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BALTIMORE -- The play at the center of the controversy didn't need to be the one at the center of the Ravens' latest disheartening loss.

Yes, a few close calls didn't go their way. How the Ravens responded to them, though, is ultimately what doomed them in a 27-22 loss to the Steelers, a defeat that leaves Baltimore (6-7) one game behind Pittsburgh (7-6) in the AFC North and behind in the head-to-head tiebreaker with four weeks to go.

The Ravens appeared to have taken the lead with under three minutes left after Lamar Jackson found Isaiah Likely for a 13-yard touchdown. After review, however, the call was overturned. Joey Porter Jr. had managed to rip the ball out before Likely could get a third step down in the end zone.

"The receiver controlled the ball in the air, had his right foot down, then his left foot down," NFL vice president of instant replay Mark Butterworth told PFWA pool reporter Jeff Zrebiec. "The control is the first aspect of the catch. The second aspect is two feet or a body part in bounds, which he did have. Then the third step is an act common to the game, and before he could get the third foot down, the ball was ripped out. Therefore, it was an incomplete pass."

The Ravens didn't need nearly as many words.

"They made a call," Likely said with a smile masking his frustration. "I thought [it was a touchdown], but at the end of the day, they made a call, gotta go with it, gotta put points on the board after that."

"If you was on the field with us, I believe you'd have thought it was a touchdown too, but it is what it is," Jackson said.

"I thought so, but it's not me to make the decision," Derrick Henry said.

What Jackson, Likely, Henry and others all acknowledged, though, was that there were still opportunities to score. The offense only backed up a few yards -- instead of its next play being a two-point conversion attempt to try to go up 30-27, it faced second-and-10 at the Pittsburgh 13 -- but the difference in execution, in attitude and potentially in the Ravens' season could have been measured in miles, not a few steps.

Jackson completed a checkdown to Henry. But Henry got stonewalled for a 3-yard loss on third down -- a complete breakdown up front -- and Jackson couldn't connect with Mark Andrews on fourth down.

"There's stuff throughout the game that, it happens, and you gotta be able to respond to it," Tyler Linderbaum said. "We're still in a situation there, on Isaiah's touchdown that got called back ... Still gotta find a way to get a first down, find the end zone."

Missed call? Maybe. One can debate it until the cows come home. Missed opportunity? Most certainly. And the Ravens are running out of opportunities to take advantage of.

"Through the roof," Jackson said of his level of frustration. "I felt like Thanksgiving game, we shouldn't have lost that game -- turnovers, unfortunately. This one here, I don't know what happened."

Here's what happened: The Ravens, playing at home with the division lead on the line, outgained the Steelers by 102 yards, had nine more first downs and out-rushed Pittsburgh 217-34 ... and lost. Teams with that large of an advantage on the ground had won 26 straight games entering Sunday.

"Just let it slip away," Henry said. "Just disappointed. Let this one slip away. We had an opportunity, we just didn't capitalize on it, and I need to be better, so I just focus on myself, but as a whole we just didn't capitalize on the moment to win."

Not only did they fail to capitalize on moments to win, but they failed to show the resilience and simple execution required of a playoff-caliber team in a December divisional showdown.

When Travis Jones committed a questionable personal foul by contacting the long snapper on a Chris Boswell field goal, giving Pittsburgh a first down, the defense couldn't rally; Kenneth Gainwell scored on the very next play.

When Teddye Buchanan appeared to intercept a wild deflection, only for Aaron Rodgers to be ruled down by contact, the offense couldn't capitalize on the ensuing drive.

When the Ravens defense had the Steelers' offense facing a crucial third-and-4, with the home crowd making things even tougher on Rodgers and co., it completely collapsed, allowing a short dump-off to Jaylen Warren to go 38 yards untouched for a touchdown.

"There were a lot of breakdowns -- a lot of misunderstandings, I guess you'd say," coach John Harbaugh said. "We weren't on the same page with assignments and things like that. That was one of our worst plays that we had [today]."

And even then, even after all of those missed opportunities and miscues, the Ravens got the ball back with 1:56 remaining and one timeout. But Andrew Vorhees committed a holding penalty, Baltimore managed only a few short gains that failed to get out of bounds, and by the time Baltimore had finally gained its first first down of the drive and spiked the ball, there were only 30 seconds left. It took one minute and 26 seconds to gain 16 yards on a must-have drive.

"We weren't as crisp as we needed to be on that last two-minute drive for sure," Harbaugh said.

It's a refrain that's come to define this season, and one that surely defined the last few desperate plays, too. Baltimore eventually got to the Steelers' 30-yard line with nine seconds left. Then Jackson took a sack -- again, the one thing that can't happen in that scenario -- to end the game.

Jackson tossed his helmet aside in frustration. Mike Tomlin blew kisses to the camera. The two images couldn't have provided a starker juxtaposition.

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So now Baltimore, the preseason Super Bowl favorite, given second and third and fourth lives thanks to an underwhelming division and a soft stretch in its schedule, has absolutely run out of room for error. Again, the Ravens came into Sunday with a chance, at home, to take the lead in the division and prove it was gearing up for a playoff push and playoff run. Jackson, after all, entered Sunday with a 20-4 record in December. SportsLine projections said Baltimore's playoff chances would have climbed to about 70% with a win.

It was all right there, and they missed it all.

There were spans when the Ravens did look the part of an expected Super Bowl contender. After a slow start, the offense scored on four straight possessions. The defense didn't allow a single first down in the fourth quarter.

But when the Ravens needed it most, they didn't have both sides of the ball operating at a high level in concert.

"I think that's kind of how football goes, a lot of times," Harbaugh said. "It's tough. It's tough to put it all together, and [have] everybody on the same page, everybody dominating your opponent all together at the same time for a football game."

That wasn't hard for last year's Ravens, which went 12-5 and had a whopping +157 point differential.

But enough about last year's team, or about preseason Super Bowl expectations. This team is not that team. That doesn't mean they're dead in the water -- a one-game deficit is hardly impossible to overcome, especially considering the state of the division -- but it does mean their margin for error is much, much smaller. For all the talent, for all the perennial Pro Bowlers, for all the long-term success, the 2025 Ravens have been remarkably average: 20th in total offense, 25th in total defense, tied for 25th in turnover margin. Even factoring Jackson's absence, Baltimore is merely middle of the road.

"The talent's there, but it's not about the talent," linebacker Roquan Smith said. "Obviously, talent only gets you so far in life and in football in general. ... It's the NFL. People are going to make plays, but it's about responding. How are you going to respond? I think that's a response mechanism in life and in the game of football. It all echoes through. So, that's what each and every person has to do, and I think it's just that plain and simple."

He's right: It is just that plain and simple. The Ravens once again didn't respond well enough, didn't capitalize well enough, didn't play well enough.

They haven't for three months.

They have one month to prove this isn't how their season will be defined.