The Ravens crushed the AFC South champion Houston Texans in all facets to grab control of the AFC North with one week to go in the NFL regular season.

Here are five things we learned from Wednesday’s game, a 31-2 Ravens win:

The Ravens again looked like the NFL’s best in a Christmas blowout

Pittsburgh was the stress test.

Could the Ravens stand up to gut-churning moments against the eternal rival that has tormented them like no other opponent in recent years?

Four days before Christmas, they shed that albatross.

They returned to work the next afternoon, a trip to Houston already bearing down on them. With a holiday audience watching on Netflix, how would they respond to prosperity?

The Ravens received just the gift they needed earlier on Christmas Day when the Chiefs thwacked the Steelers, putting Pittsburgh at a disadvantage in the AFC North for the first time all season.

Lamar Jackson, Derrick Henry and a formidable Baltimore defense (seriously, look at their numbers since mid-November) took it from there, leaving no doubt that Kansas City and Buffalo have company in the AFC’s top tier.

Jackson hinted that he might prefer not to play on Christmas next season, but perhaps he should rethink that impulse given the results. A year ago, the Ravens thrashed the Super Bowl-bound 49ers in San Francisco, minting themselves as contenders. This time, they outclassed Houston in all phases, pushing their scoring margin in three post-bye victories to plus-67. All they have to do is beat lowly Cleveland on the last weekend of the season to secure a repeat AFC North title, a No. 3 seed and home-field advantage in the wild-card round of the playoffs.

The Texans haven’t played up to lofty expectations this year, losing to most of the top-tier opponents they’ve faced. But they had not been blown out since the Minnesota Vikings beat them, 34-7, three months ago.

The Ravens stomped them about as convincingly as one playoff team can stomp another.

Houston came in No. 1 in defensive DVOA, allowing 5 yards per play and just 107 rushing yards per game.

The Ravens ran 13 times for 115 yards in the first quarter and averaged 7.1 yards per play despite easing off the throttle for most of the fourth quarter. Houston averaged a meager 3.9 yards per play, took five sacks and was shut out save for a safety in the second quarter.

Jackson managed to burnish his NFL Most Valuable Player case while attempting all of 15 passes and four runs. He finished the game exchanging gifts with a young fan in the stands and laughing with coaches and teammates on the sideline.

As Jackson noted Monday, the Ravens can’t afford to think they’ll win playoff games simply because they look fantastic right now.

“I feel like that went out the window last year,” he said. He and his team could not have peaked any higher last December, and still they failed to put their best foot forward in the AFC championship game.

At the same time, we can applaud these Ravens for building the finest offense in franchise history, fixing many of the flaws that held them back and making mincemeat of three opponents in 11 days.

“I’d say we’ve come full circle,” cornerback Marlon Humphrey said.

He was talking about the defense’s rapid evolution, fueled by personnel changes and a refreshed culture of accountability. But he could have been talking about the Ravens’ big picture.

They celebrated another Christmas as perhaps the best all-around team in football. And again, they’ll be judged on what comes next.

Lamar Jackson might not care about a third MVP, but that needn’t stop us from relishing his chase

Much was made of Jackson’s opportunity to regain his lead in the MVP race in this holiday showcase. He essentially locked up the 2023 award when he carved up the 49ers on Christmas night.

The man himself seems utterly uninterested in this angle. “That’s never been my goal,” he said Monday. “Even the first or second one, never been my goal. I always want to finish with the championship, but I’ve been falling short.”

Nonetheless, it was hard not to think of Buffalo’s MVP favorite Josh Allen when Jackson donned his magician’s hat on a 99-yard touchdown drive in the second quarter.

Deep in Baltimore territory, he bent space and time to evade a sack and saw that Mark Andrews had slipped behind the Houston defense. Jackson flicked the ball to his old reliable, who took it 67 yards to put the Ravens in the red zone.

Two plays later, Jackson glided to his right, looking for a tear in the Texans’ blanket coverage. He lured world-class pass rusher Danielle Hunter into a deadly dance, moving back toward his left as he continued to probe for a free teammate. Finally, Isaiah Likely dumped his defender, and Jackson dumped him the ball.

A defensive coordinator has to bury his face in the desk watching that. You scheme it right, play it tight and Jackson simply changes the terms of the engagement by keeping you on his hook.

Jackson slipped on another guise for the Ravens’ first drive of the second half. He faked a handoff to Henry and darted right with blockers in front of him. The Texans never came close to dropping him as he reached a peak speed of 21.2 mph on a 48-yard touchdown gallop that felt straight out of 2019.

“Sometimes I just shake my head and say, ‘That was really a great play. That was a great play,'” Ravens coach John Harbaugh said. “I’ve seen a lot of great plays from Lamar Jackson. I told him I was proud of him. I’m not just proud of him just because he makes great plays. I’m proud of him for all the things that go into making great plays and also for all the things he’s overcome along the way.”

So what you got, Josh?

Allen is magical in his own right, perhaps the most physically powerful quarterback we’ve ever seen, whereas the slighter Jackson dances on air. The Bills superstar won’t have the greatest canvas this week when Buffalo faces the woeful Jets with no chance to catch the Chiefs for the AFC’s No. 1 seed.

But we all win, watching these majestic talents vie back and forth for a trophy neither man wants as much as that first Lombardi.

