BALTIMORE — A day after the Ravens suffered a crushing defeat to the Pittsburgh Steelers on Sunday at M&T Bank Stadium, the NFL admitted that it got wrong one of three controversial calls that went against Baltimore.

In the second quarter, defensive tackle Travis Jones was flagged for unnecessary roughness on long snapper Christian Kuntz as he charged through the gap during a Chris Boswell field goal. It was ruled that the contact rose to being unnecessary against a defenseless player and that any forcible contact can’t be made, referee Alex Moore explained in a pool report after the game. But that was incorrect, the league said in a call on Monday initiated by coach John Harbaugh, Ravens assistant and former NFL referee Tony Michalek and general manager Eric DeCosta.

“They told me I had permission to state this, that it was a wrong call,” Harbaugh said of the call with NFL rules analyst and club communications liaison Walt Anderson and senior vice president of officiating administration Perry Fewell. “It should not have been called.

“It has to be forcible conduct with the head and neck area. That’s the rule. It’s not forcible contact with a defenseless player. It’s not whether you run a player over, trying to block a field goal. That has nothing to do with it. It’s forcible contact to the head and neck area.”

The Steelers accepted the penalty, took the field goal off the board and scored a touchdown on the next play to take a 17-3 lead and went on to win 27-22.

The final tally was also impacted by an apparent Isaiah Likely touchdown that would have put the Ravens in front with just under three minutes remaining in the game that was overturned by replay.

The tight end hauled in a 13-yard pass from quarterback Lamar Jackson in the end zone, landed on his right foot, took another step with his left and then just before taking a third step had the ball stripped out of his extended hands by cornerback Joey Porter. Likely had the ball extended throughout the catch but the ball squirted from his grasp after taking two steps but not a third and a touchdown was called. NFL vice president of instant replay Mark Butterworth said in the pool report that Likely obtained control and had both feet in bounds but did not have an “act common to the game” proceeding it, which would have been getting a third step down.

Less than 24 hours later, Harbaugh was still not satisfied with the ruling or explanation.

“Am I comfortable? No,” he said. “Do I think it needs more clarification? Yeah. It’s about as clear as mud right now. That’s how I feel about it.

“It didn’t clear anything up, it didn’t make it any easier to understand either one of the two calls. They’re very, very hard to understand how they get overturned. But they did, and that’s where it stands.”

Asked if he thought the overturned touchdown cost the Ravens the game, he said, “You never know what costs you a game.”

The other call Harbaugh was referring to was when quarterback Aaron Rodgers appeared to have a batted pass intercepted at the line of scrimmage by linebacker Teddye Buchanan at Pittsburgh’s 32-yard line with 7:01 remaining in the game and Baltimore trailing 27-22.

Initially, it was ruled that Buchanan had possession of the ball as he pulled it from the quarterback’s grasp with the two men falling to the ground. But replay overturned the call, ruling that Rodgers was down with possession of the ball.

“The offensive player had control of the ball as he was going to the ground,” Butterworth said. “There was a hand in there, but he never lost control of the ball and then his knees hit the ground.”

When Harbaugh was asked if he questioned why the Likely play was ruled not a catch but that Rodgers play was ruled one, he said that was part of the conversation with the league.

“You’re going to the ground, you have to have control of the football, you have to survive the ground when you make a catch,” he said Monday. “I mean, that’s what a catch is. You can’t say the time element’s like that and he satisfies the time element when you’re going to the ground. The time element doesn’t apply to going to the ground. It’s pretty clear cut.”

While there also wasn’t much solace in the explanations, Harbaugh stopped short of blaming the calls on the outcome.

He also pointed to a number of other shortcomings by the Ravens, from its lackluster final drive inside the last two minutes of the game to two blown defensive assignments on a touchdown pass to running back Jaylen Warren that ended up being the decisive score, among others.

“We move on,” Harbaugh said. “It’s our job to make it right. You’re not going to expect everything to go your way.

“If we become the type of team that overcomes these types of things then you become the type of team that can go far.”

At 6-7 and a game back of the Steelers in the AFC North with just four remaining, however, time is running out on just how far they can go.

The Ravens, who have won the division each of the past two years and haven’t missed the playoffs since 2021, have just a 27% chance of reaching the postseason, according to the New York Times/The Athletic playoff simulator. The most likely scenario would be by winning the AFC North, with a less-than 1% chance to make it as a wild-card team.

Baltimore will next play the Bengals in Cincinnati on Sunday.

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