Baltimore Ravens can still make the playoffs

FOXBOROUGH, Mass. -- The Baltimore Ravens dug themselves a huge hole on Monday night.

They almost dug out of it, but still lost and put their postseason hopes in doubt.

By dropping a 30-23 decision to the New England Patriots, the Ravens fell a game behind the Pittsburgh Steelers in the AFC North. They can make that game up with a Christmas Day win at Pittsburgh, which would give them a sweep of the two-game season series. But they have the Philadelphia Eagles at home next week and still have to play at Cincinnati on New Year's Day.

"It doesn't really matter what our record is," Joe Flacco said after the comeback attempt came up short. "Like I heard you guys say, we've just got to win our games. Obviously, Pittsburgh is a game ahead of us, but we still have another game against them at their place. So it will be tough, but we've just got to focus one week at a time and go win football games."

Flacco took advantage of a pair of special teams flubs to throw two touchdown passes on drives that totaled just 25 yards. Aside from that, the Patriots didn't give up very much, holding the Ravens to 348 yards.

Flacco set a franchise record with 37 completions, but 20 of them were for six yards or less.

"They were dropping a lot of guys (in coverage)," he said. "It seemed like most of the game they had a lot of guys in the middle of the field and weren't rushing a bunch of guys. They brought a couple of blitzes, but they were kind of on the fly when we were in more of a hurry-up tempo."

Dennis Pitta, who came in with 61 catches, had just four for 18 yards.

"We just weren't consistent enough offensively," he said. "From my perspective, we made a lot of mistakes and they didn't."

All of this after Flacco threw four touchdown passes in a 38-6 blowout of the Miami Dolphins, who were hot coming into that game. He set the franchise record with 36 completions in that game but was clearly more effective in that one.

"The biggest thing I can think of is that we just didn't finish drives," Flacco said of the loss to the Patriots on Monday night. "I think early on we moved the ball. We got the first 30 yards, we got moving, but then we just stalled out, and that probably hurt us in the long run."