Childs Walker: Yes, Ravens’ win in Atlanta could be season-changing

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

With no Lamar Jackson, the Ravens, led by cool-headed Tyler Huntley, pulled out a stirring 30-23 overtime win over the Atlanta Falcons. They’re an AFC North-leading 4-1, with hope that Jackson will be back in Cleveland next weekend. Here are five things we learned from Baltimore’s sweetest victory of the season.

The Ravens weren’t satisfied with a moral victory

Be honest. You thought this game would go down as a noble failure. The Ravens outplayed the Falcons for a half but frittered away enough chances that it seemed they would never get their beaks in front. They wouldn’t quit in an uphill fight without their franchise player, but there was no way they’d leave Atlanta triumphant, right?

The Ravens did not accept that version of the story, not even when the Falcons’ ace receiver, Drake London, kept carving them up on third-and-long with his easy stride and octopus arms. Their defense wasn’t perfect but forced Atlanta to accept field goals at the end of two long drives in the fourth quarter.

That set the stage for Huntley, whose gleaming grin endures the most excruciating contexts, to play his best football of the night — six straight completions — on a 71-yard game-tying drive.

And then Tavius Robinson did what Baltimore pass rushers have been unable to do in recent years, getting home to deliver a crushing hit to the ribs of Falcons starting quarterback Michael Penix Jr. That meant backup Tua Tagovailoa would have to answer the Ravens’ 14-play bully-ball touchdown drive in overtime. Tagovailoa, playing the first snaps of his Falcons career, dumped a game-ending interception into the arms of Kyle Hamilton.

This was the Ravens answering the very questions we’ve accused them of flunking in the clutch, and doing so without the quarterback who is their everything. Given the degree of difficulty, this victory eclipsed their improbable seven-second rally in Rio de Janeiro as the finest of coach Jesse Minter’s first season.

Maybe we’ve finally found a team that, for all the flaws it still has to work out, is more likely to win these gut-check games than toss them away.

The early omens pointed to another night of heartbreak.

In most respects, the Ravens could not have drawn up a better first half. They outgained Atlanta by almost 100 yards, dominated time of possession, kept sublime running back Bijan Robinson from putting his stamp on every drive. But for that pesky part about keeping score, anyone watching would have rated them the better team, even with Jackson in street clothes on the sideline.

A few horribly timed failures — an illegal formation penalty, an errant snap paired with Mark Andrews’ drop in the red zone, Andrews’ fumble that was scooped and returned for a touchdown — undercut so much good work.

Sometimes, that’s how it goes in the NFL, especially when you don’t have your best player to erase mistakes with inspired strokes. When Atlanta started to move in bigger chunks and dominate the clock in the second half, logic said the Ravens had let their last, best chances pass them by.

Fans would have forgiven a one-score loss to an opponent that had won its last two games by a combined six touchdowns. The Falcons came in with the league’s No. 1 rushing defense and No. 2 rushing offense. There was a reason the Vegas line swung sharply in their favor once it became clear Jackson would not play because of the ankle injury he suffered against the Tennessee Titans. Yes, a well-fought defeat under such circumstances would be perfectly acceptable.

That the Ravens felt and acted otherwise bodes well for where they’re headed. They will gain cohesion and precision on both sides of the ball as they continue to learn their new coaches’ ways. Combine that with their growing belief that they can steal these games instead of having them stolen, and we might be witnessing the beginning of something cool.

“If we let it be, it can be a launch point for us to really get this thing rolling,” Minter said.

Tyler Huntley’s limitations show, but his teammates believe for a reason

No one could miss the difference last season after the Ravens took their No. 2 quarterback job away from Cooper Rush and gave it back to Huntley, who’d spent most of the 2024 season away from Baltimore. Teammates wanted to give their best for the man known as “Snoop,” even though he, like Rush, had little chance of imitating Jackson’s running and throwing wizardry.

There’s an indefatigable sunniness to Huntley that, combined with his avoidance of costly errors, makes him the right man to lead in Jackson’s stead.

“Snoop is just one of the coolest dudes. He doesn’t get rattled. He just is always the same,” Minter said. “There’s not a locker room in the NFL that has more confidence in their backup quarterback than our guys have in Snoop.”

We saw it again in Atlanta. Huntley could not attack the Falcons’ one-high looks the way Jackson would have. He hardly pushed the ball downfield at all, averaging 6.3 yards per attempt (Jackson averaged 10.1 in the first four games). His instincts as a scrambler were not always on point, leading the Ravens to go three-and-out on a key drive in the third quarter after their defense had stopped the Falcons on downs.

And yet by the end of the night, the Ravens had put up nearly 400 yards of offense against one of the league’s best defensive fronts, and Huntley had saved his best for the tying and winning drives. You can’t do much better than that as the loyal stand-in for one of the most irreplicable quarterbacks the world has ever seen.

Through four games, the Falcons had rolled up crushing differentials on the ground, averaging 5.2 yards per carry to 2.7 for their opponents. The Ravens knew they could not survive such an extreme efficiency gap, but they’d have to keep up without Jackson, the man who takes their running game from good to great.

When Derrick Henry was asked Thursday why the Ravens have such confidence in Huntley, he replied: “Did you watch Green Bay last year? Turn the tape on. That will tell you.”

He was talking about the Ravens’ 41-24 thrashing of the Packers two days after Christmas, in which they ran for 307 yards with Huntley filling in for Jackson. That opera of ground warfare temporarily saved the Ravens’ season and reiterated their backup quarterback’s capacity to win a big one.

