BALTIMORE (AP) — Baltimore's division-clinching victory over Cleveland was about as routine as expected.
Except for one second-quarter play that could be a major problem for the Ravens' dynamic offense.
Zay Flowers, the team's top receiver, went down with a knee injury and didn't return to the game Saturday. Coach John Harbaugh sounded somewhat optimistic afterward but said there would be an MRI.
Baltimore finished the regular season 12-5 despite dropping its first two games. It's just one game worse than the record that gave the Ravens the league's best mark in 2023, but this time there will be no first-round bye. Baltimore will be the No. 3 seed in the AFC playoffs, facing Pittsburgh in the first round.
So Flowers doesn't have much time to recover. The Pro Bowl receiver caught 74 passes for 1,059 yards and four touchdowns in the regular season.
Baltimore trailed Pittsburgh by two games in the AFC North with four to play. Then the Ravens went 4-0 and the Steelers went 0-4 the rest of the way.
“It’s a week-to-week league, and you really just have to take it one week at a time, one day at a time, one play at time, and our guys have done a really good job of holding onto that,” Harbaugh said. “That 1-0 T-shirt that we all wear around is real, and so, four wins later, we’re the AFC North champions.”
You wouldn't think there'd be enough plays or enough footballs or enough yards on the field for both Lamar Jackson and Derrick Henry to put up these numbers, but here are the final totals for the regular season. For Jackson: 4,172 yards passing and 915 rushing. For Henry: 1,921 yards rushing.
The Ravens became the first team in NFL history with 4,000 yards passing and 3,000 rushing in one season. Obviously, the regular season is a bit longer now than it used to be — but Jackson and Henry both seem to have made each other better, and they've taken the offense to another level.
“We’ve won four in a row. I feel like everybody’s been doing a great job of doing their jobs so we can execute on offense, and it’s been fun," Henry said. "We’ve got to keep it going, stay locked in (and) hold each other accountable so we keep that same momentum in the playoffs.”
The wide receiver group could be thin if Flowers is limited. Rashod Bateman had a good game against Cleveland, and so did the tight end tandem of Mark Andrews and Isaiah Likely, but receiver Tylan Wallace played 51 offensive snaps and finished with one target and no catches.
Michael Pierce's first career interception was a late highlight in this game, and it also underscored how healthy he looks after four games back from an injured reserve stint.
Pierce, listed at 355 pounds, had some running room on his interception but was about 80 yards from the end zone and gave himself up with a slide.
“There’s a long history of turning big-guy interceptions and fumbles into memes, so at the risk of turning myself into one of those, I decided it was just time to go home,” he said. "Plus, I was out of gas, so it was good.”
Defensive back Brandon Stephens was targeted with some success by the Browns, and he can expect similar treatment in the playoffs after all the big defensive plays teammates Marlon Humphrey and Nate Wiggins have made.
Bateman and safety Kyle Hamilton were both shaken up but returned to the field, so Flowers is the lone significant injury concern coming out of the game for the Ravens.
Baltimore's last two games of the regular season were its best in terms of total yards allowed. The Ravens allowed just 211 in a 31-2 win at Houston, then 230 against the Browns.
Baltimore's first-round playoff opponent depended on the result of the Chargers-Raiders game Sunday. When the Chargers won, that meant the Ravens would face the Steelers. Baltimore and Pittsburgh split their regular-season matchups.
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Baltimore Ravens running back Derrick Henry (22) is congratulated by teammate Lamar Jackson (8) after scoring during the second half of an NFL football game against the Cleveland Browns Saturday, Jan. 4, 2025, in Baltimore. (AP Photo/Nick Wass)
Baltimore Ravens wide receiver Zay Flowers grabs his leg after being injured during the first half of an NFL football game against the Cleveland Browns Saturday, Jan. 4, 2025, in Baltimore. (AP Photo/Stephanie Scarbrough)
New Jersey Transit train engineers went on strike, leaving train terminals quiet for Friday's rush hour and an estimated 350,000 commuters in New Jersey and New York City to seek other means to reach their destinations or consider staying home.
Groups of picketers gathered in front of transit headquarters in Newark and at the Hoboken Terminal, carrying signs that said “Locomotive Engineers on Strike” and “NJ Transit: Millions for Penthouse Views Nothing for Train Crews.”
Friday’s rail commute into New York from New Jersey is typically the lightest of the week. In New York, some commuters from New Jersey said they could not work remotely and had to come in, taking busses to the Port Authority bus terminal in Manhattan.
David Milosevich, a fashion and advertising casting director, was on his way to a photo shoot in Brooklyn. At 1 a.m. he checked his phone and saw the strike was on.
“I left home very early because of it,” he said, grabbing the bus in Montclair, New Jersey, and arriving in Manhattan at 7 a.m. “I think a lot of people don’t come in on Fridays since COVID. I don’t know what’s going to happen Monday.”
The walkout comes after the latest round of negotiations on Thursday didn’t produce an agreement. It is the state’s first transit strike in more than 40 years and comes a month after union members overwhelmingly rejected a labor agreement with management.
“We presented them the last proposal; they rejected it and walked away with two hours left on the clock," said Tom Haas, general chairman of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen.
NJ Transit CEO Kris Kolluri described the situation as a “pause in the conversations.”
