Maybe the marriage of head coach John Harbaugh and quarterback Lamar Jackson is coming to an end. Maybe the Super Bowl window as the Baltimore Ravens have known it is closing. And maybe 2025 will be remembered as one of the least productive seasons despite having the most abundant talent.
But not yet.
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Pushed to the brink of playoff elimination only months after many had exalted them as a Super Bowl favorite, the Ravens now have their whole world back in their hands. And while it was the Cleveland Browns who delivered that fate Sunday — by virtue of a 13-6 win over the Pittsburgh Steelers — it’s now on Baltimore’s familiar pillars to make the opportunity stand up. That means it’s on Harbaugh and Jackson to embrace each other in the midst of a reality that the Ravens’ playoffs start in Week 18 against the Pittsburgh Steelers.
On the road.
At a time when there is reportedly friction in their relationship.
It’s certainly not ideal, but this is the hand Baltimore earned with a commanding win over the Green Bay Packers and then was gifted by the Browns in their win over the Steelers. All delivering the franchise to a reality that cuts through a considerable amount of drama. Despite the slog of injuries and disappointment that have consumed the Ravens for much of the season, and in the face of a maelstrom of outside noise and speculation in the past week, the team is still poised to chase the Super Bowl that once seemed so achievable back in September.
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Of course, it would mean having to beat the Steelers on the road and then fistfight through a field of AFC playoff teams that will all finish with better regular-season records than Baltimore. Achieving a Super Bowl win while trekking through that kind of adversity is the kind of story that has made the NFL a platinum-wheeled entertainment vehicle. And there is precedent for it being possible.
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In 2011, the New York Giants and Dallas Cowboys were both 8-7 and tied for the NFC East lead, pitting the two franchises against each other in an all-or-nothing game in the final week of the season. Like next weekend’s tilt between the Ravens and Steelers, the winner of the Giants-Cowboys matchup would move on to host a playoff game in the wild-card round and the loser would go home. The Giants beat the Cowboys to punch their postseason ticket, then went on to beat the 10-6 Atlanta Falcons, knock out the 15-1 Packers and 13-3 San Francisco 49ers (both on the road), and in a feat of wild improbability, topple the 13-3 New England Patriots in the Super Bowl.
That 9-7 Giants team was the weakest regular-season team (with a 56.3 winning percentage) to ever win a Super Bowl. If the Ravens were to beat the Steelers next week and run to a Super Bowl win, they’d take over that crown with a 52.9 winning percentage.
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To get there, it’s going to take the Ravens either resolving or setting aside whatever internal consternation is happening when it comes to both Harbaugh and Jackson collectively, and both men individually. And it’s hard to know exactly where that is at this point because there continues to be a void when it comes to the Jackson side of the narrative.
Lamar Jackson was in a trolling mood on the sideline in Green Bay, where the Ravens kept their season alive with a victory. Jackson missed the game with a back injury. (Photo by Patrick McDermott/Getty Images)
(Patrick McDermott via Getty Images)
It harkens back to 2022 and 2023, when ankle and knee injuries ended Jackson’s seasons early, setting off a wave of speculation about how serious the health issues were and whether his absence was tied to his next contract extension. Much like the past week, the offseasons following the 2022 and 2023 injuries ran rampant with questions about Jackson’s future in Baltimore, his relationship with Harbaugh, his insular training regimens and how he was managing his health and diet. Very little of it was debated in a meaningful way in the media, largely because Jackson has always lacked the type of team around him that typically weighs in when an NFL star finds themselves at a crossroads in their career.
Often, it gets noted in the media that Jackson lacks the necessary agent presence that star players utilize to either rebut or even out the balance of information that is floated about them — info that typically comes from inside a team’s coaching staff or front office. But it’s not that Jackson lacks an agent. Aside from his own social media platforms, which he has utilized directly and cryptically at times, Jackson has often lacked any type of consistent conduit between himself and the outside narratives that get shaped around him.
