REALITY: The Ravens defense currently ranks 24th in points allowed and 25th in passing yards allowed.
PERCEPTION: This is not your father’s Ravens team, especially on defense. Since the turn of the century, the Baltimore Ravens have been known for one thing: defense. The 2000 Ravens team that won the Super Bowl might just have been the greatest defense to ever play the game of football. But not anymore.
Since the loss of Ray Lewis, Ed Reed, and now Terrell Suggs, this Ravens defense has no identity. It has no swagger… the swagger that made the Baltimore defense so scary for other teams. This year’s team just isn’t that good. You can blame it on injuries, or coaching, but I keep going back to one thing – the defensive unit as a whole. Do you blame General Manager Ozzie Newsome for not giving Dean Pees the players to make the defense good enough? Or do you blame the players for not living up to the Ravens’ standards? I don’t know, but we can all agree, they just aren’t very good.
REALITY: The Ravens have allowed more than 30 points twice this season.
PERCEPTION: Check this out: in John Harbaugh’s first seven seasons (from 2008-2014), the Ravens gave up 30 or more points in just 14 games. That’s the fewest in the NFL over the time period. But already this season, they have done it twice.
That is startling to me. The defense is just not the same as it used to be. They have shown flashes of what they could be, but then they seem to fail at the worst time…in the 4th quarter. According to Jamison Hensley of ESPN, they have allowed 25 points in the final four minutes of a game this season… the third most in the NFL. The fourth quarter is when the defense needs to prove their value. Well, the Ravens defense has done that this year. They have proven they just aren’t very good.
REALITY: The Ravens team as a whole have been hurt by injuries.
PERCEPTION: Terrell Suggs, Matt Elam, Michael Campanaro, and Will Davis are all on IR. Breshad Perriman is not on IR, but might as well be. Steve Smith Sr., Crockett Gillmore, Chris Canty, Elvis Dumervil, Justin Forsett, and Darren Waller are all “week to week.”
The Ravens have been hit by injuries, and it hasn’t been limited to one side of the ball. Four Wide Receivers are out right now, and that is not helping Joe Flacco as he tries to score points to make up for the defense allowing so many points.
REALITY: The Ravens are 1-4.
PERCEPTION: The Ravens could just as easily be 0-5 or even 5-0. All four of Baltimore’s losses have been by six points or fewer. In every game this season, the Ravens had a chance to win late in the fourth quarter.
Good teams find ways to win in the end. Bad teams find ways to lose. The Ravens are finding ways to lose every week. The Ravens have a favorable schedule, but does that really matter if you can’t win?
REALITY: Baltimore leads the all-time series with San Francisco 4-1.
PERCEPTION: The Ravens’ only loss to the 49ers was their first meeting, back in 1996. The biggest win was a few years ago in the Super Bowl.
It’s no longer the Har-bowl, but with Torrey Smith and Anquan Boldin on the other side, this should still have some interesting story lines.
The Ravens SHOULD win this game… but they SHOULD have won at least three of their five games so far this season. I have a hard time predicting a Ravens victory this week. How are we supposed to know if this team can win any game right now. We will just have to wait and see.
