The Ravens won.

That’s the best thing you can say about the team’s 34-20 win against the visiting Cincinnati Bengals on Thursday night at M&T Bank Stadium.

The Ravens (8-3) beat the Bengals (5-5) for the second time this season and expanded their lead in the AFC North over the Cleveland Browns (6-3) and Pittsburgh Steelers (6-3), who will face off Sunday.

But there isn’t much more to learn from Thursday’s game when it comes to how far the Ravens might go in the postseason.

The Ravens lost tight end Mark Andrews to a likely season-ending ankle injury after he was tackled near the goal line by linebacker Logan Wilson following a 9-yard reception with 11:05 left in the first quarter.

That’s devastating news, almost as significant as the Browns announcing Wednesday that quarterback Deshaun Watson will miss the rest of the season with a shoulder injury he suffered last week in Baltimore.

Regardless, the Ravens won, and that’s all that matters. Last Sunday, they lost to Cleveland, 33-31, after taking leads of 24-9 and 31-17 in the second half.

If they had lost to Cincinnati on Thursday night, they might not have been able to recover. But the Ravens were about to do enough on both sides of the ball to close out the much-needed victory.

It wasn’t a super performance, but it provided a sense of relief over at The Castle.

There was nothing special about the win. The Ravens had 405 yards of total offense and held the Bengals to 272, but they weren’t dominant. They were good enough to win, especially against a team that lost star quarterback Joe Burrow to a wrist injury late in the first half.

There were a lot of things to like, such as quarterback Lamar Jackson’s accuracy on short to intermediate throws as he completed 16 of 26 passes for 264 yards and two touchdowns. The Ravens finally started getting the ball into the hands of their playmakers, including receivers Odell Beckham Jr. (four catches for 116 yards) and Zay Flowers (3 for 43) and running backs Gus Edwards (12 carries for 62 yards) and rookie Keaton Mitchell (8 for 33).

Defensively, the Ravens held the Bengals to 136 passing yards and 2-for-11 on third down. The Ravens delivered a complete effort against backup quarterback Jake Browning in the final two quarters, but they were far from elite for the second straight week.

In fact, they looked vulnerable against the run. A week ago, Cleveland pushed the Ravens around to the tune of 178 rushing yards, and the Bengals piled up 136 on Thursday.

That scares me, and so does Jackson’s inaccuracy on deep passes.

We’ve seen that cause problems in the postseason early in Jackson’s career when opposing teams would take away the middle of the field and force him to throw outside the numbers. The results were not good.

It’s worse now that the Ravens will be without Andrews, Jackson’s go-to receiver and favorite target inside the red zone. The Ravens were already struggling because they didn’t have a consistent receiving threat on the outside, but at least they had Andrews to work the inside of the field.

Now they have no one. The Ravens were so desperate Thursday that they put fullback Patrick Ricard at tight end. It wasn’t because he could catch, but because he was the only tight end on the roster who could block. Isaiah Likely and Charlie Kolar are better receivers than blockers.

The remaining part of the Ravens’ schedule is much more difficult. It’s filled with playoff contenders such as the Los Angeles Chargers, Jacksonville Jaguars, San Francisco 49ers, Miami Dolphins and Steelers.

You would feel better about the Ravens’ chances in the postseason if this team had a history of recent success, but they don’t have that pedigree.

They are a team that has lost double-digit leads six times since the start of last season, and they have a quarterback in Jackson who has 13 touchdowns and 13 turnovers in the fourth quarter over the past three years. Compared with his peers Burrow (25 touchdowns, 11 turnovers), Josh Allen (29, 11) and Patrick Mahomes (21, 10) over the same period, it’s clear that it’s not good enough.

But that’s all for down the road.

The Ravens set themselves up with a win Thursday because they don’t play another game for 10 days, followed by the Week 13 bye.

That’s not a bad position to be in at this point of the season.

They could have lost.

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The Ravens survived an injury scare to quarterback Lamar Jackson and a bizarrely eventful first half to secure a vital 34-20 win against the defending AFC North champion Cincinnati Bengals. But the loss of tight end Mark Andrews cast a pall over an otherwise satisfying evening.

Here are five things we learned from the game.

