Last Night, 2025, and Life

The Baltimore Ravens 2024 season ended last night in Buffalo, with the Bills winning 27-25.

If I’m particularly irritated at anything Ravens related today; it’s thinking back to their early season losses vs. Las Vegas and Cleveland.
Those were two games the Ravens had no business losing.
Win those games, and last night’s game is in Baltimore, and not Buffalo.

The Bills are a quality team.
I think the Ravens have a stronger roster overall, but the gap is not tremendous.
When the talent gap is not severe, it comes down to execution.
The Ravens weren’t able to overcome their self-inflicted errors.
Maybe they would have suffered a similar fate at M&T Bank Stadium.
Maybe being at home would have been the difference.

It’s another tough post-season loss, but it didn’t take me long to largely get over the disappointment.

Sports fandom is just a microcosm of life as a whole.
Things rarely go neatly and exactly as planned.
Most of the time there is adversity.

I woke up today believing the Ravens can largely run it back, and could win it all next year.
Others will have woken up today and and believe this current group lacks the collective grit to get it done.
They’ll think there is a deeper culture gap within the organization which needs be addressed.

I don’t feel that way, but the Ravens are going to have deal with the ‘choke artist’ narrative until they win games of significance in January and February.
That narrative is definitely out there, and will follow the Ravens into and throughout the ’25 season.
When the initial odds for ’25 are released, the Ravens will be one of the Top 5 overall favorites.
When the ’25 season begins, the Ravens will be in everyone’s Top 5 Power Rankings.

And then ’25 season will kickoff, and the Ravens will again begin a long journey trying to earn another opportunity to get back to the playoffs.
It’s a long road between now and seeing if the Ravens earn another shot at post-season redemption.

The waiting is painful.
The missed opportunity is painful.

That’s life.

Quick Hits On Last Night’s Game

• I thought the Ravens would win last night, but it was a pick’em game at the #2 seed. It’s certainly not shocking that the Ravens loss. Every Ravens fans should have been mentally prepared for that possibility. I think a loss would have been easier for many fans to take, had the Ravens played a clean game.
• The early Lamar Jackson pick was atrocious.
• I can’t get on Jackson too much about the the fumble. The snap was bad.  He tried to make something out of nothing. as we’ve seen him do before. There is an argument for game situation here, and saying he should have just fallen to the ground, but it’s hard to shut off the instinctual nature of trying to make a play.
• Down 14-7, the Ravens had 1st and Goal from the Bills 2. Derrick Henry lost a yard on 1st down.  On 2nd down, the Ravens elected to throw, and Jackson was sacked for a 5 yard loss. I probably would have gone back to Henry on 2nd. The Ravens having to settle for 3 there, was a win for Buffalo.
• The Pass Interference call on White late in the 2nd Quarter hurt. Bad calls happen though.
• The Ravens took over down 21-13, with 5:12 left in the 3rd Quarter. On the Game Thread at our Message Board, I posed prior to that drive, “If the Ravens score here, do you want to see them take the extra point, or go for the tie?”  Myself, I would have taken the extra point, which has a 90%+ conversion rate, and pulled within 1.  When they elected to go for 2 (which has a 50% +/- conversion rate), I would have run the ball. You just ran down the field and scored. Make them stop you again if you were going to go for it.
• I feel horrible for Mark Andrews. He’s a Ring of Honor guy, but the drops last night are how he’s largely going to be remembered by Ravens fans. Especially as it is compounded by previous post-season drops. Regarding the 2 point conversion he dropped at the end, I will say I don’t think it would have been enough.
• I don’t think Andrews would be catch there would have been enough, because the Ravens scored with 1:33 left.  I’m pretty sure Josh Allen and the Bills would have been able to get into Field Goal position. While Jackson and the Ravens marched 88 yards for that would be tying score, I don’t really understand what the Ravens were doing on that possession. The drive started at the Ravens 12, with 3:29 left. You begin that drive knowing you not only have to score, and get the conversion; you can’t give the ball back to the Bills with time.  So kudos to Jackson for driving the Ravens down for the score, but I’m not sure why it was all passing.
• The Ravens held Josh Allen to 127 yards passing, and James Cook to 3.9 yards per carry and lost.  That’s wild.
• Justice Hill, and Isaiah Likely showed up.  Rashod Bateman had a couple of good moments. I sure wish Henry had more than 16 carries (5.3 yards per carry). When they leaned on him in the 3rd, you could see the Bills defense begin to wilt.
• Down 21-10 at the half, the Bills begin the 3rd on offense.  The Ravens defense had to come up with a stop, and they did. They’d ultimately hold the Bills offense to 3 points on their first 3 possessions of the 2nd half.

Quick Thoughts On 2025

• The Ravens defense drastically improved during the year, leading the league in most statistical categories after Week 11.  Zach Orr will be back.
• We will see what happens with Todd Monken.
• It’s good that Justin Tucker seemed to find himself over the last month.
• I haven’t looked at or considered the cap implications of bringing him back, but my initial take is that Andrews will and should be back. There will be those that want to cut him based on his off-performance last night, and because the Ravens have two other capable TE’s. Myself, I would think the Ravens will again want all 3 available if the dollars make sense. Also, Andrews had 11 TD’s on the year, including 7 in the last 8 weeks. He remains Jackson’s preferred option in the Red Zone.
• Another year, another difficult schedule coming.
• I believe Ronnie Stanley is a Free Agent. 2024 was his best season in years, and getting him resigned should be the initial priority. If the Ravens are up against the cap, that’s a scenario where I’d consider letting Andrews go if that made the difference.

The Choke Artist Narrative 

The Ravens might as well embrace the narrative, because it exists, and will be in every article, and mentioned by every talking head about the Ravens throughout the 2025 season.
As we said, it will continue to exist until they win games that matter in January and Feb.

I personally find it a bit overblown.

’18, loss to LA. Jackson a rookie, didn’t start all year.

’19, Jackson MVP in his 2nd year, but still his 2nd year. No answer for Henry. Jackson wasn’t great, did have 500 yards of offense.

’20, Jackson had the pick 6 and was knocked out.

’21, Jackson hurt.

’22, Jackson hurt.

’23, Loss at home in the AFC Championship. They were better than KC, and should have won. This is the game which most bothers me.

’24, Lose games to Vegas and Cleveland you have no business losing, so you play the playoff game at Buffalo. I think the Ravens were better than the Bills, but they were near equals. It sucks they didn’t play a clean game.

Whatever your interpretation of these losses is, is fine.
We all agree the narrative is they can’t finish. It is definitely hanging over the franchise entering the 2025 season.

I’m of the opinion they can run it back with largely the same cast and they could win it all.
Others will conclude they have to make wholesale changes and turn over the roster and thus the culture.

It will be interesting to see what Eric DeCosta and John Harbaugh think.

Sometimes in life you have to go through the highest levels of adversity to ultimately reach the summit.