When Willie Nelson coined the song “On The Road Again” he didn’t have the Ravens in mind however, the song certainly could be the theme for the organization when it comes to Monday Night Football.
I am not one to go screaming from the rooftops about how the NFL hates Baltimore everytime the Ravens are dealt a bad hand by the league like many fanatical fans, but it certainly makes one raise an eyebrow when it comes to the Ravens and MNF.
Since 2008, the Baltimore Ravens have compiled a 68-38 record under head coach John Harbaugh. In that time span as many of us know, Harbaugh has led Baltimore to a playoff berth in five (2008-12) of his first six full seasons including securing an appearance in three AFC Championship games (2008, 2011 and 2012) and captured the franchise’s second Super Bowl.
That’s a pretty impressive resume.
“Getting to play a Monday night at home, is there something to that? I wouldn’t really know,” Harbaugh replied when asked about the Saints record in primetime home-games. “I don’t know much about that. We don’t get those chances too often.”
While they have played in a respectful eight games on Monday night since 2008, the Ravens have been the league’s road warriors playing all but one of the eight games away from the friendly confines of M&T Bank Stadium.
Somewhere a phone conversation has taken place between the Ravens front office and the league but as Harbaugh pointed out on Friday, those talks fell upon deaf ears.
I don’t know what the details are with [Ravens general manager and executive vice president] Ozzie [Newsome] and [Ravens president] Dick [Cass], but I hope they have. (laughter) I think they have, but it works out that way sometimes.”
NFL senior vice president of broadcasting Howard Katz has often stated how hard it is to coordinate scheduling for the leagues 32 teams and rightly so. Still it is a bit of a head scratcher as to why the Ravens have found themselves away from home as often as they have.
Harbaugh was careful with his words but his expression said it all.
“I don’t want to go down that road. It’s just going to get me in trouble if I go down that road. I appreciate you trying to take me there, though,” he said when asked about Katz’s job of scheduling. “I’m not afraid of speaking my mind on it, but what difference does it make? We have to go play Monday night in New Orleans.”
“They haven’t lost there since 2010 – it’s our job to do something about that. Everybody has their scheduling quirks. There’s no point in complaining about it. Everybody has their challenges, scheduling-wise. I know Howard [Katz] has a tough job – we all do. So, everybody out there that has a tough job; nobody wants to hear anybody complaining about how tough your job is.”
Harbs took the high road and rightly so.
But at this point, there isn’t much to do about it except to deal with it and go play the game.
Overcoming adversity is the Ravens forte and their 4-3 record on Monday night’s away from home is commendable.
Yet it would be nice to host more than one MNF home game every seven seasons.
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