TAMPA, Fla. — Ravens coach John Harbaugh paused and allowed himself a rare astonished smile as the clock neared midnight Monday in the cinderblock room beneath Raymond James Stadium. His quarterback, Lamar Jackson, had just thrown as many touchdown passes (five) as he had incompletions.

For six-plus years, the success of each has been connected to the other, and Harbaugh has seen the two-time and reigning NFL Most Valuable Player do just about everything on a field short of reaching a Super Bowl.

Yet, here he was searching once again for another explanation, another superlative after another virtuoso performance.

“He’s doing it at a high, high, high level,” Harbaugh finally said of Jackson. “He’s a great leader and a great player.”

Maybe the greatest in the league, again.Only seven players have won three NFL MVP Awards, Tom Brady, Peyton Manning and Aaron Rodgers among them. Through only seven games this season, Jackson is already on pace to become the eighth, and it’s no wonder.

For now, that’s a story for another day.

But should Jackson go on to win a second straight MVP Award, his performance in a 41-31 victory over the Buccaneers will go down as a notable part of the narrative.

Jackson completed 17 of 22 passes for 281 yards and led the Ravens on six straight scoring drives as they erased an early 10-0 first-quarter deficit against Tampa Bay in a game in which the final score was hardly indicative of Baltimore’s dominance. The lights went dark to start the fourth quarter, as is customary for Buccaneers prime-time games, but Jackson and the Ravens turned them out long before that.

In a showdown between superstar quarterbacks and a pair of explosive offenses, only one showed up.

“Let’s go,” Jackson said when asked what the message was to the offense after falling into the early double-digit deficit. “We gotta score points. You see a team just moving the ball putting points on the board without us scoring … we gotta go have some urgency with ourselves. That’s what it was, and I believe that’s what we did.”

And how.

After Tampa Bay moved down the field with ease and energized a raucous crowd behind a 25-yard touchdown pass from Baker Mayfield to a wide-open Mike Evans and a 23-yard field goal by Chase McLaughlin, Baltimore bounced back in a big way beginning in the second quarter.

Among the answers was a 9-yard strike to Mark Andrews, the 42nd career touchdown catch for the star tight end whose score broke Todd Heap’s franchise record for receiving touchdowns.

It was also just the beginning for the high-powered Ravens, who came into the week with the best offense in the NFL by several metrics and finished it leaving little doubt.

On Baltimore’s next possession, Jackson dumped a short screen to running back Justice Hill, who, behind a convoy of blockers, scored from 18 yards. And after a pair of field goals by Justin Tucker from 28 and 52 yards, the Ravens kept rolling with Jackson lofting a 49-yard touchdown pass to receiver Rashod Bateman, who had cornerback Zyon McCollum’s head spinning as he raced toward the back corner of the end zone.

Jackson then hit Andrews for another score, this time from 4 yards late in the third quarter for a 34-10 advantage, and the rout was on.

“It doesn’t matter when, where or what, he’s the ultimate competitor,” Andrews said of Jackson, who was drafted alongside him in 2018. “It’s just play after play after play of him making big-time plays and helping this team win games. He does it better than anybody in the league.”

Added Ravens defensive tackle Nnamdi Madubuike: “The best in the league, and if people don’t think so, I don’t know, they’re not watching football. They’re just hating.”

There was little to dislike in this one, unless you are a Buccaneers fan.

While Tampa Bay moved down the field with ease on its opening two possessions against a defense that has been gashed for much of the season, things started suddenly going south. Ravens cornerback Marlon Humphrey had a pair of interceptions in the second quarter, including one in the end zone with the Buccaneers on the Ravens’ 3-yard line, and Mayfield went cold when Evans went out with a hamstring injury late in the second quarter and never returned.

Humphrey was injured, too, leaving with a knee injury and also not returning, but it didn’t matter.

“We overcame penalties, we overcame things that set us behind, we overcame the score,” Harbaugh said. “We just made plays. … I thought they overcame through the course of the game. That’s probably the story of the game.”

So, too, was Jackson, even when he wasn’t throwing the ball.

With the Ravens leading 34-18 early in the fourth quarter and the ball on their 33-yard line, running back Derrick Henry took a toss to the right from Jackson, cut back to the left and raced 39 yards — with his quarterback out in front blocking safety Antoine Winfield Jr. to help clear the way.

“I told [Lamar] that I appreciate him,” said Henry, who ran for 169 yards on 15 carries, including one that went for 81 yards, and caught a touchdown pass. “That is unbelievable, somebody as a quarterback to be that unselfish to be blocking downfield.”

Asked how often Jackson wows him, Henry didn’t hesitate: “At practice, in games. Every time I see him pick up a football, it’s a wow moment.”

Henry wasn’t so bad himself. The 30-year-old became the third player in the past 30 years with multiple 80-yard runs through seven games in a season, joining Barry Sanders (1994 and 1997) and Chris Johnson (2009).

“It takes all 11,” Henry said. “Offensive line is doing a hell of a job. All the credit goes to them. … It takes all of us.

“They took all the heat and went back to work. That’s just grown men being locked in, wanting to get better and making each other better. … They’ve been playing lights-out.”

Still, the Buccaneers made the final tally closer than it should have been with 21 points in the fourth quarter.

But with the Ravens backed up to their 4-yard line, Henry broke free down the left sideline to the Buccaneers’ 11, helping seal a fifth straight win that keeps Baltimore tied atop the AFC North. Along the way, they became the first team in NFL history to average 250 passing yards and 200 rushing yards in a seven-game span. And during their five-game winning streak, they’re averaging an eye-popping 479 yards per contest.

“You look at our stats, everybody is able to touch the ball, everybody is able to do something,” Andrews said. “That’s what makes us so dangerous. We’re spreading the ball around. We have athletes and playmakers all over the board.”

With the win, Jackson improved to 23-1 against the NFC and 18-5 in prime time, the best mark of any quarterback since the NFL merger in 1970.

“He is just the ultimate competitor,” Harbaugh said. “There is no question about it. I don’t know if I’ve seen a better competitor than Lamar Jackson, and I’ve seen some competitors — some great competitors — but he is that level with the greatest competitors I’ve ever seen. [He] may be the greatest. We’ll see. It’s just amazing.”

Have a news tip? Contact Brian Wacker at bwacker @baltsun.com, 410-332-6200 and x.com/briawacker1.