The Ravens came through an odd, unsettling night with a win they had to have.

The Ravens’ highly promising season flashed before their eyes when Jackson went down hard along the sideline, rose unsteadily and spent several excruciating minutes obscured from view in the dreaded blue medical tent.

Their heated turf war with the defending AFC North champion Bengals faded to a secondary concern.

When Jackson emerged, he went to the bench instead of the locker room as 70,997 frazzled souls in M&T Bank Stadium breathed out. The business of football could recommence, and what an odd night of football we witnessed.

There was a 68-yard touchdown undone by misguided officiating, only for a serendipitous bounce to restore those six points to the Ravens. Cincinnati’s franchise quarterback, Joe Burrow, left clutching his throwing wrist and never returned to action. Neither did Andrews after he hobbled off seven plays into the game. We saw play delayed because of drone cameras. We saw Odell Beckham Jr. clear 100 receiving yards in a regular-season game for the first time since 2019.

The Ravens waded through the chaos to secure a victory they badly needed to put their season back on steady ground. They dealt a severe blow to the playoff hopes of a boastful rival that passed them in the standings in 2021 and sent them home for good in 2022.

The Ravens would have spent the next nine days mule-kicking themselves if they had not finished off the Burrowless Bengals. Such a slip-up could not be ruled out after they tossed away a 15-point lead four days earlier against the Cleveland Browns and Deshaun Watson, who played the second half with a season-ending injury.

For all the stress of the first half, the Ravens put the game away without an excess of drama, revving up their ground attack after halftime, adding five sacks to their league-best total and enjoying several dazzling highlights from their wide receivers.

They couldn’t fully enjoy sweeping the Bengals and maintaining their lead in the division because of the dispiriting news about Andrews. But 8-3 with the best scoring margin in the league and just one game to play in the next 23 days is a good place to be. How unsettling would that stretch have become if the Ravens had lost to Cincinnati and if Jackson’s injury had been worse?

He said his mind did not go there, even as he was trapped in that tent, imploring trainers and doctors to let him back onto the field. Jackson laughed when a reporter followed up by inquiring about the heating pad he wore on the sore spot.

“We need to stop talking about this ankle,” he said. “I’m good. You see I just walked up here. I’m good.”

On this victorious Thursday, that was good enough.

Mark Andrews’ injury will greatly complicate the Ravens’ quest for the Super Bowl.

Andrews limped off after Bengals linebacker Logan Wilson dropped his hip to haul him down on the first drive of the game.

Teammates’ anguished responses — Jackson whipped his helmet to the grass — spoke not just to the severity of the injury but to Andrews’ marrow-deep importance to everything the Ravens do. He’s their most reliable target on third down and in the red zone. His rage to win lifts everyone.

Jackson’s satisfaction with the victory was visibly tempered by the news about one of his closest comrades. He guessed it was bad as he watched Andrews writhe on the ground. He hoped against hope that his friend would rise.

“It’s very tough, bro,” he said afterward. “That’s the guy who I entered the league with. We’re bread and butter.”

The Ravens have won without Andrews, against the Houston Texans in this year’s opener and against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers last year. They have a gifted young pass catcher, Isaiah Likely, whose most productive games as a pro have come in Andrews’ absence.

Next man up and all that.

But no one tried to pretend the loss was anything less than devastating. Likely certainly did not. He believes he’s ready for greater responsibility, but if that’s the case, he gives a lot of the credit to Andrews, who has served as an NFL big brother.

“It means every game from this point on is for Mark,” he said.

The Ravens can be an excellent team from here on out, but there’s no way they can be better without Andrews than with him. There are maybe five tight ends in the league with his skill set, fewer than that so central to the souls of their teams. Players like him win you Super Bowls, and that quest — one the Ravens have demonstrated they’re talented enough to pursue — became more difficult Thursday night, regardless of the final score.

“He’s going to be missed as a leader,” coach John Harbaugh said. “He’s a fiery, emotional guy. He’s an energy-bringer every single day, so we’re going to have to all make up for that.”

Lamar Jackson’s receivers lent him a strong hand in a performance of wild swings.

