2025 Ravens: Quick Hits Before Week 1 At Buffalo

The Baltimore Ravens 2024 season ended with a January 19th, 2025 loss at Buffalo in the AFC Divisional Round.

Sunday night, the Ravens 2025 season begins with a return trip to Buffalo.

Here we give some quick hits on a number of topics before the 30th season in Ravens history kicks off.

Living With Exceedingly High Expectations 

In life, having high expectations can be both a blessing and a curse.

The blessing being you want to be in position to capture the ultimate prize, whatever that may be for you.

High expectations exist when there is an acknowledgement about potential.

In the case of the Ravens, it’s understood by local fans and National media alike; that the organization has the legitimate potential of capturing their third Lombardi Trophy.

For many, anything short of a Super Bowl for this Ravens team will feel like a failure, and clearly that illustrates the cursed side of expectations.

If only the culmination can be enjoyed, then everything else can leave you numb.

As a Ravens fan, I didn’t enjoy that playoff loss to the Bills last January, but I did get over it pretty much immediately.

Sometimes in life, things don’t go your way.
And then you have a choice.

You can sit and wallow, and lament what could have been.
Or you can pick yourself up, and continue progressing to what can be.

The door closed on the 2024 Ravens that cold night in Buffalo.
The door of opportunity opens for the 2025 Ravens Sunday night.

Many people Nationally, and locally will not be able to invest into the Ravens.
They’ll be skeptical or emotionally checked out until the Ravens have playoff success.
They’ll believe it’s preordained or hard-wired that the Ravens will again taste regular season success; only to stumble in the post-season once more.

Neither success or failure is written in stone.

Regular season success seems likely, but it still has to be earned each week.
The Ravens could lose again in the playoffs, but that’s not determined either.

Last year, many Ravens fans seemingly wanted to skip the regular season, and advance immediately back to an AFC Championship Game rematch vs. Kansas City.
That’s not how life works.

The ’24 Ravens were never going to be able to provide a mulligan for the ’23 Ravens.
The ’25 Ravens can not provide a do over for the ’24 Ravens.

The opportunity which existed for the ’23 and ’24 teams (etc) has long evaporated into the ether.
Those years can not be played back.
If the Ravens win Sunday night, that doesn’t avenge the loss last January.

For me, last year was about earning a chance to get back to the playoffs, and gaining another opportunity to win January / February games of importance.
I feel the same here as this ’25 season begins.

Win or lose Sunday, the potential exists for this ’25 roster to win it all.
Remembering prior tough losses could make it all the more sweeter, if the Ravens are holding the Lombardi in San Francisco next February.
Enjoying the week-to-week process of watching this ’25 season develop, and seeing if the Ravens earn their way back to the playoffs; should make the regular season more fun for any Ravens fan who would be comatose otherwise.

Other Teams Have Aspirations Too

Buffalo has their own MVP QB, and their own loaded roster.
I’m sure that ‘Buffalo Sports and Life’, believes it’s the Bills time.

Kansas City has been to the Super Bowl 5x since 2019.
They went 15-2, and advanced to the Super Bowl last year; and look to have a better roster this year.

Philadelphia is the defending champs, and many believe they can repeat.

Green Bay and Detroit will fight it out in the NFC North, and both expect to be in the Super Bowl mix.

There are plenty of people making the cases for others ( particularly Tampa Bay, Washington, and Denver ) as Super Bowl dark horses as well.

I think the Ravens have the most talented roster in the league 1-53 to begin the year. (They had 11 Pro Bowlers, and 6 All-Pros last year.)

That’s a great place to be.

That doesn’t equate to, “Only the Ravens can beat the Ravens.” 

This is a Salary Cap sport, with unbalanced schedules.

There are other talented teams.

Injuries will change the complexion of many teams in the subsequent months.

If the Ravens were playing a 17 game season vs. any other team; I’d feel good about the Ravens chances of winning that series.

One game scenarios are a different matter.

A Reminder That Mark Andrews Received Death Threats

When Andrews dropped a pass in that loss to Buffalo last January; he received death threats.

I’m sure some of those threats were some general NFL bettors, but some were surely from Ravens ‘fans.’

Every loser that posed threats to Andrews deserves all the bad karma they could possibly have.

You would have to be the most pathetic jerk on the planet to be posting death threats to a player.

Andrews knows he messed up.  You don’t like him, you won’t root for him, you wanted him gone… all fair game.

Calling for his life just means you are a miserable sob, with warped views of what matters in life.

I’m glad Andrews is back, and I hope he gets the ovation he deserves from Ravens fans next week in the home opener against Cleveland.

The Schedule Before The Bye…. 3-3 Is Possible

The Ravens have six game between now and October 12th, and it’s entirely possible they start 3-3.

