The Baltimore Ravens beat the Vikings 13-3 on Saturday and kept rolling through preseason Week 2 with another defense-first win. LaJohntay Wester scored the game’s only touchdown, and Silas Walters sealed it with a late interception as Baltimore improved to 2-0.
That is why this game matters now. The Ravens have allowed just 10 points through their first two preseason games, and the number is doing a lot of the talking for them. The offense did enough on one drive, but Baltimore once again won the kind of game it has been grinding through all summer: short fields, tight coverage and very little room for the other side to breathe.
The touchdown came just under six minutes before the third quarter ended, when Joe Fagnano hit Wester on an 8-yard pass for the first receiving score of Wester’s NFL career, whether in preseason or the regular season. It was a clean finish to an otherwise workmanlike night, the kind of snap that turns a quiet exhibition game into a marker for a young player trying to make a case.
There was still one uncomfortable moment before the final whistle. Baltimore had controlled the game for long stretches, but it needed Walters to pick off Max Brosmer late in the fourth quarter to keep the Vikings from turning the finish into something more stressful. That is the part that complicates the easy read on the scoreline: the Ravens are smothering opponents, but they are not so airtight that they can afford to relax.
That has been the pattern of this preseason. Baltimore is 2-0, and the defense has made the first two games look nearly finished before September has even arrived. The offense has also shown how thin the margins can be in this part of the calendar. One drive changed this one. One interception ended it. In preseason, that is often enough, but it also shows how quickly a game can tilt if the defense misses even one play.
The win also sits inside a longer run of Ravens moments that has already included a missed 44-yard field goal at the buzzer against the Steelers in the AFC North title game, Derrick Henry’s four-touchdown effort against the Packers, a loss that came after Lamar Jackson went down injured in the first half, and a shutout of Joe Burrow and the Bengals in an AFC North victory. Baltimore has won in different ways, but the common thread has been pressure, turnovers and a defense that keeps changing the shape of games.
Next Friday at 6 p.m., the Ravens host the Washington Commanders at M&T Bank Stadium, and that is the next test for a team that has let only 10 points through two preseason games. The bigger question is not whether the defense is good right now. It is whether Baltimore can keep pairing that level of control with cleaner stretches on offense once the games begin to count.
