I don’t have anything for you.
I can’t talk you off the ledge. I can’t make you feel better about it. I can’t tell you that I think it needs to be blown up.
After another deflating playoff loss for the Baltimore Ravens, I can’t offer anything more than “we’ll see what happens next year.”
That’s the reality of where the Ravens are. There’s nothing consistent about their postseason shortcomings, no matter how hard any TV debate doofuses or “content creators” are going to try to force narratives. They’ve lost on the road. They’ve lost at home. They’ve lost to seeds higher than them. They’ve lost to seeds lower than them. They’ve lost in the wild-card round (albeit some time ago). They’ve lost in the divisional round. They’ve lost in the AFC championship game.
The Ravens’ playoff losses seemed to correlate with poor performances from Lamar Jackson early on in his career. Attention seekers will try to extend that argument after this most recent loss, but it will be more forced than his ill-timed interception. Their 2023 season ended in large part because of criminal coaching decisions in the AFC championship game. No such allegations can be made this time around.
(You can nitpick. I’d rip up any two-point conversion play where Derrick Henry wasn’t in the backfield. I think there could have been more Henry in general. But they didn’t abandon the run. They turned the ball over three times.)
That’s so unsatisfying for fans, right? The only real ire to be directed after the loss to the Bills would be toward the players guilty of the three turnovers. Those two players happen to be two of the five best players on the team. They’re two of the biggest reasons the Ravens were even in this position.
That doesn’t mean that Jackson and Mark Andrews should be above criticism. Jackson played well enough to win, but his fumble was a game-turning play. Andrews is a Ring of Honor Raven whose in-season turnaround helped this team right the ship en route to an AFC North title. But he cost the team badly in the loss to the Bills. It is sickening that a player so significant to this franchise will also have to carry the burden of personal postseason shortcomings. But there’s no hiding from his meltdowns in Buffalo, either.
There’s no connective tissue other than the ultimate result being a failure to reach the Super Bowl.
It’s infuriating. It’s flabbergasting. It’s other -ings, I’m certain.
Some fans will scream about firing John Harbaugh because they’re boring and predictable. Their emotional investment makes them feel like they need someone to scream at or about. A separate, somewhat reasonable group of fans will acknowledge that Harbaugh isn’t to blame but will ask if it is time for a new head coach because “if the results remain the same then doesn’t SOMETHING need to change?”
It isn’t an unreasonable question. And the answer is “yes.” But what needs to change is the results. And the Ravens have to determine what the best path is to changing the results. And there’s just no legitimate argument that giving someone else the head coaching job will definitively give the Ravens a better chance to change the results.
They have the quarterback. They have many of the other necessary pieces. They could use more receiver depth. They could use another starting-caliber outside cornerback. They have to figure out how to keep Andrews, Ronnie Stanley and Marlon Humphrey around at the correct numbers. They have to consider whether it’s time to bring in competition for Jordan Stout, whose services weren’t required (as a punter anyway) in their playoff loss. They’ll have to see if Todd Monken is plucked away by another team and if any other assistants are given outside opportunities.
But then, as frustrating as it sounds, they’ll need to run it back. They need to try to avoid the types of regular-season toe stubs that led to them playing on the road in the divisional round (acknowledging that’s easier said than done given that they play in the AFC’s toughest division). They need reasonable injury luck (which to be fair, they had this year).
They need to get themselves back in this position. And then they need to keep grinding away until the results change. They need to play something far closer to perfect football. The teams playing in the AFC championship game aren’t unbeatable or even overwhelming. They’re the teams that have played the closest to mistake-free football, even if at times boring.
They need to be in a place to be boring in the postseason.
It’s really that simple, no matter how infuriated you feel today.
Photo Credit: Kenya Allen/PressBox