The Ravens Have All The Makings Of A Super Bowl Champion... But They're Not Alone

Bryan M. Bennett. Getty Images.

Well… here we go again. Another year, another bite at the apple for the Ravens in the Lamar Jackson era.

This is effectively his 7th year as a full-time starter in the league. 3 of those 6 years ('19, '23, and '24) I would say Lamar and the team around him had everything they needed to go take home the Lombardi. As we all know, they've fallen short each of those years… and woefully I might add. Two divisional round disappointments and a home AFCCG loss is all they've got to show for it.

This year… feels different? In at least 2019 and 2023, the expectations were high, but true "Super Bowl favorite" type of aspirations really materialized as the year progressed and the team blew the doors off of opponent after opponent. 2024 was similar to a lesser extent. But I can honestly say that there has never been a Ravens roster in their entire history that I've felt is more talented from top to bottom than this year's roster. It is very difficult to identify where the weakness is here. Interior O-line? Pass rush? Rookie kicker?

Each of those are hardly even question marks. When you're nitpicking your right guard with the likes of Lamar Jackson and Derrick Henry in the backfield, that's a great problem to have. Pass rush has as deep a group as they've ever had… but I guess the knock is that they don't have 1 bona fide dawg that gets after the QB. And Tyler Loop was really impressive during the preseason and the Ravens were still in a great position last year despite some really costly poor play at that position last year.

So where does this go sideways? Well… this is probably the most competitive conference in the history of football, and probably has been for the past half decade. Of course, the boogeyman that is Mahomes is still out there and that's the over-arching storyline. Even with him losing week 1 and playing in a tough division in his own right, you know they're probably going to win the division and at the very least make the playoffs. They'll be a tough out no matter where they play there.

But of course… most of what I've said about the Ravens can also be said about the Bills too. The Bills might have their best team ever. I don't think they're as deep and well-rounded as we are, but they have a cushier division to go get home-field (like they did last year), an MVP level QB, and a hunger to push one across the line (or even merely get to a Super Bowl) just like we do. Not to mention the Ravens have to go to each of Buffalo and Kansas City, putting them at a disadvantage in what I think most would consider to be a 3-horse race to get the #1 seed in the AFC.\

That's what makes tonight's game such a monster game. When the schedule came out, I wanted to poo poo this week 1 matchup. The narrative is always "revenge game" in games like this, but it's really not. There's very little satisfaction to be gained here, just an eye roll and a "where the fuck was this when we needed it". A week 1 win here does not undo what happened in Buffalo last January, much like a Week 1 win in Kansas City wasn't going to undo the AFCCG loss the year prior. 

With all that said, it feels as imperative as ever to be in the driver's seat and have the AFC go thru Baltimore. Given the schedule differences between the Bills and Ravens, it becomes a tall task to fall effectively 2 games by way of the tiebreaker to them right from the jump. Same can be said about the Kansas City game in Week 4. It's hard to envision being the #1 seed without at least splitting those games. Win both, and you're seriously in business… and even then you still have a ton of AFC North business to handle.

Of course, all of this is moot if you can't get it done in January. But the road to righting some wrongs starts tonight.

The Bills are going to get theirs, but they won in January because they got theirs and a few of ours. Cannot do things like put the ball on the ground and drop easy passes. Sounds so remarkably simple but it's true. We are the more talented team, but not by enough to be able to make those types of mistakes.

Long season, but time to get the ball rolling. 

Let's go Lamar.