“I certainly expect to pick back up these conversations as soon as possible,” he said late Thursday during a joint news conference with New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy. “If they’re willing to meet tonight, I’ll meet them again tonight. If they want to meet tomorrow morning, I’ll do it again. Because I think this is an imminently workable problem. The question is, do they have the willingness to come to a solution.”
Murphy and Kolluri planned a Friday morning news conference.
A few blocks from the Port Authority bus terminal, the NJ Transit train terminal was quiet, with an NJ transit worker in an orange hoody on hand to warn riders it was closed, Signs read: “service suspended.”
The South Amboy train station, an express stop on the NJ Transit rail line, was vacant. But the Waterway ferry that began service only 18 months ago from a waterside launching point that’s a 10-minute walk from the train station was busier than usual for its 6:40 a.m., 55-minute nonstop trip to Manhattan.
The ferry runs once an hour during the morning and evening commutes. With about three dozen people aboard, more than half the seats in the ferry’s lower deck were empty.
Murphy said it was important to “reach a final deal that is both fair to employees and at the same time affordable to New Jersey’s commuters and taxpayers.”
"Again, we cannot ignore the agency’s fiscal realities,” Murphy said.
The announcement came after 15 hours of nonstop contract talks, according to the union.
NJ Transit — the nation’s third-largest transit system — operates buses and rail in the state, providing nearly 1 million weekday trips, including into New York City. The walkout halts all NJ Transit commuter trains, which provide heavily used public transit routes between New York City’s Penn Station on one side of the Hudson River and communities in northern New Jersey on the other, as well as the Newark airport, which has grappled with unrelated delays of its own recently.
The agency had announced contingency plans in recent days, saying it planned to increase bus service, but warned riders that the buses would only add “very limited” capacity to existing New York commuter bus routes in close proximity to rail stations and would not start running until Monday.
However, the agency noted that the buses would not be able to handle close to the same number of passengers — only about 20% of current rail customers — so it urged people who could work from home to do so.
Earlier, even the thread of a strike caused travel disruptions. Amid the uncertainty, the transit agency canceled train and bus service for Shakira concerts Thursday and Friday at MetLife Stadium in New Jersey.
The parties met Monday with a federal mediation board in Washington to discuss the matter, and a mediator was present during Thursday’s talks. Kolluri said Thursday night that the mediation board has suggested a Sunday morning meeting to resume talks.
Wages have been the main sticking point of the negotiations between the agency and the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen that wants to see its members earn wages comparable to other passenger railroads in the area. The union says its members earn an average salary of $113,000 a year and says an agreement could be reached if agency CEO Kris Kolluri agrees to an average yearly salary of $170,000.
NJ Transit leadership, though, disputes the union’s data, saying the engineers have average total earnings of $135,000 annually, with the highest earners exceeding $200,000.
Kolluri and Murphy said Thursday night that the problem isn’t so much whether both sides can agree to a wage increase, but whether they can do so under terms that wouldn’t then trigger other unions to demand similar increases and create a financially unfeasible situation for NJ Transit.
Congress has the power to intervene and block the strike and force the union to accept a deal, but lawmakers have not shown a willingness to do that this time like they did in 2022 to prevent a national freight railroad strike.
The union has seen steady attrition in its ranks at NJ Transit as more of its members leave to take better-paying jobs at other railroads. The number of NJ Transit engineers has shrunk from 500 several months ago to about 450.
Associated Press reporters Cedar Attanasio and Larry Neumeister in New York, Hallie Golden in Seattle and Josh Funk in Omaha, Nebraska, contributed to this report.
An information screen informing commuters of the rail service suspension, due to the strike by Union members from the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen, inside Newark Penn Station on Friday, May 16, 2025 in Newark, New Jersey. (AP Photo/Stefan Jeremiah)
An information screen informing commuters of the rail service suspension, due to the strike by Union members from the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen, inside Newark Penn Station on Friday, May 16, 2025 in Newark, New Jersey. (AP Photo/Stefan Jeremiah)
An empty PATH train platform with an information screen informing commuters of the rail service suspension, due to the strike by Union members from the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen, inside Newark Penn Station on Friday, May 16, 2025 in Newark, New Jersey. (AP Photo/Stefan Jeremiah)
Union members from the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen form a picket line outside the NJ Transit Headquarters on Friday, May 16, 2025 in Newark, New Jersey. (AP Photo/Stefan Jeremiah)
An electronic display advises commuters of NJ Transit service disruptions at the Secaucus Junction station in Secaucus, N.J., Wednesday, May 14, 2025. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig)
An NJ Transit train pulls into the Secaucus Junction station in Secaucus, N.J., Wednesday, May 14, 2025. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig)
An electronic display advises commuters of potential NJ Transit service disruptions at the Secaucus Junction station in Secaucus, N.J., Wednesday, May 14, 2025. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig)
Union members from the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen form a picket line outside the NJ Transit Headquarters on Friday, May 16, 2025 in Newark, New Jersey. (AP Photo/Stefan Jeremiah)
Union members from the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen form a picket line outside the NJ Transit Headquarters on Friday, May 16, 2025 in Newark, New Jersey. (AP Photo/Stefan Jeremiah)