ExtremeRavens Posted Wednesday at 11:10 PM Posted Wednesday at 11:10 PM The Ravens’ season has been a roller coaster of emotions and thought exercises. A 1-5 start followed by five straight wins and then two straight losses for a team once thought to be a Super Bowl contender will do that. An NFL season lasts but only so long, though. Each of the past two weeks, players have talked about that particular game being a “must-win” or having a “playoff” feel. Then they went out and botched both, first with five turnovers in a Thanksgiving night debacle against the Cincinnati Bengals then with an offensive and defensive meltdown against the Pittsburgh Steelers on Sunday. All of it has brought Baltimore to its current conundrum and chilly reality. With only four games remaining, the Ravens are a game back of the AFC North-leading Steelers and could very well have to win out in order to capture the division title, which is almost certainly their only path to the postseason. So now what about this week’s rematch with the Bengals being a must-win? All of it got Ravens safety and the team’s most introspective thinker probing a new approach as he laid awake in bed. Kyle Hamilton then invoked a string of recent champions in a variety of sports and went off on an aside during lunch. “Our perspective changes every time we win or lose a game,” he said Wednesday. “I’m probably gonna go off on a tangent here a little bit. “I was thinking just about all the sports and champions I’ve seen recently and how they got there, and it kind of put things in perspective for me.” He then invoked the near-fall and rise of some of the all-time greats. First, he brought up Carlos Alcaraz, who was down three match points to Jannik Sinner in the fourth set of this year’s French Open final before rallying to force a fifth set and eventual five-plus hour victory for a second straight title at Roland Garros. Then he pointed to Rory McIlroy missing a pair of short par putts to lose last year’s U.S. Open at Pinehurst and a putt on the 72nd hole of this year’s Masters before winning in a playoff for his first Green Jacket to complete the career Grand Slam. Also on the list were Max Verstappen, who looked like he wouldn’t even finish in the top 3 or 4 of F1’s championship and now has a chance to win the title, and LeBron James, whose Cleveland Cavaliers rallied from a 3-1 NBA Finals deficit against the Golden State Warriors to win the 2016 title. “It never really is this Cinderella, fairy-tale season that it’s gonna be,” Hamilton said, noting each of the victor’s tribulations along the way. “The Patriots won all those games [in 2007] and lost in the Super Bowl and nobody really cares about the undefeated record up until that point. “It’s not about how you get there. It’s just a matter of you getting there.” Of course getting there could be Baltimore’s primary problem. Especially for a defense that ranks 22nd in points (24.6) and 25th in yards (349.3) per game and is coming off giving up a season-high 284 passing yards to 42-year-old Aaron Rodgers and what up until last week had been a largely listless offense. Instead, Baltimore’s once league-best defense that is largely intact from two years ago has this season been a welcome antidote for opponents’ ailments. Offensively, things have been even more stunning. Quarterback Lamar Jackson, who missed another Wednesday practice this week, has gone five straight without topping 58.6% passing. He also hasn’t been the same dynamic and explosive threat with his legs, averaging a career-low 30.7 yards rushing and 5.2 yards per carry, his lowest mark since his rookie year. The offensive line has been below average and consequently so have the Ravens, who rank 19th in yards (325.9) and 13th in points (23.9) per game. “We’re still not playing our best football by any means,” tight end Mark Andrews said Wednesday. “The type of games we’re playing in are winnable games. We’re very close to doing our thing and we have so much talent, it’s just about coming together, doing our job, offense scoring points, defense balling out and special teams doing their job.” Andrews also dismissed the notion that Baltimore’s offense is still searching for its identity. “Throughout the games there’s been mistakes,” he said. “It’s everybody. I think we just clean those up and good things are gonna happen. At times I think we’re moving the ball really, really well. “I think we haven’t played our best ball, and that’s gonna come.” Time is running out, though. Still, Hamilton believes they can turn things around, the way Alcaraz, McIlroy, Verstappen and James did. “I think the mindset we have to have is kind of like that,” he said. “All these great sports feats have come with challenge and we could be another story along that road. “That’s kind of the mindset I feel like we’ve taken upon ourselves right now. It’s kind of the mindset we need to have, have to have to have in order to get where we want to go. It’s gonna be a heck of a story, as we were telling ourselves.” Have a news tip? Contact Brian Wacker at bwacker@baltsun.com, 410-332-6200 and x.com/brianwacker1. View the full article Quote
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.