Take 5: Five quick takeaways from the Falcons’ OT loss to the Ravens

Sixty minutes wasn’t enough time. The Falcons and Baltimore Ravens needed overtime to decide their Sunday Night Football matchup.

The Ravens erased an eight-point deficit in the final three minutes of regulation and drove for a go-ahead score in overtime for a 30-23 victory.

Tua Tagovailoa finished the game with an interception to the Ravens’ Kyle Hamilton (Marist High School) in overtime.

Here are some quick takeaways from the primetime game:

Defense makes a mark

The offense has kick-started the Falcons’ wins in the past two games, but the defense was the standout group Sunday.

Starting with the fumble return for a touchdown by Jessie Bates and continuing throughout, the defense shined. There were numerous plays were they used their hands to knock passes loose for incompletions or just disrupt the Ravens.

The defense also got pressure on Ravens quarterback Tyler Huntley and made him move around in the pocket, along with a couple of sacks. They didn’t stop Baltimore’s potent run game, but most teams find that hard to do.

Pitts gets going

Through the first four games, Falcons tight end Kyle Pitts had five catches for 67 yards and was far off his career-best marks of 88 receptions for 928 yards and five touchdowns.

He found his footing in the second quarter, with a couple of catches, including a 6-yard touchdown catch, his first of the season. It seems that the Falcons and Michael Penix Jr. still are figuring out how to mix Pitts in with the rest of the offense when it’s flowing, but Sunday was a positive step.

Pitts finished with five catches for 42 yards and a touchdown.

Finding his spots

It took a few drives for Penix to find his footing and get into a rhythm, but once he did, the Falcons offense lit up. He started 0-for-4 but then turned things around and finished 19-of-32 for 240 yards and a touchdown.

Penix was 5-for-5 for 83 yards on a scoring drive where he found Pitts for a touchdown pass, and he later connected with Drake London for first downs, all on third-down plays.

In the previous two games, he seemed to be managing the games a bit more, but in this one, he made the plays the Falcons needed to keep drives alive and stay in games.

Folk story

Early in the season, kicker Nick Folk had a slow start, beginning 3-of-6 — those three misses matched his total from the past three seasons combined — but he’s found smooth air since.

On Sunday, he converted field goals of 23, 34 and 48 yards, and that helped the Falcons maintain momentum on drives where they had the lead and needed to salvage some points out of stalled possessions. Those are big swings, instead of settling for punts or having to go for it on fourth down.

Grinding it out

The Falcons didn’t have the running lanes that they had in the previous two games, so they had to grind through short runs for Bijan Robinson and Brian Robinson.