The Ravens lost another tense, brutal, error-filled matchup with the Pittsburgh Steelers, 18-16.

Here are five things we learned from the game:

The Ravens cannot escape their Pittsburgh purgatory

Lamar Jackson danced to his left, scanning for a receiver who was not there and running out of real estate as the Steelers’ front seven closed off his path to the corner of the end zone. Whatever the Ravens intended, the result was unsightly. One of the sleekest offensive weapons the sport has ever seen was penned up, stopped in his tracks and drained of solutions.

This failed 2-point attempt went down as a fitting final chance for the Ravens on an afternoon when they made far too many mistakes to turn the tide against the rival that uglies them up like no other.

The Ravens needed to create a different type of game — quick, rhythmic, beautiful. Instead, they fell right back into the disjointed squalor that has defined their matchups with Pittsburgh over the past five seasons. The Steelers thrive in the muck of turnovers, penalties and third-down failure. It’s why they’ve won eight of their past nine games against the Ravens, even though they usually look like the lesser team against the rest of the NFL.

Coach Mike Tomlin has his team convinced it will always be tougher than the high-flying Ravens in the end. Even if that’s too simplistic an assessment, the results are what they are.

The Steelers did not score a touchdown against the league’s worst pass defense. They averaged fewer yards per play than the Ravens and were less efficient on third down and in the red zone.They won the turnover battle (give rookie linebacker Payton Wilson all the laurels for his crucial midair takeaway from Justice Hill in the fourth quarter). Their kicker was better. They were flagged for five fewer penalties. That was enough for another one-score victory.

Perhaps we should have known when Derrick Henry lost a fumble in Ravens territory on the first drive of the game.

In the first half, the Ravens averaged 6.6 yards per play to 2.7 for the Steelers. They went to the locker room down 9-7 because they coughed the ball up twice, missed two field goal attempts and committed six penalties worth 45 yards.

Their defense, so leaky all season, held again and again on third down and near the goal line. Marlon Humphrey picked off Russell Wilson in the end zone when the Steelers had a chance to go up two scores. But the Ravens could never transform it into the kind of game they wanted to play. They’re always trudging uphill against Pittsburgh, forever short of the promised land.

The Steelers have Lamar Jackson’s number like no other opponent

We spent last week chronicling the reigning NFL Most Valuable Player’s ballad of frustration against the black and gold. He’d lost three of four career starts against Pittsburgh and had incredibly missed six others because of injuries, COVID-19 and resting for the playoffs. His career passer rating against Pittsburgh was 66.8.

If Jackson was going to turn it around, this seemed like the time. He has buried so many of the dumb narratives around him this season with precision passing in the face of pressure and poised command of coordinator Todd Monken’s offense. He has never been surrounded by more talent. What better garnish to add to his case for a third MVP Award than a long-awaited breakout against the Steelers?

It did not happen. Jackson arrived at Acrisure Stadium with a stratospheric 123.2 passer rating. He finished at 66.1 in Sunday’s loss, eerily in line with his past futility against Pittsburgh.

So what is it about these guys?

Pittsburgh has great pass rushers in defensive tackle Cam Heyward and outside linebacker T.J. Watt, but it wasn’t as if those guys smashed Jackson to the ground again and again. No, the Steelers did it with sound play, constricting his pocket, sticking to his receivers when he scrambled and delivering punishment with every tackle.

Zay Flowers and Mark Andrews are Jackson’s favorite targets when a play breaks down. They combined for all of 61 yards on four catches.

As a runner, Jackson averaged 11.5 yards on four carries. Perhaps he should have taken off a few more times instead of firing while fleeing, but it’s difficult to fault him too much when his judgment has been so on-point all year.

Coach John Harbaugh pointed to the Ravens’ inefficiency on first down, with penalties a major culprit, as the reason their offense never found its flow.

“We can’t be beating ourselves in these types of games,” Jackson said. “We have to find a way to fix that — it’s annoying.”

He couldn’t say why Pittsburgh’s defense always seems to bring out the worst in him and his playmakers.

Jackson will have another chance against the Steelers, four days before Christmas. Maybe that will be the one. But he’s going to hear a lot more references to kryptonite in the week leading up to it.

The Ravens’ continued tweaking of their pass defense paid off

Coordinator Zach Orr felt “crushed” by his defense’s inability to slow the Cincinnati Bengals in a wild Thursday night win 10 days before the trip to Pittsburgh. He and his players laid all their shortcomings bare during a raw session reviewing film from that debacle.

Harbaugh promised everything would be on the table in the Ravens’ quest to fix their league-worst pass defense. This week, that meant leaving Eddie Jackson in Baltimore (Harbaugh declined to explain why), starting Ar’Darius Washington in place of Marcus Williams at safety and giving cornerback Tre’Davious White his first Ravens snaps.

The lineup changes paid immediate dividends.

