. On third down, Baltimore allowed Cleveland to move the chains on just four of its 12 attempts and turned the ball over on downs on both fourth-down tries.
Offensively, Lamar Jackson was largely in control throughout the evening, even as the unit struggled to put up points in the first half. Derrick Henry was limited to just 8 rushing yards over the first two quarters, but exploded with 130 yards rushing in the second half to go along with his two touchdowns. That helped slam the door shut on Cleveland, keeping this remotely close.
Why the Browns lost
The Browns were able to put together a punchy effort, but this was a David vs. Goliath matchup that they weren’t set up to win. The club was put into an early hole after Zappe tossed that first-quarter pick six, which then had them playing from behind throughout the night. While they were forced into a more pass-heavy script, they couldn’t run the football effectively anyway, as their backs averaged just 3.4 yards per attempt.
While the defense did its best to slow down Lamar Jackson and Co. over the first half, the offense couldn’t muster any more than a field goal to make it a game. And just as the offense started to get into a rhythm with Zappe connecting with Jordan Atkins for a 16-yard touchdown in the opening minutes of the fourth quarter to make it an 11-point deficit, the floor fell out from under the defense. Baltimore scored back-to-back touchdowns, sparked by Henry to push the lead to 25.
Turning point
Even with the Ravens holding a double-digit lead at halftime, Baltimore started to run away with this game out of the game to begin the second half. Lamar Jackson and Co. made it a 21-3 lead after marching 70 yards down the field on a seven-play drive that saw MVP flashes from Jackson. The two-time (maybe soon to be three-time?) MVP dropped a second-and-15 pass in the tiniest of windows to Mark Andrews, who made a tremendous sliding reception for 30 yards.
That throw put Baltimore in the red zone, and Jackson then found a wide-open Rashod Bateman for the 7-yard touchdown just two plays later to blow the game open and the Browns were never able to cut it to single digits after that.
Play of the game
You may look at this and think it’s a rather run-of-the-mill touchdown pass from Lamar Jackson to Mark Andrews, but this toss made some tremendous NFL history. That throw crossed Jackson over the 4,000-passing yard threshold on the season. This makes him the first player in NFL history to have at least 4,000 passing yards and 800 rushing yards in a single season. Jackson is also the first player in NFL history to have 40 passing touchdowns and 800 yards rushing in a season. That’s quite the exclamation point on Jackson’s MVP argument. Speaking of the MVP award, Jackson is the first reigning NFL MVP to throw for 40 touchdowns the following season.
What’s next
From here, the Ravens will stick around M&T Bank Stadium as the No. 3 seed and gear up for the opening round of the playoffs. They’ll also wait to see how the rest of the Week 18 slate unfolds to see who they’ll host on Super Wild Card Weekend. As for the Browns, they’ll be scoreboard-watching on Sunday as well. This loss locked them into a top-three pick at the 2025 NFL Draft, but wins by both the Patriots and Titans on Sunday would shoot them up to the No. 1 overall pick.
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