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GREEN BAY, Wis. — Before he led the Ravens in their most impressive win of the season, running back Derrick Henry led the team in its pregame prayer Saturday. He acknowledged this season’s trials and tribulations. He spoke of the need for trust. He wanted the Ravens to keep the faith, he later explained. He hoped they still believed, as he still did.

“We know what we need to do to be able to still give ourselves a chance, and that’s just playing for each other and understanding that the Lord is going to be there with us regardless,” Henry said late Saturday night, after a 36-carry, 216-yard, four-touchdown master class in a 41-24 win over the Green Bay Packers that coach John Harbaugh called “one of the greatest performances I’ve ever seen” from a player.

Now the Ravens (8-8) will need a little more help from the almighty, or Cleveland quarterback Shedeur Sanders, or defensive end Myles Garrett — whoever is most equipped to keep their playoff hopes alive for one more week. The Ravens did what they needed to Saturday at Lambeau Field. It won’t matter if the AFC North-leading Steelers (9-6) do what they need to Sunday at Cleveland’s Huntington Bank Field.

With a win over the Browns, Pittsburgh would claim the AFC North and deny the Ravens’ bid for a three-peat (and close off their only pathway to a playoff spot). A Steelers’ loss, though, would set up a de facto AFC North championship game at Acrisure Stadium next weekend.

The winner would claim the only playoff spot remaining (all AFC wild cards spots have already been filled) and host a first-round game.

And the Ravens weren’t above asking for a little heavenly help in getting there.

“I’ll be watching and praying, for sure,” Henry said. “I’m going to pray as soon as I get on the plane, when I get home, in the morning when I wake up, and hopefully we get blessed for the opportunity to have to play for something Week 18.”

The gulf between what this Ravens team should be and what it has been was never more acutely felt than on Saturday night.

Henry was a bulldozer, a runaway train, a self-sustaining life force for a Ravens offense missing quarterback Lamar Jackson (back contusion). Six days after being sidelined late in a loss to the New England Patriots, he finished with a career high for rushing attempts and a Lambeau Stadium record for rushing yards by an opposing player.

Over the past four games, Henry has 538 rushing yards and six rushing touchdowns. The Ravens’ ground game has found its groove again, bolstered by improved run blocking and Henry’s snowballing physical style. This is what coordinator Todd Monken’s offense was supposed to look like, with or without Jackson available.

“We kind of set the tone pretty early with the run game the first couple drives,” center Tyler Linderbaum said, referring to Henry’s back-to-back scores on the Ravens’ first two drives. “We’ve done that at certain points this year, but all four quarters, I don’t think we’ve done that all year, and today, I am just proud of the guys. It’s a 60-minute ballgame. Things are going to happen, but we just kept pushing through, trying to be physical, assignment-sound, and I think we did that today. I am just proud of the guys, and then obviously, we’re blocking for the greatest running back to play the game, so it’s fun.”

The Ravens’ ground-and-pound approach against a banged-up Packers defense lightened the load on backup quarterback Tyler Huntley. He kept the offense on schedule time and time again, never more importantly than early in the fourth quarter. A 9-yard scramble on third-and-4 kept Green Bay’s revved-up attack off the sideline. A 10-yard touchdown pass to wide receiver Zay Flowers on a third-and-8 three minutes later restored the team’s 10-point lead.

Overall, the Ravens finished with an impressive 56% success rate on offense; their passing attack was even slightly more efficient from down to down (58% success rate) than their ground game (55%), according to analytics site RBSDM.com. They punted just once. Huntley was 16-for-20 for 107 yards and the touchdown and added eight carries for 60 yards, a performance Harbaugh called “A-plus,” with one or two more plusses tacked on.

“It couldn’t have been any better,” he said of Huntley’s first start since a Week 8 win over the Chicago Bears. “I just thought [he had] some of the clutch plays, the kind of plays that you have to make. I see Tyler every day in practice, so I’m not surprised. I see him execute every day in practice, but for him to make the third-down conversions, the scramble plays, the throws, the on-time throws, the accurate throws that he made to run the offense in Lambeau Field. … To run the offense the way he did, make the checks the way he did, get us in the plays we needed to get in, just A-plus.”

Huntley was not the most impressive quarterback on the field, though. The Ravens’ defense seemed to make sure of that. It was fitting, really, for the team to offer a prime-time reminder of how it lost control of the AFC North in the first place, of why a preseason Super Bowl favorite will enter Week 18 with a .500 record. Rarely do all the Ravens’ cogs click into gear at once.

Even with star quarterback Jordan Love and standout right tackle Zach Tom sidelined by a concussion and back injury, respectively, the Packers (9-6-1) averaged 8.3 yards per play. Backup quarterback Malik Willis went 18-for-21 for 288 yards and a touchdown, repeatedly picking on Ravens cornerbacks Marlon Humphrey and Nate Wiggins. He added six carries for 60 yards and two touchdowns.

The Packers never punted. A turnover on downs and two giveaways — a botched shotgun snap that Ravens rookie outside linebacker Mike Green recovered in the second quarter and a deflected pass from third-string quarterback Clayton Tune that Humphrey picked off in the fourth — were their undoing.

“I thought the defense did a good job of picking themselves up off the mat,” Harbaugh said. “There are just too many big plays in the passing game. It was just crazy, how-did-this-happen kind of plays. We were a little on our heels. We were a little discombobulated there, and it was shocking, and we were all kind of shocked by it.”

Added outside linebacker Kyle Van Noy: “We played OK. We have to play better, and we will next week. We have a high standard, and that wasn’t our standard fully tonight. … Grateful that we got the win, but collectively, we all have to get better, continue to get better, and we can next week with the last game.”

The Ravens hope it’s not their last. On Sunday, they will turn into Browns fans, or at least Steelers haters. Harbaugh told the team in his postgame locker room speech that players were welcome to come to his house for a watch party. “I would love to go watch that,” inside linebacker Trenton Simpson said.

Tight end Mark Andrews said he would tune in and “hope for the best.” Linderbaum was resigned to the fact that he’d probably be watching, too, and that there was nothing he could do to help the Ravens’ odds. Huntley joked near the end of his news conference Saturday that he planned to call Cleveland’s Sanders, whom he met this summer at Browns training camp, and “make sure he gets it done.”

The Ravens’ playoff dreams are alive for now, but their fate is out of their hands. Only time will tell whether Saturday’s win was a gift or a curse. Yes, the Ravens still have a path to the postseason. No, it is not an easy one. When has it ever been this season?