If you are looking at betting lines, and ESPN’s Match-Up Predictor; the Ravens have gone from a slight dog to a slight favorite vs. Buffalo this week.

Baltimore will be a heavy favorite vs. the Browns at home.

The Ravens figure to be a slight home favorite vs. Detroit, and a slight road dog at Kansas City.

The last two games before the bye are Houston and the Rams at home.
The Ravens will be favorites in both, but both the Texans and LA expect to be playoff teams, and are certainly capable of beating the Ravens on any given Sunday.

My expectation is that the Ravens will probably be 4-2 when the bye comes, but the sky won’t be falling if the Ravens are 3-3 at the bye, just like the sky wasn’t falling last year when they started 0-2.

The Pressure On Loop

No pressure at all on Rookie PK Tyler Loop.   He only has to replace the best kicker ever, on a team with Super Bowl aspirations.

I hope the Ravens (Coach Harbaugh) help ease him in.

Meaning, he’s a pro now, and he’s going to be relied on… but the Ravens can make his job a bit easier early on.

Before you are asking him to regularly nail attempts from 50+ yards out, help build his confidence with chip shots.

Harbaugh and the Ravens Analytics department has no problem going for it on 4th down.
Maybe be even more aggressive in those situations (or go the other way, and be conservative with the punting game); vs. giving Loop a lot of longer attempts.

Let him start seeing shots go through the uprights in good conditions, before you are asking him to hit potential game winners in swirling winds.

Whether you are protecting him a bit, or throwing him to the wolves right away; the Ravens are going to need him to be effective.

In terms of replacing Justin Tucker as a Kicker, Tucker was coming off a below average season (for him at-least).
So in that sense, the bar isn’t quite as high for Loop to jump over.

Pretty Excited About Adding Malaki Starks, and Mike Green To The Defense

The defense steadily improved during last season.

Maybe part of that was Zach Orr (with Dean Pees) becoming more comfortable with the personnel they had (and the players being more comfortable with what they were being asked to do).

Maybe a larger part of that was the opposing QBs down the stretch were a bit more manageable collectively vs. what they faced early on.

The Secondary is Starks, Nate Wiggins, Kyle Hamilton, Jaire Alexander, and Marlon Humphrey.

If that group stays healthy all year, and Green helps generate consistent 3rd down pressure; and the defense can be elite.

The Ravens Had Good Fortune Health Wise Last Year

There figures to be more injuries this year, and those injuries cause corresponding issues.

You lose depth, you increase snap counts for guys, you have guys sliding into positions which are not ideal fits.

The Ravens have a very deep roster.

There is versality, and they have possible answers for a lot of scenarios.

Everyone understands there is no scenario where the Ravens can lose Lamar Jackson to injury and just solider on.

I think the next most important guy on the roster health wise would be Ronnie Stanley.

Stanley played a total of 31 games over 2020-2023.

He played all 17 regular season games last year.

Let’s hope he remains regularly available in 2025.

Thoughts On The Bills

Everyone in the world has Jackson, Josh Allen, Patrick Mahomes, and Joe Burrow as the best four QBs in the world in some order.

Jackson’s amazing, and I think the stats indicated he should have again been MVP last year (he was 1st team All-Pro at QB), but Allen is obviously also fantastic.

The Bills have quality RB’s with James Cook, and Ray Davis.

The Bills have quality WR’s and TE’s with Khali Shakir, Keon Coleman, Joshua Palmer, Dalton Kincaid, and Dawson Knox.

The not so secret weapon the Bills offense has had the last few years has been an O-Line that stayed healthy and available.
Right now they’re dealing with a back issue with LT Dion Dawkins.
Center Connor McGovern is a Pro Bowler.

Defensively, I like Greg Rosseau, and Ed Oliver up-front.
They’ve added Joey Bosa opposite of Rosseau.

AJ Epenesa, and Matt Milano have been plus players when healthy.

The Bills 2nd (DT, TJ Sanders) and 3rd (EDGE, Landon Johnson) round picks figure to get time.
One blow to the Bills is that their 1st round selection CB Maxwell Hariston is set to miss time with a knee injury.

Going back to the playoff loss, the Ravens held Allen to 127 yards and 0 TD’s.
Hard to imagine that happening again.

Derrick Henry had 84 yards (5.3 yard per attempt), on only 16 carries.
Maybe make the Bills show they can slow him?

The Ravens figure to be without FB Patrick Ricard (impacts both the running and pass blocking), and TE Isiah Likely (who had a big game in the playoff loss).

Without Ricard available, Baltimore likely shows 3 WR sets often.
As you pull defenders out of the box, I think that can also create opportunities for Henry.

A road win here could certainly have playoff home-field advantages later.

 

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