Jackson’s stat line — 16-for-26, 264 yards, two touchdowns on a tender ankle — sprinkled some zest back onto his Most Valuable Player campaign.

And he was magical at times, dancing in the pocket until Rashod Bateman popped open for the touchdown that put the Ravens up 21-10, running to extend drives deep in the fourth quarter.

Other times, he ran into forces beyond his control.

The officials wiped out a 68-yard touchdown by Zay Flowers, whistling Beckham on a dubious — OK, downright egregious — holding call. Jackson bellowed his disapproval, a rare display from an athlete who usually directs his fury at himself.

On another potential home run play, he watched Cincinnati cornerback Cam Taylor-Britt bat away his beautiful bomb to Bateman.

At other times, his vision seemed off. He had an eternity to probe the field on a dropback late in the second quarter but saw neither Beckham streaking free toward the end zone nor Flowers waving his hand in the middle of the field. That lapse was quickly forgotten when his next throw took a lucky bounce into the hands of Nelson Agholor, who romped 37 yards to the end zone, finishing with a joyous somersault.

That play spoke to the essence of Jackson’s night: He got by with a little help from his friends.

There was Flowers’ video game cut on a 33-yard gain that set up the Ravens’ first touchdown. There was Beckham’s tightrope dance along the sideline to keep the Ravens moving toward the end zone in the two-minute drill. The 31-year-old showed he had still more juice in his surgically repaired legs when he busted loose for a 51-yard catch and run in the fourth quarter.

Here were the wide receivers we buzzed about during training camp, making Jackson look better on a night when he needed a hand. As Harbaugh alluded to after the game, the Ravens are going to need more from all of them with Andrews’ trusted paws missing. This was a good start.

A toast to the draftees of 2021.

Recall how Ravens fans despaired at the prospect of their team traveling to Cincinnati in Week 2 without Marlon Humphrey to contend with the great wide receiver, Ja’Marr Chase.

That game, in which Chase caught just five passes for 31 yards and 2021 third-round pick Brandon Stephens played 60 of 60 defensive snaps at cornerback, foreshadowed one of the great stories of this Ravens season.

Simply put, Stephens, a man without a clear position or a clear path to playing time going into training camp, has been a revelation over the past 11 games. He did it again Thursday. With Humphrey out again, he lined up against Chase 22 times and gave up one catch for 2 yards, per the NFL’s Next Gen Stats.

“We did play man coverage out there quite a bit,” Harbaugh said. “Brandon, before the game I saw him go off by himself. He knew the challenge he was going to be faced with, and he just did a phenomenal job. He keeps stepping up. He meets every challenge.”

Odafe Oweh’s story was different. We knew what the Ravens needed from the 2021 first-round pick, and we knew he’d play. But would he produce enough to lift an unproven pass rush?

Well, he’s played awfully well, and consistently, over five games since he returned from a significant ankle injury. He hit a new peak against the Bengals with a career-high seven pressures, per Next Gen Stats, and his fourth sack in that five-game span.

In a tasty narrative twist, he did most of his good work against Orlando Brown Jr., whom the Ravens traded for the pick they would use on Oweh.

“I should’ve given him a game ball,” Harbaugh joked afterward. “He’s going to be mad at me.”

The 2021 draft class, widely maligned as recently as two months ago, is finding its feet.

Cincinnati again showed the Ravens can be vulnerable to head-on assault.

The Bengals came in last in the league in rushing and second to last in rushing attempts, so perhaps they caught the Ravens off guard by blasting straight ahead with running back Joe Mixon.

Mixon carried nine times for 48 yards in the first half. Just as importantly, he was Burrow and backup Jake Browning’s top target, making linebackers Patrick Queen and Roquan Smith look a step slow every time he caught the ball.

“It was just the looks that we were giving them, and they were doing the right things with those looks,” Queen acknowledged. “We just have to be better.”

He and Smith also struggled early to keep up with tight ends Tanner Hudson and Drew Sample, neither of whom is usually a featured star in Cincinnati’s offense.

The Ravens did fine muffling the Bengals’ loudest threats in Burrow, Chase and Tyler Boyd. But they’re surprisingly vulnerable to power football, as evidenced by the 4.1 yards per carry they had allowed coming into the game and the 178 rushing yards they’d surrendered to the Cleveland Browns a week earlier.

