The Ravens Are Just Better At Losing Than Everyone Else
What a game yesterday. The Ravens played a lot of good football, some bad football, and then covered their asses late with some clutch awfulness. They were just awful enough to make sure they came out on the wrong side of the score, which is what this team has done best. They didn’t need that win. The Ravens are a flawed team and have been for weeks. With all the injuries, it’s only gotten worse. It was evident early that this just wasn’t their year. I held out hope that maybe we’d squeak into the playoffs, but deep down I knew that even if they pulled off that miracle, a Super Bowl was out of the question. And now I’m finally at peace with it. Here’s why:
The Ravens are just the better at losing than everybody else right now. I don’t mean that in a “this is a great team that’s just getting unlucky” kinda way. I mean that in a “the Ravens are elite tankers” kinda way. There’s a lot of bad football teams out there this year. Most of them are accustomed to losing year in and year out. They tread water in their mediocrity every year and get encouraged by winning games like Jacksonville did, but never even come close to sniffing championship football. The Tennessees, the Jacksonvilles, the Washingtons, the Clevelands…. they all thrive off the hope that winning those kinda games provide. But the bottom line is that they’re no better than they were last year or the year before. If they want to eke out these games against the Ravens, they can have em. It’s their funeral.
We’ve gone all in on being losers in 2015, and we’ve executed beautifully. Facemasks and red zone interceptions, turnovers, penalties that have all cost the Ravens games this year, and it’s put us at the bottom of the NFL standings. Little ticky tack things that are just enough to get that L. The Ravens are giving those shitty teams a clinic on how to lose. They did it beautifully in 2007 by losing games in very very similar fashion, gifting games left and right. and it brought them Joe Flacco and Ray Rice. They were 13-3 in 2006, took care of business when the season got away from them in 2007 by losing 9 straight, and then were right back in the AFC Championship game the next year. The resulting picks gave us years of winning football and a Super Bowl. 2015 is no different from 2007. We’re not rebuilding. We’re not hitting the reset button. It’s just a reload year. They’re losing games, yet getting guys like Crockett Gillmore and Maxx Williams the important reps they need to be high impact guys next year. Having those guys emerge while still getting an L is probably the best thing that could’ve happened yesterday.
So I welcome the Rams to Baltimore next week with open arms. We won’t make it easy for em, but they shouldn’t fret. They’ll get their W and their false hope that the future holds anything other than losing football. And we’ll continue to move one step closer to getting Vernon Hargreaves or Joey Bosa or whatever future NFL HOFer that’ll don the purple and black for the next decade. The Ravens will be back and better than ever, but they’ll make sure that won’t happen until 2016.