The Ravens’ pass rush is peaking at the right time

Outside linebacker Kyle Van Noy looped inside Nnamdi Madubuike to drop quarterback C.J. Stroud for an 11-yard loss to end Houston’s first drive. He pushed his sack total to a career-high 11 1/2, for which he has already earned $500,000 in contract bonuses.

It was difficult to argue when the Ravens re-signed Van Noy to a modest two-year deal in April after he gave them such excellent value last season. At the same time, most of us thought they would struggle to replace Jadeveon Clowney’s production.

But the 33-year-old Van Noy told anyone who asked that he was just coming into his own as an edge rusher because he had not been asked to play that role for most of his career. It’s exceedingly rare for a player Van Noy’s age to reach new sack frontiers in consecutive seasons, but when you hear him talk about it so matter-of-factly, it makes sense.

“He really finds a way,” Harbaugh said. “He just has a good knack for the game. He has a sense of where the quarterback’s going to go.”

Van Noy’s sack Wednesday was the first of five, along with nine quarterback hits, for the Ravens’ surging defense. The team’s secondary — Ar’Darius Washington’s clutch fourth-down hit at the goal line stalled Houston’s only real rally, and Pro Bowl safety Kyle Hamilton made a spectacular diving interception on the Texans’ first drive after halftime — has deservedly received much of the credit for a drastic defensive turnaround over the past six weeks.

But coaches always say pressure and coverage work hand in glove, and we’ve seen that in the Ravens’ past two victories. Van Noy might be headed for the first Pro Bowl of his career. Madubuike and outside linebacker Odafe Oweh have also played significant roles in the Ravens’ dominance coming off their late bye week.

With their ferocious pursuit of Stroud, they momentarily leapfrogged the Denver Broncos to lead the league in sacks. That probably wasn’t a stat any of us envisioned back in August when edge rusher was routinely described as one of the Ravens’ thinnest positions. They’re approaching last year’s NFL-best sack total without an overpowering season from Madubuike, their top interior rusher.

That story doesn’t end with Van Noy, but it does start with him.

Another elite defense’s track record flew out the window

On Saturday, the Ravens ran for 63 more yards than any previous opponent had against Pittsburgh’s proud defense.

Similarly, the Texans had not given up more than 163 rushing yards in their first 15 games. They came in third in DVOA against the run, suggesting their efficiency in context was even better than their raw numbers.

The Ravens rumbled for 251 yards, and that was with Jackson shutting it down for most of the fourth quarter.

They destroy context, because they have a generational running talent at quarterback and another one taking handoffs from him. There’s simply no way for a defense, even a terrific one, to pay proper attention to both Jackson and Henry.

That was the dream when general manager Eric DeCosta signed Henry in the offseason. For six seasons, Jackson had guaranteed an elite ground game no matter who lined up behind him. But what might that look like with a Hall of Fame running back?

There were skeptics. Would Henry’s style fit the franchise quarterback’s shotgun drops and read-option handoffs? Would he continue to spit in the eye of old age at the sport’s most debilitating position?

With one week to go in the regular season, Jackson and Henry have rendered those doubts absurd. Instead, it’s increasingly clear that we underestimated what it would mean to pair the greatest running quarterback of all time — Jackson passed his childhood hero Michael Vick’s career yardage record Wednesday — with one of the 10 or 15 best running backs in NFL history.

We’ve never seen anything like this.

The Ravens have quietly cleaned up the smaller failings that held them back

The recipe for a Ravens disappointment became brutally familiar. A Justin Tucker miss here, a spate of penalties there, a fourth-quarter coverage lapse to make you tear out your hair.

We’ve already talked plenty about the Ravens’ defensive transformation, from a group that gave up the most explosive plays in the league to top three in DVOA since Week 11. Coordinator Zach Orr deserves a crown of tinsel and holly after his guys pitched a shutout (can’t hold them responsible for the safety) in his native Texas on Christmas.

But what about penalties and special teams?

Well, the Ravens still arrived in Houston leading the league in penalty yards, even after they were flagged just twice for 10 yards in beating the Steelers on Saturday.

But we can officially say they’re headed in the right direction after they were penalized just three times for 30 yards against the Texans.

The most significant yellow flag against the Ravens — a 20-yard pass interference on Humphrey that set Houston up at the Baltimore 10-yard line — was one of the worst calls you’ll see. Humphrey put himself in superb position against Robert Woods and whipped his head around to play the ball. Punishing that is punishing textbook football.

They made sure the play didn’t bite them by stonewalling Houston at the goal line, and from there, they played about as clean a game as you could want.

Meanwhile, Tucker, the most debated athlete in Baltimore a month ago, split the uprights with a 52-yard field goal and four extra points. He was also perfect against Pittsburgh, not raising the blood pressure once on four extra points and two field goals, one of those from 51 yards in a swirling wind.

Has the greatest kicker in NFL history discovered the antidote to what ailed him as his success rate plummeted to 70% through the first 13 games?

It’s premature to go that far, but over the past three games, we’ve seen none of the wide-left hooks that haunted Tucker. At his nadir, he seemed exhausted by questions he couldn’t answer to anyone’s satisfaction. But in recent days, he has bounced around the team facility without an obvious care in the world, issuing his familiar high-pitch warning call when reporters enter the team’s locker room after practice.

Though a clutch miss in the playoffs would bring uncomfortable questions flooding back, the Tucker of now suddenly looks and sounds a lot like the Tucker of old.

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