It’s a relative weakness worth keeping an eye on as they prepare to play efficient running teams such as the San Francisco 49ers and Miami Dolphins in December.

Week 12

Ravens at Chargers

Sunday, Nov. 26, 8:20 p.m.

TV: NBC

Radio: 97.9 FM, 101.5 FM, 1090 AM

Line: Ravens by 3 1/2

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A Baltimore paperboy sold newspapers on the cities and streetcars of Baltimore in 1914, likely for 1 or 2 cents each. Along the way, he collected baseball cards of Baltimore Orioles players included in that day’s paper.

He treasured them — particularly one of George Herman Ruth, a 19-year-old pitcher for the minor league Orioles — for years, eventually passing them on to his son. That Ruth card is now one of only a handful still around. And soon, it will be auctioned for the first time since it was issued 109 years ago.

It’s expected to fetch at least several million dollars and could potentially compete for the title of priciest baseball card ever, a record currently held by a Mickey Mantle rookie card sold for $12.6 million last year.

Archibald Davis, the paperboy who was 16 years old at the time, grew up to play semiprofessional baseball and later passed the cards down. Glenn Davis, Archibald’s grandson, remembered playing with them as he grew up in Towson in the 1950s and 1960s.

“Certainly, had we known how valuable they would become, we would have handled them with more care,” Glenn wrote in an email to The Baltimore Sun.

After a century of ownership, including many years in which the card was on loan at the Babe Ruth Birthplace and Museum in Baltimore, the Davis family sold the cards to a private collector in 2021. That collector is now auctioning it off beginning Friday in what is expected to draw eye-popping bids as one of the most expensive cards ever sold.

First off, the 1914 Baltimore News Babe Ruth card is rare. Issued in both red and blue, there are only 10 known to exist in either color. For comparison, there are at least 50 examples of the T206 Honus Wagner card, one of the most iconic and valuable cards of all time.

Secondly, the card is the first collectible of Ruth as a baseball player, issued before he’d ever played a Major League Baseball game. At the time, he was playing for his hometown team and listed as a “pitcher,” the position he first played for the Boston Red Sox before becoming a slugging outfielder for the New York Yankees, changing baseball and becoming one of the country’s first athlete celebrities.

Before the two-week, online-only auction begins, the card will be displayed in Baltimore once more: The Babe Ruth Birthplace and Museum will host a showing of the card Wednesday from 2 p.m. to 4 p.m.

The card is the centerpiece of Robert Edward Auctions’ fall catalog. The auction house will start the bidding at $2.5 million, but it expects the card to fetch much more than that, likely becoming at least the second-most expensive card ever auctioned.

The Mantle rookie card, which was in mint condition and has the benefit of being auctioned just last year, is the only card to ever sell for more than $7.5 million. Brian Dwyer, the auction house’s president, thinks the Ruth card could reach or surpass $10 million because of its rarity and its unique provenance, having spent a century with one family. It could be many years, he projected, before another one of these 1914 cards is for sale.

“We believe that it has the potential to threaten the all-time record,” Dwyer told The Sun.

The Ruth card is not in mint condition, but Ruth’s esteemed place in sports history could make it tantalizing for wealthy sports collectors, a hobby that has skyrocketed in popularity — and in dollars spent — in recent years.

Before the past few years, a card being sold for millions was rare. Now, it’s becoming more commonplace.

“This is definitely rarefied air,” Dwyer said. “But if you look at all of the examples of cards that have commanded six, seven, 12 million dollars, none of them, in our opinion, has the significance of this Babe Ruth rookie card.”

The simple card features just Ruth’s last name on the front. When the card was issued, he was in the midst of acquiring his nickname, “Babe,” for his youthfulness.

On the back, it advertises the 1914 Orioles’ schedule against other International League teams — such as the Buffalo Bison, the Jersey City Skeeters and the Montreal Royals (the team Jackie Robinson would integrate decades later before breaking MLB’s color barrier).

