The Ravens are back on HBO’s “Hard Knocks” for the first time since the venerable series’ 2001 premiere season, this time sharing each hour with their AFC North neighbors.

The seventh episode of this in-season look at the division debuted Tuesday night, going deep on the Ravens’ and Steelers’ preparations for their final showdown in the AFC’s wild-card round.

From now until the end of the season, we’ll recap each episode, highlighting striking moments, memorable characters and tasty Ravens-related nuggets.

Key Ravens scene

With snow ringing their frozen practice field, the Ravens embraced practicing in the bitter cold, knowing they were simulating the conditions they would face on Saturday night at M&T Bank Stadium.

“You can hear how hard the ground is,” coach John Harbaugh said as he watched Derrick Henry carry the ball. “It’s like elk on the Montana tundra.”

Later, ESPN eminence Chris Berman visited practice and chatted with Harbaugh about quarterback Lamar Jackson’s winter preparedness.

“I mean, you’ve got to get used to it,” Harbaugh said, noting that Jackson wanted to practice outside to get a feel for the temperatures and wind he’d have to manage against Pittsburgh.

“That was Lamar, man,” he said. “Nobody wanted to go inside. None of the leaders.”

On a lighter note, ‘Hard Knocks’ captured Harbaugh, a Midwesterner to his core, sharing a brief lesson on driving in the snow — foreign practice to many of his players who grew up in warm climates.

Other Ravens tidbits

The Ravens’ focus on reaching the Super Bowl was a persistent theme. Unlike the Steelers, they spoke of the wild-card round as step one of four.

“You want to win the Super Bowl or you want to go home?” Henry asked his teammates at the beginning of the episode.

As the final seconds ticked down on their victory, Jackson said: “One down, three to go. I’m hungry.”

After Henry received a game ball for his 186-yard rushing performance, he brought the theme full circle. “Three more, man,” he said, moving quickly past the celebration of the moment. “Three more. Believe.”

Anxiety spiked among Baltimore football fans when the Ravens drew Pittsburgh in the first round. How could it not given the Steelers’ string of odd, ugly wins in the recent history of the rivalry?

None of that tension seemed to creep into the team’s facility. “Why wouldn’t it be?” Harbaugh said when asked about facing his eternal rival to start the postseason. “Who else would it be?”

He even quoted Hall of Fame Steelers coach Chuck Noll’s wisdom that champions are champions because “they do the ordinary things better than anybody else.”

Both sides seemed to know the Ravens’ running game would take center stage. “Every yard matters in a rock fight,” offensive coordinator Todd Monken said, not yet knowing that his offense would pile up an incredible 299 on the ground.

When it was time to play, the Ravens seemed like they couldn’t wait. Jackson bopped on his toes pregame, shouting, “We been waiting the whole year for this [crap], boy.”

Cameras later captured the franchise quarterback rising gingerly after he took a knee in the back from a Pittsburgh defender. Sore as he was, Jackson shrugged off the hit, telling tight end Isaiah Likely, “Yeah, I’m straight.”

If anything, his energy seemed to grow while Steelers’ defenders such as Cam Heyward huffed and puffed exhaustedly, begging for a turnover to get them off the field.

When Jackson made his signature play of the game, flirting with an empty possession as he danced away from pressure and the first-half clock neared zero, Harbaugh said to himself: “Lamar, throw it away.”

As soon as the words, left his lips, Jackson popped loose and flipped the ball to Justice Hill for a touchdown. “Unbelievable, unbelievable, unbelievable,” Harbaugh said. You can’t coach genius.

Jackson remained on fire in the second half. After the Steelers drove 98 yards to cut the lead to 21-7, he rallied his teammates on the sideline: “Let’s go punch in! Let’s respond!”

They did.

Best non-Ravens scene

Steelers coach Mike Tomlin did everything he could to flip his team’s mojo coming off a four-game losing streak to end the regular season.

“We work every week of our lives for weeks such as this,” he said.

He treated them to a highlight reel of all the clutch plays they’ve made against the Ravens over the years. “Sometimes, we push so much information at them, we don’t show ’em enough images of themselves,” Tomlin explained.

Then, he bused them to Acrisure Stadium to practice in a different setting. “It would be so sick if we were playing here this weekend,” tight end Pat Freiermuth said.

That wasn’t to be, of course, and Tomlin knew what his team was up against in Jackson and Henry. “Let’s cut to the chase,” he said. “These two guys are different.”

He reiterated several times that he didn’t want current Steelers bearing the weight of his postseason losing streak, which goes back to 2016.

“Many of these guys involved do not tote those bags,” Tomlin said. “I tote those bags.”

Instead, he urged his players to think of themselves and the Ravens as two trains that would not occupy the same track.

Nothing Tomlin said could reverse his team’s course, but he went down digging for every move in his bag.

Episode MVP

Harbaugh and Tomlin were the voices of their organizations in what amounted to a two-team episode. They’ve coached against one another far more than any other pair in the modern NFL.

“Man, we tied together for life,” Tomlin said to Harbaugh before the game.

“It’s an honor, man,” Harbaugh replied.

In a “Hard Knocks” centered on the last divisional matchup of the season, the coaches were co-MVPs.

Have a news tip? Contact Childs Walker at daviwalker@baltsun.com, 410-332-6893 and x.com/ChildsWalker.