No one is happy with the Ravens right now. Not ownership, not the coaches, not the players and especially not the fans. In fact, it’s been a minute since our usually beloved team took on this much friendly fire. But as sad as it is to admit—the vitriol is completely warranted. Because trying to support this team, which has not only turned shitting the bed into an art form but has taken it to heights previously imaginable, as well, is an absolutely maddening endeavor. One that can cause even the most reserved among us to lapse into some overly emotional mud slinging.
I'd love to suggest that, in a league regularly described as ‘week to week,’ maybe we shouldn't be all that dismayed by their lack of consistency this early in the season. But the thing is, for this team, ‘week to week’ is still a stretch goal. In fact, it’d take drastic improvement to reach that benchmark at this point. Fans are probably thinking to themselves, “If only we could root for a week-to-week team…how great would that be?!” Because if the Ravens would simply show up some weeks, and no-show others, it would be so much less excruciating to watch. Plus in that scenario, we'd know they were at least capable of playing up to their potential for four consecutive quarters.
No, sadly, through the first six games at least, the Baltimore Ravens have demonstrated they aren’t quite ready for the week-to-week moniker—proving themselves to be a quarter-to-quarter team, instead (and even that might be too generous).
So with that in mind, I’ve poured over the data, crunched the numbers and compiled this extremely sophisticated, analytics-minded chart of the Ravens 2022 season to date:
While reflecting back on this ludicrous season to cobble this together, an unavoidable paradox presented itself. While we should honestly consider ourselves lucky to even have won the three games we did, we really, truly should be 6-0. And the latter is not the product of flagrant mental gymnastics requiring a massive rewrite of history, either, but an entirely accurate assessment of those three losses. There are clear inflection points, where if x doesn’t happen or if y had been executed successfully, that would've directly led to a spotless record. It's a shame, but the only reason this team isn't undefeated is that they've shot themselves in the feet so much they look like post-Nam Lt Dan.
That’s why the Flock isn't even necessarily mad that they’ve dropped a couple games—it’s losing in such humiliating, fall-from-ahead fashion that torments us. And as I’m in lockstep agreement here, I have no intention of hand waving the fan base's frustrations. They're 100% legitimate and warranted. What I do find a bit odd, though (and maybe this is more at the feet of the medias, local and social, than the fan base, in general), is the inability to separate out each defeat and evaluate it on its own merits.
Because in the immediate aftermath of each, I’ve heard a significant number of people declare that all three have been 'the worst loss in recent memory.’ Now, there's a linear element to the losses, of course, where you can't straight up call it a logical fallacy. The first thing to happen could be the worst thing ever at the time it occurred, with the second and third things each ratcheting up the respective awfulness. But that's wildly unlikely, and I think we all know that's not what happened.
What actually happened is that we suffered a terrible, embarrassing loss…followed by another terrible, embarrassing loss…followed, yet again, by another terrible, embarrassing loss. In the aggregate, each one may've felt like the worst loss ever, because the resulting dejection was heaped on top of the not quite dissipated agony from the last crushing defeat. And as the above chart indicated, even in our wins we've had entire quarters or halves which were far from optimal, so we can't even fully escape this gloom and doom during the good weeks. So after the Giants loss, for instance, anyone declaring it was ‘the worst loss in recent memory’ is likely remarking on the totality of all these epically shitty quarters—not evaluating that NYG loss independently.
I’m confident in making this assertion, because, personally, I'll go to my grave insisting one of these games (and one quarter in particular) stands head and shoulders above the others. When I dispassionately assess each of the three losses, there is zero ambivalence or fence sitting from my perspective. Without hesitation: The Miami loss was by far the worst one. Clearly and indisputably. In fact, from both an in-game perspective and a long-term one, it's one of the worst (if not the worst) regular season losses since the Bengals in ‘17.
Let's start with in-game. People like to bring up the squandered 17-point lead against the Bills, but I have a mental block against this argument. Admittedly it's splitting hairs, but for a lead to be considered 'blown,’ in my opinion, it needs to be pissed away late in the second half. At the start of the 3rd quarter, it was 20-10. Coughing up a 10-point lead to Josh Allen, as hard as it was to stomach in the moment, is hardly a world-shattering event. Throw in crappy weather and the poorly executed 4th down play, and it's a fathomable loss. A bad loss, a costly loss, a painful loss, sure, but a fathomable loss, all the same.
Same goes for the Giants game. I'm the biggest, blindest Lamar supporter you will ever meet, and even I can’t muster up a defense for his 4th quarter play against New York. But again, that abysmal five-minute stretch is something I can wrap my head around. Lamar committing two soul-crushing TOs late in 4th, as much as it hurt to witness, happens from time to time in this league, as even superstar QBs have disastrous quarters where they look like they don’t belong on an NFL field. It’s horrible to watch in real time, but it happens. It’s in the realm of possibilities.
