Earl Weaver said that in baseball, momentum is as good as your next day’s starting pitcher.
In football, it’s as good as your last result. Just a couple of days ago, the sky was falling in Baltimore. The coaches needed to be fired, the front office needed to be gutted, everything was a total disaster. Today we’re wondering how much tickets will cost when the Ravens inevitably host a playoff game.
The Ravens indeed saved their season with their 30-16 win against the Bears in Week 8. Combined with the Steelers and Bengals losing (and I feel like there’s another team in the division), they actually took control of their own destiny to win the division and once again are the betting favorites to do so.
They’re 2-5.
Tyler Huntley played the best we’ve seen him play as a pro. Getting Keaton Mitchell involved went well! Who woulda thunk it? And the pass rush … existed! Let’s not oversell it, but the Ravens recorded a sack and forced a pair of intentional groundings, which essentially makes it a three-sack day. The returns of Roquan Smith and Patrick Ricard were immediately impactful and there were no new injuries. If Lamar Jackson indeed returns against the Dolphins Thursday night and the Ravens improve to 3-5, momentum will be dramatically on their side.
That doesn’t mean everything is fixed and there’s nothing to be concerned about. The edge rush still isn’t consistent. No rusher was on average closer to the quarterback than the league average (4.57 yards). The Ravens still surrendered more sacks than they recorded. The offensive line as a whole remains a question mark. I have absolutely no idea how much trust I would have in Tyler Loop if he were to line up for a game winner from 54 yards out Thursday.
Still, the season is saved. The win allows them time to try to work through some of these issues. It perhaps fortifies thoughts that it would be worth it for the Ravens’ front office to consider being aggressive ahead of the Nov. 4 trade deadline. It stops the bleeding. There won’t be any need for think pieces about ping-pong tables or frustration with the play-calling (although the goal-to-go situations still left something to be desired).
The debates that will inevitably surround Jackson’s statuses on each day’s injury report (particularly interesting given the short week) will be fair. The Ravens have earned the skepticism there. Still, even that “controversy” now feels cheeky in light of a victory.
Instead of us piling on about how poorly John Harbaugh may have handled the injury report and seriousness of the topic given the recent NBA gambling scandal, those suggestions have largely come from national writers and analysts. Locally, that’s greeted by a bit of an eye roll. Perhaps we find Harbaugh’s explanation to push the boundary of plausibility, but we’re just not all that concerned. In the end, fans just want you to do whatever you have to in order to win games. If you think that messing with your opponents’ mind is helpful, then you’ll be forgiven … as long as you win.
On the whole, it should be a fairly “normal” week for the Ravens. If Jackson indeed returns on Thursday night, it could prove to trigger the start of a season-changing run. For that to happen, the defense will need to continue to improve. They finally made some big plays, none bigger than Nate Wiggins’ interception. Mike Green finally got involved, hopefully presenting the foundation for more success.
And if Jackson still isn’t quite ready, there will be far more of us who believe the team is at least capable of surviving one more week given how Huntley performed. We probably don’t want to actually see that theory tested, but the belief exists again nonetheless.
It strikes me just how quickly the good vibes have returned. Perhaps we’re being too hopeful just because we finally have some sort of pleasant outcome to react to. Maybe we should be a bit more skeptical about whether a team that has still only managed one victory since baseball season ended can really start to put everything together, but that’s the nature of football. One result is enough to feel legitimate momentum.
The Ravens have it right now. And now they have 10 weeks to attempt to redefine the 2025 season.
Photo Credit: Kenya Allen/PressBox