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That hasn’t changed in 2025. That’s because it has never had to up to this point.
Throughout his career, Jackson has molded himself as a player and shaped his contracts without any real downside — aside from failing to win a Super Bowl. He’s won two league MVPs, been a first-team All-Pro three times, and signed an extension in 2023 that briefly made him the league’s highest-paid player in annual average salary. This all happened through the teeth of all manner of outside criticisms that he beat back with his performance, from his ability to win games from the pocket to the punishment he took as a running quarterback to how he communicated with the team when it came to contract negotiations.
Some residue of that history has always remained with Jackson and particles of it always seem to resurface when he struggles on the field, fails to win playoff games or suffers injuries that jeopardize portion of the Ravens’ seasons. Often, there is an underlying current of whether Jackson is doing everything he needs to do to resolve or avoid issues he’s facing either physically or with his on-field play.
So why is that surfacing again with this latest back injury? Part of it is because the Ravens still have a season that is hanging in the balance, which naturally draws into question his health status and whether Baltimore’s season is going to conclude with him on the field. But there’s also a lingering backdrop of his contract in all of this, too. Jackson has two more years remaining on a deal that now pays him the league’s 10th-highest average salary ($52 million) at the quarterback spot. It lags significantly behind the $60 million average of the Dallas Cowboys’ Dak Prescott. Of the nine players ahead of him, only the Buffalo Bills’ Josh Allen has captured a league MVP award — and Jackson has two of them.
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The issue in play is that the Ravens have been inclined to adjust Jackson’s contract heading into this next offseason. But the way it is addressed would be via another contract extension. The problem with that is there are now growing concerns about the totality of punishment Jackson has taken over the course of his career and how that may have impacted his body this season. Complicating matters further is that sources in the last regime of the NFL Players Association had suggested that Jackson would seek a fully guaranteed contract when he engaged in his next extension. If that’s the case — and once again, Jackson lacks an agent who could speak to it specifically — it’s going to be a difficult move, largely because although Jackson turns only 29 next month, his running ability will eventually be looked upon as a depreciating asset in his repertoire and a potential liability that causes his body and play to decline rapidly (see: Cam Newton).
How this all relates to Harbaugh’s future as head coach ties into what he and Jackson can continue to achieve together. Over the expanse of his career, Harbaugh has earned the reputation among former players as being a head coach who can push you to a breaking point — but also a coach who is seen as fair and likely to get as much out of your performance as possible. If he holds a double standard for Jackson, it’s not something that is constantly harped on by former Ravens players who would be the likely candidates to complain about it. If anything, what the people in the orbit of Harbaugh and Jackson relationship describe is typical of many coaches and quarterbacks who have been with each other over many years and gone through success and failure. There are ups and downs when it comes to frustration, but both Jackson and Harbaugh have been adept at keeping it tamped down over the years while also being outwardly supportive of each other.
The question now is whether that will hold through the latest round of smoke. Certainly there’s no indication Harbaugh has lost the locker room. Especially not after the Ravens’ commanding road win over the Packers, with Tyler Huntley at quarterback and a seemingly rejuvenated Derrick Henry running the football with a ferocity that is reminding everyone of the 2024 season. But what happens now is going to matter. If Jackson’s back contusion sidelines him against the Steelers — and potentially beyond if the Ravens win — it will be the second time in four years that a late-season injury has taken him out of the mix in the postseason (including 2022).
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Conversely, if Jackson plays against the Steelers and Baltimore fights back into the playoffs, the surrounding roster is still at a level that immediately makes the Ravens a threat in the AFC. A Super Bowl run would not be out of the question, especially if the Henry who pounded the Packers in Week 17 is the Henry the Ravens carry into the postseason. Winning and consistency has kept Harbaugh in Baltimore for 18 years. Failing to carry that into the playoffs is what has his future in question now. But the same can be said for Jackson, too.
Right now, both need each other. In Week 18 against the Steelers and any potential playoff ride after it.
