As the Ravens continue to assess the fallout from their crushing playoff loss to the Buffalo Bills, general manager Eric DeCosta and coach John Harbaugh met with local reporters Wednesday to review the ending of a largely triumphant season and preview the road forward.

Here are five things we learned.

The Ravens will take their next shot at the Super Bowl with a similar team: For the third time in six seasons, the Ravens had a team clearly good enough to win the Super Bowl. In each instance, they went home licking wounds from a loss created by shaky play at crucial moments.

Does this pattern call for an overhaul, some splashy change to break a postseason disappointment loop that has clouded the wildly successful Lamar Jackson era?

The short answer is no. The Ravens had one of the deepest, starriest rosters in the league in 2024, led by a coaching staff that schemed up historic offensive efficiency and fixed significant defensive shortcomings midway through the season.

Harbaugh and DeCosta spoke as if their goal is to take another shot in 2025 with as much of that roster and staff intact as possible. They were asked about a succession of key stars — Mark Andrews, Derrick Henry, Marlon Humphrey — headed into the last year or two of their current contracts. In almost every case, Harbaugh and DeCosta spoke bullishly about moving forward with what they have, at least in the short term.

Harder economic decisions might confront them after next season.

They might eventually lose offensive coordinator Todd Monken, whom Harbaugh praised as a perfect blend of wise hand and innovator. (Monken is still a candidate for head coaching jobs in Las Vegas and Jacksonville.) But their hope is to enter next season with a “3.0” version of the team that captured the AFC’s No. 1 seed last year and rallied to win another AFC North title this year.

“I’m disappointed. John’s disappointed. We’re all disappointed. Our team’s disappointed,” DeCosta said. “We had higher aspirations, and we didn’t achieve those aspirations and goals, but I think it was a successful season. I’ve already moved on. I’ve started watching tape: I’m immersed in college and pro scouting, talking about contracts and negotiations.”

Harbaugh, too, has learned from hard experience that it’s possible to have the team you want, prepare it exactly as you want and still lose the big game.“That’s what makes it so interesting; you can’t predict anything that’s going to happen,” he said. “You can’t really afford too many negative plays, because they can make the difference. You look at our team this year and for the past 17 years, you don’t see us getting blown out. You don’t see us falling apart. You always see us fighting back. I think that’s the real measure of this team, not the narrative that you can’t do this, you can’t do that.”

That’s not what a lot of fans want to hear. For them, it’s almost more painful that the Ravens are obviously good enough, and then not for four or five plays on a single, decisive night in January.

But Harbaugh and DeCosta aren’t wrong. Every metric said their team was as good as any of the four that will play for a trip to the Super Bowl this weekend. They have one of the top two or three players in the world at quarterback, and he showed all the resilience and leadership you’d ever want to see as they dug out of a hole in Buffalo.

The Ravens’ top decision makers aren’t lying to themselves when they say they’re a few plays away from ultimate satisfaction. And that’s how they’re going to proceed.

Mark Andrews has the support of everyone in the building, but his long-term future is less certain: Andrews hadn’t spoken about his fumble and drop that sealed the Ravens’ fate against the Bills until addressing it Thursday on social media. Harbaugh became the latest Raven to stand up for the three-time Pro Bowl tight end.

“Nobody cares more about the success of this football team than Mark Andrews,” he said. “He made numerous plays in the game up until the plays that everyone’s talking about. And in the season. One of my messages to him was we are not where we’re at without contributions from Mark … He’s also a very tough-minded individual. So he takes it hard, because he cares so much. I loved Mark Andrews, Eric loves Mark, all of our players love Mark. Mark is a huge part of our future, and we’re there for him.”

Andrews came in with Jackson, and they’ve developed a football telepathy that was evident again this season, when Andrews bounced back from ankle surgery and a scary car accident to catch a career-high 11 touchdown passes. There’s no argument that the 2025 Ravens would be better without No. 89.

But there is a money squeeze coming, with Andrews, Isaiah Likely and Charlie Kolar all going into the last years of their deals. The Ravens could save $11 million this offseason by cutting the 29-year-old Andrews, which means it’s time to think about an extension or about a future with Likely, whose immense talent again shined through in the loss to Buffalo, as the team’s top tight end.

“We’ll have some decisions to make going forward,” DeCosta said. “Not as many tough decisions this year, which I’m thankful for. A year from now, we’ll have some tough choices and decisions to make. … We’re blessed to have, I think, the best tight ends room in the league, and we’ll be blessed this year on the field as well.”

Andrews’ playoff agony won’t factor in the Ravens’ calculations. His track record is too substantial. But for the first time, it’s possible to envision a future with him in a different uniform.

