The Ravens finished the regular season 12-5 and on a four-game winning streak heading into their Wild Card game against the Pittsburgh Steelers.
Most pundits have the Ravens as a top-5 team, with a high of No. 3 entering the first round.
Here's where Baltimore stands at the end of the regular season:
| Source | Ranking | Last Week's Ranking | Comments |
|---|---|---|---|
| NFL.com | No. 5 | No. 6 | “Saturday's throttling of the Browns was about the defense. From Nate Wiggins' pick-six to big man Michael Pierce's interception (with another Kyle Van Noy sack in between), the Ravens were mostly dominant on that side of the ball, compensating for a slow start by the offense that kept the score semi-close. Then Lamar Jackson heated up and Derrick Henry rumbled for two TDs. Right now, it just feels like the Ravens are flying way below where they were on the radar at this time last year, when they were the team everyone was looking up at. Now the Ravens are the hunters, lying in the weeds. Sure, there's some tall grass in the AFC, but the best version of this team can mow down the field.” — Eric Edholm |
| Bleacher Report | No. 5 | No. 6 | “After blasting the woeful Cleveland Browns on Saturday, the Baltimore Ravens are champions of the AFC North and the conference's No. 3 seed. Head coach John Harbaugh told reporters that while the team will celebrate the division title, there's still much more for the Ravens to accomplish this year.” — NFL Staff |
| Sports Illustrated | No. 6 | No. 6 | “Zay Flowers’s availability complicates my confidence in Baltimore’s ability to avoid a straight-up slugfest against Pittsburgh just slightly. While the Steelers are not some kind of impenetrable force, allowing them to hang around past the third quarter is pure hell for any team, hence the need for a gamebreaking wide receiver.” — Conor Orr |
| CBS Sports | No. 5 | No. 6 | “They head into the playoffs as one of the best in the AFC. The offense will be tough to stop, but their defense will be what decides how far they go.” — Pete Prisco |
| The Athletic | No. 6 | No. 6 | “Maybe that’s an exaggeration, but there’s no question Derrick Henry would have gotten more attention in free agency if he wasn’t 31 years old. He was 30 last offseason, and that’s traditionally considered the cliff for elite running backs. Not for Henry, who rushed for 1,921 yards this season and has made the Ravens offense one of the most dangerous in the league heading into the playoffs.” — Josh Kendall |
| Sporting News | No. 5 | No. 6 | “The Ravens finished on a fantastic four-game surge to close the season with Lamar Jackson padding his MVP-caliber stats and getting a lot more help from an improved complementary defense. Derrick Henry and their running game is built to handle this clutch time of year, and they also can erase opponents' rushing attacks. They just need their offensive line and secondary to keep it up in tougher matchups.” — Vinnie Iyer |
| The Ringer | No. 3 | No. 2 | “All season, we’ve lamented the Ravens’ inability to finish games and their tendency to beat themselves with poor special teams play and penalties. But this team has largely cleaned up its operation down the stretch. Defensively, the Ravens have turned up their aggression by loading the box and forcing opponents to beat them on the perimeter, something that’s been made possible by rookie Nate Wiggins’s growth and Marlon Humphrey playing like the best slot defender in the NFL. Running back Derrick Henry gives this team a change of pace on offense that it’ll need to beat the likes of Buffalo and Kansas City on the road in the playoffs, and the receiving corps has a better balance of roles and body types than ever before.” — Diante Lee |
| Yahoo! Sports | No. 5 | No. 6 | “Zach Orr hasn't been a hot name yet this offseason. Maybe next year he will. The defensive turnaround looks great on the 32-year-old coordinator. John Harbaugh has proven to be a great head coach, and getting a young rising talent off his tree would be smart. Orr is on his way to a head coaching job, and soon.” — Frank Schwab |
