Ravens Are a Deep Playoff Threat
The Ravens locked up the AFC North division title on Saturday with a 35-10 win over the Cleveland Browns. With their win, Rich Eisen of "The Rich Eisen Show" believes "the Ravens are real, with a deep threat to win it all."
Eisen went on to list what teams need to win the Super Bowl, and the Ravens have them all.
"What do you need to have to win it all? You need to have an MVP quarterback. Check that box," Eisen said. "You need a defense. And this defense just gets better and better and better. It's been a while since we've talked about how porous this defense was and how you can put 40 [points] up on them and they've got a problem on the back end and maybe up front. It's been a while since we've had that conversation, right? … And you need a rushing attack."
Eisen's confidence even beamed at the current roster and how it may be better equipped for a Super Bowl run than last season, when the Ravens were the No. 1 seed in the AFC.
"You can even make the case that this Ravens team is better set up this year to win it all," Eisen said. "At least in the AFC than last year. … This is the second year for Lamar Jackson in this offense and he looks way more comfortable. And he's got Derrick Henry to balance it out."
Baltimore has a tough playoff road ahead, starting with Saturday's Wild-Card game against the rival Steelers, but the Ravens have already played every team in the AFC postseason. They beat them all except for the Chiefs.
Every team is 0-0 in the new tournament now, but the Ravens have benefitted from those experiences.
"It was a tough schedule, and we played teams when they were at their best quite often, and they were on a roll when we played them, and I thought our guys handled that," Head Coach John Harbaugh said Saturday night. "You get forged; you get tough. And when you come from iron, then you become iron, and I think our guys have done that. Let's see where it takes us."
Pundits Says the 2024 Ravens Will Be Judged on the Playoffs
This marks the sixth time the Ravens will go to the postseason since Lamar Jackson arrived in 2018. Now the Ravens' quest is to go further.
The playoffs have become the barometer for the top-tier franchises. While many pundits acknowledged the Ravens' excellence – both by team and individual performances – they are intent in seeing it translate from the regular season to the gauntlet ahead.
"This team was never going to be judged by what happens over the grueling 18 weeks of the regular season. It was always going to be about the playoffs," The Athletic's Jeff Zrebiec wrote. "That's the harsh reality after coming up short last year and losing in either the wild-card or divisional round in four of the five preceding seasons. It's also the harsh reality of having an MVP quarterback in his prime. You only get so many chances to make a Super Bowl run."
Zrebiec isn't the only one noting how the masses would look upon the Ravens. Though they've been working since late July, the "real" measurement would come in January.
"We heard it before this team was even assembled, when the wounds from the Ravens' AFC championship loss to the Chiefs were still raw," The Baltimore Sun’s Childs Walker wrote. "Nothing they — Harbaugh, Jackson, any of the organization's core figures — could do in the regular season would quiet those who believe the Ravens don't show their best in the legacy-defining games of January."
The same goes for The Baltimore Banner's Kyle Goon.
"If everyone is honest, we've all been waiting for what happens next — to see if the talent that has won them so many regular-season games will finally translate into a return to the Super Bowl stage," Goon wrote. "It's where a team this talented belongs, even if the No. 1-seeded Chiefs still loom in the distance on the other side of the AFC bracket."
And, as always, that judgment and record will be upon Jackson's shoulders.
"Fair or not, all his NFL records aside, Jackson's legacy is going to be tied to his postseason play. He is 2-4 as a postseason starter, including 1-3 at home," Pressbox’s Bo Smolka wrote. "Twice, he has lost at home as the No. 1 seed. Jackson's postseason passer rating of 75.7 pales in comparison to his career regular-season mark of 102.0. There have been plenty of reasons for the postseason losses, but Jackson hasn't played particularly well. No one needs to remind him, or anyone else in the organization, of that. But there might not be more pressure on anyone else in the league to finally deliver his team to the Super Bowl."
Ravens Must Play Better Than Week 18
The Ravens closed out the regular season with a 25-point blowout of the Browns. They amassed 437 net yards and at no point was the win in doubt. Yet, pundits and players all exclaimed the Ravens weren't at their best on Saturday, and they'll need to be going forward.
"The Ravens earned their celebration — a 'hat and T-shirt game' they called it — even if it came as a result of their wobbliest performance in more than a month," Walker wrote. "This team has played gorgeous, fast, fluid offense for much of the regular season. Not so on Saturday against a miserable Cleveland team with as much of its first string on the sideline as in the game."
Although they didn't play a most "gorgeous" game, they won, and by a lot. For Smolka, that not-so-pretty win just may be beneficial when things get ugly in the playoffs.
"Offensively, the Ravens will need to start sharper and play sharper overall than they did against Cleveland," Smolka wrote. "Jackson said he was frustrated that too many drives ended with missed fourth-down conversions, and his completion percentage of 50 percent won't win many playoff games. Maybe slogging through this win will be for the best."