The Ravens didn’t think they’d have to fix their secondary on the fly. They don’t expect a repeat in 2025: Marcus Williams was supposed to play every down of the season at safety. Asked about him Wednesday, Harbaugh and DeCosta still did not have a detailed explanation for what went wrong with a player who signed a $70 million deal going into the 2022 season.

“Yeah, it was a tough season for Marcus,” Harbaugh said before praising Williams’ professionalism in the wake of his benching.

DeCosta put the most positive spin possible on the situation, crediting Harbaugh, defensive coordinator Zach Orr and the rest of their staff for turning to Ar’Darius Washington when it was time to solve the problem. “It really turned our season around,” he said.

He added that he “probably failed” in the other prong of his plan at safety, not recognizing that Eddie Jackson “didn’t want to accept” a reserve role.

In other words, the plan — which also involved Brandon Stephens taking another step forward at cornerback — did not come together.

Williams won’t be back. Stephens, headed for free agency, probably won’t. The Ravens will draft and sign defensive backs to supplement their core of Humphrey, Nate Wiggins, Kyle Hamilton and Washington (he’s a restricted free agent, but DeCosta said he’ll be back). If they add an accomplished safety, Hamilton might go back to his 2023 role as a multi-faceted playmaker closer to the line of scrimmage.

Dean Pees, who in Harbaugh’s words “reconnected us to our roots in terms of the structure of our defense,” will maintain a role as a part-time consultant to Orr.

Harbaugh and DeCosta seemed confident they have figured out what ailed them and won’t cope with the same growing pains in 2025. They’re still two or three moves away from completing the picture.

The offensive line might see the most change, again: DeCosta steered into a youth movement last offseason, when he moved on from veterans Kevin Zeitler and Morgan Moses, opening starting spots for second-round draft pick Roger Rosengarten, converted tackle Daniel Faalele and cherished utility lineman Patrick Mekari.

That overhaul went better than many expected, and we might see round two over the next several months with Mekari and Ronnie Stanley, the Ravens’ top left tackle since they drafted him in the first round in 2016, headed for unrestricted free agency.

Stanley took less money going into 2024, betting he could stay healthy and play well enough to set himself up for a significant deal in a market that never has enough above-average starting tackles. He did his part, starting every game for the first time in his career and pass blocking at an elite level in the playoffs.

The Ravens probably wouldn’t mind having Stanley back on a short, modest deal, but he’s not going to give them a massive discount, and he might have just played himself out of their price range. Rosengarten was good enough as a rookie starter at right tackle that we could envision him switching to the other side (he protected lefty Michael Penix Jr.’s blind side at Washington). The Ravens will almost certainly try to draft another potential starter at tackle. Which means that even if Stanley sticks around in 2025, a transition is afoot.

DeCosta said nothing Wednesday to shoot down that notion.

“We knew we’d have a few growing pains. I think we had a few, but looking back on it, I think it was absolutely the right thing to do,” he said of the change that began a year ago. “We are aware that we have some guys whose contracts are up, and we’ll look at that and certainly have some discussions with players. We’ll look at potentially bringing back our guys, we’ll look at the draft, we’ll look at free agency. We’ll overturn every rock to find as many good offensive linemen as we can.”

Justin Tucker’s job is secure headed into the offseason: We talked about the secondary, but Tucker’s midseason malaise was probably the crisis the Ravens least expected to confront in 2024. They’re so used to setting their watches to his greatness. By November, fans wondered if the team could afford to go into the postseason with Tucker — widely viewed as the best of all time — lining up for clutch field goals.

He allayed most of those concerns by making all his field goal and extra point attempts, most of them right down the middle, after the Ravens returned from their bye week in early December. His form and swagger were vintage, and he drilled a 47-yarder in the freezing air in Buffalo.

Harbaugh and DeCosta were asked if they plan to bring in a younger kicker to compete with Tucker this summer.

“We’ll have those discussions, but I think I have every expectation that Justin’s going to be a great kicker for us next year and moving forward,” DeCosta answered.

Harbaugh went further, suggesting Tucker needed to go through struggles this year to get to the next great phase of his career.

“Maybe we all saw that Justin Tucker is human. … It’s hard to be a great kicker in this league and be as consistent as he’s been, and he ran into that — this adversity — probably a lot later in his career than most of these guys do,” he said. “To pull himself out of that was going to be the test, and the fact that he went through that, pulled himself out of it … Because it was only him. Only he can do it. He’s the only one in his mind that can do that.”

It was a compelling take based on what Harbaugh called a “really long, honest conversation” with his kicker.

Will Tucker’s greatness be treated as a given, like it was through most of his first 12 seasons in Baltimore? No. But he has convinced the Ravens it’s not over.

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