Which brings us to the Dolphins game. No matter how I dissect it, no matter how many times I turn it over in my head, that 4th quarter against Miami, the actual events that transpired on the field, that I watched with my own eyes, make no goddamn sense. I thought maybe I’d get a better handle on it in time, but it's been over a month, and I still can’t make heads or tails of any of it. It seems like if you replay just that last quarter 100 times in a simulation, the Ravens should win 101 times out of 100.
I mean, if the defense just positions themselves correctly, if they each just half-heartedly cover an opponent, the worst-case scenario is the Ravens only winning by 14. And I understand the criticisms of the decision to go for it on fourth down and/or leave points on the board, but, honestly, had the Ravens offense never touched the ball in the 4th quarter, I'd still expect to win handily. Regardless of what the offense was doing, the defense still should've been able to shut the door.
And I’m fully aware that prevent defense is often criticized as not preventing anything1, but had they called and executed a Madden-esque prevent defense every play of the 4th quarter, I’d bet a year's salary they’d be 4-2 right now. Because really, they didn't even need to stop them in the traditional sense but just slow them down a bit. If they could’ve just made each scoring drive take 5 minutes—still a quick scoring drive—they'd win going away. And they couldn't even do that! They were powerless, absolutely powerless to have any impact, however minimal, on the Dolphins offense at all. It looked like they were letting Miami score at will in hopes they'd tire themselves out. It was downright embarrassing to watch, and I can only assume that every defender was extremely and rightfully mortified after the game.
After the Giants2 and Bills games, I felt the anger and the rage and the fury just as everyone else did. It was palpable, no doubt about that. But I didn’t really feel any of that after the Miami game—just stunned disbelief. A lot of muttering "I…I don't even know what to say…" to myself over and over. It was like someone disproved the theory of gravity or something. I just failed to understand the world around me any more.
Now from a zoomed out perspective, I'd argue the Dolphins loss is still the worst one. We can safely brush aside the Giants. Anyone who wants to argue that an early season loss to a capable, non-conference team will have the most devastating ramifications has some sort of angle they're playing.
Obviously the logic gets a little fuzzy with the other two being in the same division and our same conference, but I'd say anyone being honest has the Bills penciled in as AFCE champs (their hiccup in Miami obviously a significant development, though). I’d also bet they have at least a two- or three-game lead on us when all is said and done, so I don't think the Buff loss will have any major impact on top-4 seeding. Which in turn makes the Dolphins loss the one more likely to come back to bite us at the end of the year. It’ll either make us a lower seed, or it might push us out of the playoffs all together. And while it’s much less significant, throw in the fact it was the home opener, and it's just more salt in the wound.
So I'll reiterate, while all three losses were gut-wrenching, for every conceivable reason, the Dolphins loss wrenched our guts the most. It more than hurt–it defied the laws of nature. And it was the genesis of this wretched pall that hangs above this team and this fan base, growing and darkening even on our best days, and threatening to suffocate us after our worst.
Which is why I look at the Browns game with utter trepidation. My logical side thinks they should win, but my lizard brain, poisoned by all these recent setbacks, is deeply concerned about them laying another multi-turd Q4 this week. And if they do indeed squander a double-digit lead at home to a lackluster, Brissett-led Browns team, many people will probably declare it as 'the worst loss in recent memory.' Should that happen, no one, myself included, will care if it's technically worse than the Miami game or not. No, it'll feel like end times in Charm City, all the same.
And while I hesitate to even mention this, to even put this negative energy into the cosmos, since I only ever call for heads to roll as a last resort—if that does happen, it might be time to clean house.
Let's hope it doesn't come to that. Let's hope they win convincingly. And let's also hope for a little perspective for our current situation. Because, as I have to constantly remind myself, 3-3 is far from a death sentence, even considering the devastating path we took to get here. It's still early, and the Ravens schedule is hardly a gauntlet. With three winnable games in the next 18 days, they could go into their bye week 6-3. Or, it being the '22 Ravens and all, 3-6. I honestly don't know.
But, I'm trying to force myself to look at the bright side of all this, though. If they're done stepping on their own dicks—a massive 'if' by the way—I think they'll win either two or all three of the pre-bye games. And with a much-more-average-than-expected AFC, the shitty, counterproductive playoff seeding structure and a watered-down 17-game season, I'm still bullish on this being a playoff team. Most likely a four or a seven seed (depending on if Cinci ever gets their shit together), but a playoff team all the same. If I'm wrong, however, and the Miami loss ends up knocking us out of the playoff picture, then that's a bed we made that we'll have to lie in. And that's a loss that will just keep finding new ways to shatter me to my core.
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And that I know nothing about schematics or game-planning
For the Giants game to be as bad as the Dolphins game, Lamar's two turnovers would've both had to come on what should’ve been kneel plays