Washington finished with 11 tackles, second on the team to Roquan Smith, and earned a solid coverage mark in Pro Football Focus’ immediate grading. If he keeps it up, Williams — PFF’s lowest-graded safety coming into the weekend — might be done as a meaningful contributor to this team.

White, who has struggled to stay on the field since he peaked as a Pro Bowl corner in 2019 and 2020, broke up a pair of potential touchdown catches by George Pickens, showing a playmaking awareness starter Brandon Stephens too often lacks.

Add their contributions to star-level performances by Smith (who exited early with a hamstring injury), Humphrey and Kyle Hamilton, and the Ravens’ defense was far less prone to chunk plays and far stingier on third down. The Steelers don’t have one of the league’s most dynamic offenses, but instead of making them look better than they are, Orr’s crew held Pittsburgh a yard below its season average of 5.1 yards per play.

Call that progress on a broadly frustrating afternoon.

The Monday night ‘Harbowl’ is suddenly crucial to the Ravens’ AFC North chances

The Ravens (7-4) put themselves at a significant disadvantage to the Steelers (8-2) in the AFC North, down two games in the loss column and now a tiebreak.

The fact they have another head-to-head chance against Pittsburgh helps, but they have difficult work to do between now and then.

That will begin on “Monday Night Football” against the team known as “Ravens West.”

We have long known Harbaugh’s brother, Jim, is one of the sport’s great culture changers, and he’s doing it again with the Chargers, aided by players and coaches well-known to Ravens fans. Los Angeles’ No. 1 scoring defense is coordinated by former Ravens assistant Jesse Minter, its offense designed by Greg Roman, the run-game maestro who overstayed his welcome in Baltimore. J.K. Dobbins and Gus Edwards are Roman’s top two ball carriers.

The Chargers can’t match the Ravens’ offensive sizzle, but they don’t break in the red zone or on third down, and they win the turnover battle. Like the Steelers, they’re built to grind.

After that, the Ravens will host the Philadelphia Eagles, another defensive juggernaut on a hot streak. Lose to either Los Angeles or Philadelphia, and the Ravens will be at risk of falling hopelessly behind the Steelers, who don’t play another winning team until they host the Eagles on Dec. 15.

A division title isn’t the be-all, end-all, and the Ravens are still overwhelmingly likely to make the postseason given the records of the teams contending for the AFC’s final wild-card spot. But their position would have been far cozier if they had pulled out a win in Pittsburgh. Expect an anxious week at their training complex in Owings Mills as they prepare to head west for a fraternal battle.

The uncomfortable conversation around Justin Tucker continues to deepen

Special teams coordinator Chris Horton: “He’s in a good place, [and] he’s going to be OK.”

Harbaugh: “I watch the practice tape, and he’s doing great. He’s been kicking the ball super well, but he’s had some of these that just haven’t gone through for him, and those are broken down inch by inch.”

For weeks now, Ravens coaches have taken a “nothing to see here” approach to discussing Tucker’s failings. It’s understandable. He’s one of the most popular and respected Ravens, a consummate craftsman who knows more about making NFL kicks than anyone in the organization. On a list of players who might become problematic this season, team officials probably would have placed him last.

But this issue isn’t going away, not after Tucker missed from 47 and 50 yards — left in both cases, as has been his pattern — in Pittsburgh. He’s now 16-for-22 on field goals, a .727 success rate about 10 percentage points behind his previous career-worst for a season. His opposite number, Chris Boswell, made all six of his attempts (including perfect strikes from 52, 57 and 50 yards), reminding Ravens fans exactly what they’re missing.

As Harbaugh said, Tucker’s leg appears strong and true in practice and pregame warmups. So it’s natural to deduce that his confidence is cracked in a way he simply has not experienced.

Tucker addressed that very topic after the game: “Part of the challenge that every player, every coach, every team faces is remaining confident, and the way that I know we remain confident — I’m still confident I’m going to go out there and nail every single kick — part of the way we stay confident is by continuing to work and trust the process. I know that sounds like … I might sound like a broken record, but it’s a part of what brings us success.”

These issues are difficult to discuss because there’s no way for us to know where the physical ends and the mental begins in a great athlete’s process. Is there a technical glitch, something Harbaugh alluded to earlier in the season, that’s causing every kick to hook left? Horton and Tucker have maintained that every miss is a separate issue to be picked apart separately. Their argument becomes harder to make when the results continue to disappoint in similar ways, at least to the layman’s eye.

It’s still borderline unthinkable to imagine the Ravens bringing in a different kicker. Tucker has earned as much latitude as any kicker in NFL history. He earned more when he bounced back from his misses to split the uprights from 54 yards in Pittsburgh.

At the same time, it’s difficult to imagine a special teams-obsessed organization going into the postseason with a kicker who’s iffy from 47 or 50 yards.

It’s a conversation no one wants, but here we are.

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