As if to assert that performance was no fluke, Baltimore opened Sunday night’s game by rumbling 62 yards, 51 of them on the ground, to go up 3-0 against the league’s top run defense. (Andrews’ drop at the goal line kept it from being 7-0.)

What followed was not a straight-up mauling like that win in Green Bay. Henry didn’t really take center stage until the final drive in overtime. This one was more about offensive coordinator Declan Doyle’s varied bag of tricks — like lining up Justice Hill at fullback and giving him a quick handoff for a vital 47-yard gallop in the third quarter — and Huntley’s poise in carrying them out.

The Ravens need Jackson to make a real run. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. But given his tendency to miss games here and there, we can’t overstate how important it is that the other players believe, really believe, they will win with Huntley.

This was the best we’ve seen from Jesse Minter’s defense

Given the Ravens’ tackling woes, especially in their loss to New Orleans, it was not difficult to find skeptics who believed Bijan Robinson would embarrass them. There’s not a more fluid cutter alive, and the Falcons’ outside zone is the perfect platform for Robinson’s artistry.

Minter made stopping him a priority, keeping at least two inside linebackers on patrol for most of the game and emphasizing that every defender had to swarm No. 7.

By and large, the Ravens kept Robinson from beating them.

Their discipline lapsed early in the third quarter, when Robinson busted a 38-yard run despite the Ravens having their top three inside linebackers on the field. Roquan Smith took the wrong angle. Trenton Simpson watched ineffectually as Robinson whizzed by to his left. Teddye Buchanan was nowhere to be seen. Too easy.

From there, however, Robinson managed just three yards on his final eight carries. The Ravens beat him up, drawing blood from his face with one gang tackle.

They were less successful covering London, who’s huge and crafty and sure-handed. Minter blamed himself for some of those failures, but no one involved with the Baltimore defense will be happy that Atlanta converted on nine of 17 third downs. Cornerback Marlon Humphrey played well enough despite missing two practices with a calf injury, but in an ideal world, the Ravens would not have to rely on him to cover the perimeter on so many clutch downs. Their No. 1 cornerback, Nate Wiggins, still struggles with inconsistency.

Nonetheless, we’ve called on this defense to make the plays required to close out games, and Minter’s crew did just that against Atlanta, whether we’re talking about Tavius Robinson’s hit on Penix, Hamilton’s interception or safety Malaki Starks’ stellar work in the red zone.

Calais Campbell deserves a concluding shout-out. The 40-year-old defensive end played his best game of the season in tribute to his late mother, Nateal, who was found stabbed to death in her Atlanta home this summer.

Baltimore is no longer in the mood to give Mark Andrews the benefit of the doubt

Andrews hadn’t been a problem through the first four games. At age 31, he’s still a fine short-range target and an above-average run blocker. But man, his bad days are epics.

The Ravens soundly outplayed the favored Falcons to start Sunday’s game, but they trailed 7-3 at the end of the first quarter because Andrews couldn’t handle a would-be touchdown pass at the end of their first drive and lost a fumble that was returned for a touchdown on their second. He had two more potential catches punched loose in the second half, one on a 2-point attempt that would have tied the game at 17.

You can’t do much more to short-circuit your team, and it was all an unwelcome reminder of Andrews’ devastating fumble and drop in the Ravens’ 2024 playoff loss to the Buffalo Bills. For all his achievements as the most prolific pass catcher in team history, he has not outrun the sins of two years ago.

It doesn’t help that Isaiah Likely, the tight end fans wanted the team to re-sign, is up to 33 catches and four touchdowns as the most reliable pass catcher on John Harbaugh’s New York Giants.

It’s not accurate to say the Ravens chose Andrews over Likely last season. They made a competitive offer for the younger tight end and, when Likely didn’t accept it, signed Andrews to a three-year extension to make sure they wouldn’t lose both players.

But the fact is they ended up with the older, less dynamic, less popular tight end, and when Andrews blunders, fans inevitably lament what might have been.

There was a time when Andrews could answer critics with his play, but he’s no longer the guy with an uncanny feel for bursting open 20 yards down the field. His best moments come in smaller chunks. His flubs loom relatively larger. It’s an unfortunate state of affairs for an athlete who has always cared so deeply, whose hands have been so reliable if we look at the sweep of his career.

With Tyler Loop, the Ravens are keeping up in the NFL’s modern kicking war

Overshadowed by the Ravens’ late-game dramatics was the fact that they never would have been in position to come back had Tyler Loop not made three field goals, including a pair of 51-yarders, before halftime.

In a span of three weeks, he has transformed from potential liability to new-age weapon, making all five of his attempts from 50 yards and beyond.

It’s no longer a surprise when an NFL kicker splits the uprights from 55 or 58 or even 60 yards. Field goals that would have felt freakish a decade ago are casual in 2026. If your kicker can’t realistically try a game-winner from 60 yards, that’s a roster deficit.

Loop made just one of four attempts from 50-plus as a rookie. But his ability to keep pace with the Brandon Aubreys and Cam Littles of the world was always a big part of kicking coach Randy Brown’s vision for tabbing him as Justin Tucker’s replacement. We saw Loop hit from great distances in practice, so his power was not in question.

Tucker made just seven of 16 attempts from 50 yards or more over his last two seasons in Baltimore. He was state-of-the-art for so long, but the top kickers in the world left him in their wake.

Loop, on the other hand, is showing he has a real chance to stand with the modern elites. Consistency remains a concern, as we saw when he missed from 40 yards after hitting from 64 against the Titans. At some point, he will have to face down the late-season ghosts lingering from his miss in Pittsburgh that ended last season.

For now, he’s a big reason the Ravens are winning.