With clutch defensive plays and a brutally efficient running game, the Ravens finally achieved a sound victory, 34-17, over their archrivals from Pittsburgh.

Here are five things we learned from the game:

The Ravens stood up to tense moments against the foe that rattles them like none other

It wasn’t easy, no matter what cozy story the final score told.

When Lamar Jackson’s pass fell into the hands of Pittsburgh safety Minkah Fitzpatrick, erasing a tantalizing chance for the Ravens to go up two touchdowns in the fourth quarter, all the ghosts of Steelers’ losses past danced right back into M&T Bank Stadium.

The Ravens had spent their week of preparation refusing to acknowledge any accumulated pathos from having lost eight of their previous nine to the Steelers. But if there was a moment for all that resilient talk to evaporate into another maddening defeat, this was it.

And then Marlon Humphrey, his brain still foggy days after he witnessed the birth of his son, Duke, swooped in front of his man to snatch Russell Wilson’s pass in the flat. Thirty-seven elated yards later, Humphrey had sent those meddlesome spirits packing. The Ravens would finally beat their archnemesis, and not by a little.

Practically, that meant they were a playoff team for the sixth time in seven seasons with a chance to win the AFC North after they spotted Pittsburgh a two-game lead. But this was about more than playoff positioning or even bragging rights in a rivalry. The Ravens had to stare down their deepest fears, their oft-repeated sense that they, more than any opponent, are their own worst enemy.

“I felt that this team has had our number over the years,” Humphrey said. “I felt like the performance we put on, it wasn’t perfect, but that’s what we were supposed to do. Not beat ourselves, which I feel like has been the result of the last couple games.”

The postgame hugs were sweeter because this was the victory that fulfilled the Ravens’ vision of what they could be.

They were the better-rested team two weeks after their bye and six days after they easily spanked the Giants. None of the players who popped up on their injury report midweek — most notably wide receiver Rashod Bateman — were inactive. The Steelers, meanwhile, went to battle without their most deadly pass catcher in George Pickens, their hardest-hitting safety in DeShon Elliott and two other starters in defensive end Larry Ogunjobi and cornerback Donte Jackson. They played most of the game without their other starting cornerback, Joey Porter Jr., who injured his calf early.

In other words, the Ravens had no excuses for a dud performance.

And still, it was not easy. There were the usual Ravens-Steelers oddities — a shanked punt by Jordan Stout that did not end up costing the Ravens and a shanked kickoff by Pittsburgh that did set up a Ravens touchdown drive. When Pittsburgh pulled even at 17 midway through the third quarter, it would have been difficult to find a wholly confident soul in the stands at M&T Bank Stadium.

But the Ravens fell back on a mantra they’ve repeated to one another for weeks.

“Just don’t flinch. Can’t flinch,” center Tyler Linderbaum said. “I tell the O-line that when we’re sitting there, all the time. Just don’t flinch no matter what happens, good or bad.”

They did not flinch. There was much else to celebrate in this win, from Derrick Henry’s galloping thunder to Lamar Jackson’s scalpel throws against tight coverage to the defense’s heated pursuit of Wilson. But it was their stout spirit in the face of difficulty that defined the day.

Lamar Jackson wasn’t satisfied, but he too stood up to his past with Pittsburgh

Coach John Harbaugh buried his face in his hand. Jackson, his franchise quarterback, raged as he trotted to the sideline.

Neither could believe Jackson had just given the ball back to Pittsburgh when the Ravens were a few precious yards from a potentially decisive touchdown. He appeared to think Bateman was going to keep running. Instead, Bateman stopped, and Fitzpatrick stepped into the breach, becoming just the fourth defender to intercept a Jackson pass this season.

All week, the national football commentariat had predicted a defining performance, for better or worse, from the reigning NFL Most Valuable Player. The Steelers’ defense was the only one Jackson had never mastered. If he could do it, perhaps he’d be right back in the 2024 MVP race with anointed favorite Josh Allen.

If not, well, Jackson would spend another week hearing undercooked criticism of his performance in big games. He had the Ravens up 24-17 going into the fourth quarter. At that point, he had set a Ravens season record for touchdown passes and a personal record for most passing yards in a season. But that interception threatened to blow it all up.

“That one turnover could have been the difference,” Jackson said afterward, still “hot” over his miscue.

Humphrey quickly pulled Jackson out of his world of regret. Wilson’s interception, not his, would be definitive.

Jackson put his own exclamation point on the win the next time he had the ball, firing his best pass of the day, 49 yards to Zay Flowers in stride on third-and-5. It was a throw to remind us that Jackson is no incomplete player who rattles under stress, a throw to crush an opponent’s fleeting hopes.

“Clutch throws, especially against man [and] tight coverage,” Harbaugh said. “Guys running [and Lamar] dotting people on the run in man coverage. I thought Lamar was fantastic, and that’s no little bit of pressure.”

No, it wasn’t his best game of the season, but a 115.4 passer rating, three touchdown passes and 6.7 yards per play for his offense were plenty good enough. if Jackson didn’t catch Allen with his performance, he at least made a fool of anyone who dismissed his MVP claim with three weeks to go.

