The Baltimore Ravens Perfect Preseason Streak Is On The Line Tonight And The Stats Show It's The Most Impressive Practice Accomplishment Ever
Dan Kubus. Getty Images.
The NBA might be trying an in-season tournament this year, but the Baltimore Ravens have been dominating their in-preseason tournament since 2016. 23 meaningless wins in a row. If practice makes perfect, may as well be perfect in practice. At this point just hang the banner, Ravens. Be proud of your practice accomplishments. Madden should lean into it too and give the Ravens the first perfect 100 score just for the preseason and run the sims to tell us if they'll keep it going.
23 consecutive preseason wins is more absurd than the UConn Women's college basketball team winning 111 straight games if you ask me. Unlike those UConn games, preseason results are supposed to be basically a flip of the coin. Starters play a few drives until the nesting doll of second, third and fourth stringers pop out onto the field to take a break from editing their Indeed resumes. The only streak close to comparable is the 2007-08 Houston Rockets. This otherwise .500 caliber team inexplicably won 22 straight games in the middle of the season yet finished the season just 28 games above .500.
The chances of a team winning 23 straight preseason games if we assume a coin flip's chance of winning each game is 1:8,388,608. That's Hank Lockwood lottery ball territory. But these Ravens are built different. My guess is this all has to do with the strength coach who was rated so god awfully bad in the players survey that came out this past March. He got them ready for the 100-yard dash when he should have been prepping them for a marathon.
I did the grunt the work to figure each team's longest preseason winning streak at any point since 1983 when pro football reference starting tracking results. While 2nd place San Francisco has an impressive 12-game all-time streak, they are Kobayashi to the Raven's Joey Chestnut:
This makes me wonder if having such a meaningless exhibition streak is actually a curse. The 12-game winning streak by the 1991-1993 49ers contained two 13-win seasons with no Super Bowls to show for it. What happened in 1994 after the streak ended? They won the Super Bowl. And get this - the only other teams to win all of their preseason games last year were the Bears, Texans, Raiders, and Steelers. Holy ass. Only the Ravens made the playoffs from this bunch and, wouldn't you know it, they were stripped of having any chance with Lamar Jackson hurt. The gods even fucked with them a little bit by giving them a 98-yard fumble return touchdown to squander.
Counter point: The Seahawks went 4-0 in 2013 the year they won the Super Bowl as part of their nine-game preseason win streak. And the 2003 Panthers at least made the Super Bowl as part of their streak that started in 2002.
Hmmm. Now I don't know what to think! Is preseason really just meaningless due to it consisting primarily of fourth stringers a week before they start their first shift at Kroger to play against future Safe-Way employees?
Fuck it - let's dig deeper. Here's a stat you won't find from anyone else. Teams that are undefeated in the preseason since 1983 went 684-638-1 (51.7%) in the regular season, while winless preseason teams went 576-694-5 (45.3%). This proves that winning all your games actually DOES matter in the preseason. How much? By 1.7 percent! Scoff all you want, but an edge like that can make you millions playing blackjack! (now fired Ravens strength coach nods in agreement)
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What's the point of all this? The Ravens should be proud of this winning streak. If the next top three teams at least made a Super Bowl during or right after the streak, that might actually be a sign of good things to come. This should be celebrated. Cherished. Honored.
Hang the banner.
- Jeffro