The 2 5/8 inch-by-3 5/8 inch red card has spent much of the past quarter century on display at the museum near Camden Yards, first lent there by the Davis family in the 1990s. The Davis family decided to sell the card in 2021 and — despite an estranged relative challenging the family’s ownership, Glenn Davis said — moved forward with a sale.

The new owner, whose identity the auction house is keeping anonymous, agreed to keep the card on display at the museum until earlier this year.

The card is now in the care of Robert Edward Auctions in a secure, undisclosed location — “It is heavily fortified, we’ll put it that way,” Dwyer said — and will be until Dec. 3, when the auction ends and a new buyer will own the century-old keepsake. In addition to the Ruth card, the other 14 cards collected by Archibald Davis in 1914 will be auctioned in separate lots.

The museum has had one of the few other examples of the card, a blue one, on display since July (thanks to a loan from a different collector) and on Wednesday, the one up for auction, a red one, will accompany it at the museum.

“We’re going to bring the Babe back to Baltimore and give collectors the opportunity to see both the red and the blue example together,” Dwyer said, “so two of the 10 known will be together for a two-hour period.”

Katie Dick, the museum’s director of external affairs called it a “once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.”

The card must remain behind layers of high-security glass, secured with motion detectors. When traveling, the multimillion-dollar card — the same one Glenn Davis casually played with as a boy in Towson — has its own cadre of professional guards.

“This card has to have its own security detail,” Dwyer said. “This card has to travel with armed security. If you think about any movie you’ve seen where there’s armored cars and armored guards, this is worthy of that type of protection.”

People interested in seeing the card can do so by paying the normal admissions fee ($13 for adults, $11 for seniors/veterans, $7 for kids) to the museum. Also on display now is an exhibit featuring the late Brooks Robinson, which has one of his gloves, one of the first examples of a batting helmet, worn by him, plus his first contract with the Orioles from 1955.

Wednesday could be one of the card’s last public appearances for some time. But whichever deep-pocketed individual is able to next lay claim to the card, Glenn Davis hopes they’ll consider making the card accessible to others, as his family did.

“We hope that the future owner will consider having them available for public display,” he wrote. “They are beautiful and amazing historical sports artifacts. Something to be treasured by those who love the sport of baseball.”

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The Ravens’ win Thursday was bittersweet.

After Baltimore’s 34-20 victory over the Cincinnati Bengals, coach John Harbaugh announced that tight end Mark Andrews’ ankle injury is “very serious” and will likely end his season.

“Our prayers will be with Mark,” Harbaugh said. “Nobody cares more about the team and being there for the guys than Mark Andrews, so it’s going to be hard for him but we’re going to be there for him all the way.”

Harbaugh said the injury is a “form of a high ankle” injury but “more than just a sprain.”

On the opening drive, Andrews caught a short pass from quarterback Lamar Jackson in the red zone and was tackled by Bengals linebacker Logan Wilson, who rolled onto Andrews’ legs as he brought him down. The Ravens’ medical staff attended to Andrews as he lay on his back. Jackson threw his helmet to the ground in frustration as he saw Andrews in pain.

After a few minutes, the tight end stood up with help and walked gingerly to the sideline, later leaving the field to go into the locker room.

“I pretty much [saw] it,” Jackson said. “I was hoping he was going to get up. … But when he went down, he was just laying there with that confused look on his face. I was like, ‘That’s my boy.’ I don’t want to see that happen to anybody, not just him. That’s my boy.”

The Ravens finished the opening drive with a touchdown — a 3-yard run from Gus Edwards — to take an early lead. Later in the first half, Jackson went to the medical tent for what appeared to be a lower-body injury, but the signal caller returned for the Ravens’ next offensive drive without missing a snap. Jackson finished the game 16-for-26 passing for 264 yards and two touchdowns.

The loss of Andrews, a three-time Pro Bowl tight end, is significant. His 59 targets, 43 receptions and 521 yards entering Thursday all ranked second on Baltimore behind wideout Zay Flowers, while his six touchdown catches were more than the rest of the Ravens combined (five).

“It’s really crushing,” running back Gus Edwards said. “That’s one of our leaders, one of our best players. That’s a guy that we would love to have out there, but going to say a prayer for him. And I know with his work ethic that he’ll be back and he’s not going to miss a beat.”

