It's going to difficult to handicap this year's team because the coaching has all changed and so has the offensive scheme that will now have more of a West Coast flavor to it. It will be an interesting training camp and pre-season this year especially with all the new blood coming in vying for a job.
As for NFL mediocrity, it exists and it's real. That's been the goal of the NFL for 2 decades now and they have pretty much achieved it. Sure there's a few teams that are better than others and, yes the Ravens didn't play well against the stronger teams last year. But, that was last year and we can hope that Minter and his staff and all the new blood will make a difference. If it doesn't, we might as well have kept Harbaugh on and I don't think you would have been happy with that either.