As they have for weeks, Ar’Darius Washington and Kyle Hamilton saved the defense

The purple sea parted, and Wilson sprinted toward the promised land of a go-ahead touchdown. Before he could reach it, a 5-foot-8, perpetually underestimated safety named Ar’Darius Washington bolted over and not only hit the famous quarterback but knocked the ball free.

The Ravens scooped it up and proceeded to drive 96 yards the other way to go up 14-7.

It was the sort of play that has generally gone against the Ravens in recent chapters of this brutal, often bizarre rivalry.

Sometimes, we forget how much luck plays into takeaways. Jackson was stripped by Alex Highsmith in the first quarter; the Ravens recovered. Desmond King II fumbled on a punt return, and Baltimore not only picked up the ball but gained an extra 12 yards on the roll.

But that takes nothing away from Washington, perhaps the unlikeliest savior for a defense that has transformed over the past six weeks.

“I think AD’s probably had one of the hardest roles; he’s had to make the team every year in training camp,” Humphrey said. “To come in and replace a great player like Marcus Williams, his leash was very short on mistakes, if he were to make them. But he’s really showed up.”

Washington’s safety partner, Kyle Hamilton, made another crucial defensive play when he took an aggressive line on Wilson’s fourth-and-6 pass at the start of the fourth quarter and batted away a potential touchdown.

At the same time they installed Washington as an every-down starter, the Ravens pulled Hamilton back from the line of scrimmage and asked him to fix the NFL’s leakiest secondary by excelling as a pure safety. He has been as great in this new guise as he was last year playing Swiss Army knife in Mike Macdonald’s schemes.

When we look back on this season and diagnose what changed for a defense that was nowhere 10 games in, the story will start with Washington and Hamilton.

Now and forever, the Ravens win these high-stakes games on the ground

After attempting 19 rushes total in their loss in Pittsburgh, the Ravens ran 19 times in the first half Saturday, with Henry ramming, twisting and punching his way to 75 of their 121 yards.

He finished with 162 on 24 carries, a forceful reminder that he is the main difference between this team and the one that fell short at the end of last season. The Ravens ground out 220 yards against an opponent that has built its identity around running and stopping the run.

“The best in the business right there,” Harbaugh said, nodding to Henry from the postgame podium.

Jackson said the Ravens did not know they would begin the game with so much blunt force. It was their response to the defense in front of them. But they relished the chance.

“I think it’s always important in the first half to set that tempo,” Linderbaum said. “You always want to do that. I think a lot of offenses will tell you that’s their goal. It allows you to open up more things. When a team has to stop the run, they’ve got to put more guys in the box.”

The Steelers hadn’t allowed more than 157 yards in a game all season. They came in allowing just 4 yards per carry, fifth best in the league. They could do little to stop the Ravens from eating up ground at 5.8 yards per clip.

From the run designs to the blocks to Henry’s absurd blend of speed, stiff-arm ferocity and maneuverability, they trampled a team not used to losing in such fashion. Just as importantly, it’s a formula — one they puzzlingly abandoned in their AFC championship game loss a year ago — that could carry the Ravens through the tense playoff games to come.

“December football, January football, it’s being able to run the ball, being able to stop the run, taking care of the football,” Linderbaum said. “It’s going to be important down the stretch. It’s gotta be the emphasis each and every week.”

The Ravens, not the Steelers, poured on the pressure at telling moments

David Ojabo bore in on Wilson, flustering him into the ill-advised throw that Humphrey snared for his pick-six.

Ojabo, the Ravens’ 2022 second-round pick, has dealt with plenty of strife in his young football life: injuries that wiped out most of his first season and ended his second prematurely, healthy scratches this year, when he finally felt ready to break out.

But there he was, at the heart of the biggest play in the Ravens’ biggest game to date. Humphrey wanted to flip him the ball at the end so he could score the touchdown, but Ojabo didn’t get quite close enough.

“Your number’s going to get called at some point,” he said afterward, reflecting on his tortuous path from Michigan to NFL relevance. “Just make the plays that come to you. Don’t get too high, don’t get too low.”

Pressure defined much of what we saw Saturday.

Pittsburgh derailed the Ravens’ promising opening drive when Highsmith beat Ronnie Stanley for a strip sack (Baltimore recovered) on second down and Jackson had to run for his life on third-and-19. Throughout the first half, Jackson was brilliant when he had ample time to throw, erratic when bodies crashed into his pocket.

On the other side, the Ravens kept after Wilson, who made plenty of brilliant throws through the first three quarters but cracked in the face of an oncoming Ojabo. That after he absorbed fearsome hits from the likes of Michael Pierce and Kyle Van Noy.

The Ravens finished with 20 total pressures to 11 for Pittsburgh, according to real-time charting by Pro Football Focus. Pittsburgh’s ace interior rusher, Cam Heyward, finished with zero. All-Pro outside linebacker T.J. Watt, playing through an ankle injury, had two.

This is not a team with a singular edge rusher in the realm of Watt or Cleveland’s Myles Garrett, but if Ojabo is finally a factor to complement Van Noy and Odafe Oweh on the outside, with Pierce, Travis Jones and Nnamdi Madubuike pushing from the inside, the Ravens might be on to something.

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