Harbaugh said Andrews’ production won’t be the only thing the Ravens miss, but also his leadership in the locker room.

“He’s a fiery, emotional guy,” Harbaugh said. “He’s an energy-bringer every single day, so we’re going to have to all make up for that, too.”

Added defensive tackle Justin Madubuike: “[It’s] devastating. I don’t even know the right words to describe it. Mark is a great teammate that everybody loves, the players, the coaching staff and the fans. For him to go down, that’s tough. … Mark is one of the toughest guys around, so we’ll be praying for him [and] showing him some love because he definitely needs it right now. He loves this team, and he loves football. It’s just so unfortunate, but we’re going to fight for him.”

The type of tackle that brought Andrews down could soon be banned by the NFL.

League executive Jeff Miller said at the NFL’s league meetings in October that the hip-drop tackle increases risk of injury by 2,500% of a normal tackle. The hip-drop — the form used by Wilson on Andrews’ injury — is one in which the defender, normally pursuing from behind and at an angle, dives and falls on his hip to bring down the ball carrier. By doing so, the ball carrier is at risk of having his ankle twisted or his knee inverted.

“It is an unforgiving behavior and one that we need to try to define and get out of the game,” Miller said. “To quantify it for you, we see an injury more or less every week in the regular season on the hip-drop.”

Harbaugh identified the tackle on Andrews as the one the NFL is considering banning.

“It was definitely a hip-drop tackle, and it is being discussed,” Harbaugh said. “It’s a tough tackle. Was it even necessary in that situation? … There are always plays you send into the league to have them look at and have them interpret for you.”

Ravens linebacker Patrick Queen said he was disappointed about Andrews’ injury, but he doesn’t blame the type of tackle for it.

“I mean, at the end of the day, we play football. I hate that Mark’s hurt, but at the end of the day, we play football,” he said. “We play a tackling sport, I don’t think a hip-drop tackle is that bad of a thing. I mean, how else do you want us to tackle?”

Andrews wasn’t the only player to leave with an injury. Cincinnati quarterback Joe Burrow injured his right wrist in the second quarter on a short touchdown pass to running back Joe Mixon and went to the locker room. Burrow, who was shown on the broadcast struggling to grip the ball while throwing on the sideline, was ruled out of the game early in the second half.

Bengals coach Zac Taylor told reporters after the game that Burrow is dealing with a sprained wrist.

Jake Browning, a former college star at Washington who entered Thursday with one career pass in the NFL, replaced Burrow, who helped lead Cincinnati to the Super Bowl in 2021 and the AFC championship game last season. Browning finished 8-for-14 for 68 yards and a touchdown, a 2-yard pass to Ja’Marr Chase with 1:08 to go.

Bengals cornerback Cam Taylor-Britt, who leads the team with four interceptions, was also ruled out in the third quarter with a left quadriceps injury. Ravens wideout Odell Beckham Jr. left the game with a shoulder injury in the fourth quarter after a hard tackle from behind. He later returned to the sideline in street clothes to watch the final minutes of the win.

Harbaugh said Beckham’s injury “doesn’t look to be too serious.” Beckham echoed his coach’s sentiments about his shoulder, adding ‘we’ll figure it out.’ The Ravens play one game in the next 23 days with the long week and Week 13 bye.

Without Andrews, Baltimore will need its wide receiving corps to step up — as it did Thursday with perhaps the group’s best performance of the season. Backup tight ends Isaiah Likely and Charlie Kolar are next in line behind Andrews.

“I believe it’s going to be a huge challenge, but we have Charlie and Likely,” Jackson said. Those guys are going to step up, and they’ve been playing their tail off as well, but we’re going to build chemistry.”

Likely, who didn’t catch either of his two targets Thursday in Andrews’ stead, said he tries to mirror how Andrews plays the game. Now it’s his turn to put it into action.

“It hurts. Mark is like a big brother in my eyes, so everything I do, I try to talk to Mark about it,” Likely said. “Whether it’s running plays, blocking [or] passing plays, I try to do the same thing to my guy on my side.

“Seeing him go down, seeing the news on him ruined my night.”

The Associated Press contributed to this article.

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