> AFCAFC NorthNFL
> AFCAFC NorthNFL
Stop me if you’ve heard this one before. The Baltimore Ravens won 12 games, led the NFL in rushing, and Lamar Jackson had an MVP-worthy season. But in the playoffs in Buffalo, the Ravens shot themselves in the foot with three turnovers before Mark Andrews dropped a game-tying 2-point conversion pass in a 27-25 loss.
It’s the kind of ending we’ve grown accustomed to seeing for John Harbaugh’s team, right down to forcing another 2-point conversion pass to Andrews. While baby steps are being made in the playoffs in the Lamar era, they’re still falling short of the Super Bowl despite a roster that is annually built to compete for one. Those windows don’t stay open for long either.
If there’s a division that is suffering a bit from the definition of insanity, where you do the same thing over and over and expect different results, it’s the AFC North:
With the Ravens, who are favored to win the division for the third year in a row, it’s like you can count on a huge ball security blunder from the offense in the playoffs every January:
#Ravens Blunders in playoff losses since 2008:
— Scott Kacsmar (@ScottKacsmar) January 20, 2025
2008 – Polamalu pick 6
2009 – Fumbled INT back to Indy
2010 – TJ Housh drop on 4th & 18
2011 – Lee Evans drop + Cundiff miss
2014 – Flacco forced INT in NE
2018 – Lamar strip-sack
2019 – 3 TO vs. Titans
2020 – Pick 6 in BUF
2022 -…
Even when they won the Super Bowl in 2012, that could have added to the list had Denver safety Rahim Moore played the ball properly in the divisional round instead of giving up that long touchdown pass to Jacoby Jones.
Alas, that moment is probably still the reason Harbaugh is coaching the Ravens in 2025, and that moment might be what gives the organization hope that someday the ball is going to bounce their way again in one of these playoff runs. Stay the course, keep doing what you’re doing, and it’ll work out eventually.
This might not jive with NFL history, and it might sound like insanity for other teams, but what if it’s true for the Ravens? We’ll look at their place in the AFC, their new additions, including a new kicker, and the best Ravens bets for 2025.
The 2024 Ravens didn’t make it easy on themselves by starting 0-2. It’s one thing to lose in Kansas City on opening night after Isaiah Likely was unable to get his toe in bounds on the final play for a touchdown that could have tied or won the game if the Ravens gone for two points. Of course, they probably would have thrown an incomplete pass to Mark Andrews there as they so often do, so maybe 0-1 was inevitable.
You think I’m joking, but the Ravens are just 2-for-9 on 2-point conversions in the fourth quarter when trailing with Lamar Jackson at quarterback. They’ve gone to Andrews on four of them, and he has the only two conversions, but they were both in the same 2021 game against the Colts.
It was just that kind of season for the Ravens, who also blew a 10-point lead against Gardner Minshew and the Raider in Week 2, losing to him by a field goal for the second year in a row. The Ravens also lost to Cleveland again after Kyle Hamilton had a horrible dropped interception before Jameis Winston hit them with a game-winning touchdown in a 29-24 upset. Then the Ravens had their annual loss to the Steelers, another game where they ran a poor 2-point play in an 18-16 loss, so 2024 was looking a lot like 2023.
But let’s not pretend it was nothing new for Baltimore. Derrick Henry was a perfect fit for the offense, and he helped the 2024 Ravens become the only offense to eclipse 4,000 passing yards and 3,000 rushing yards in the same season.
Jackson had arguably the best dual-threat season ever with 4,172 passing yards, 41 passing touchdowns, 4 interceptions (several off his receivers’ hands), and he still rushed for 915 yards and 4 touchdowns. He was named first-team All-Pro quarterback, but enough members of that voting panel decided to screw him over for his third MVP by switching their vote to Josh Allen.
In any other season, Jackson would have been MVP, but the likes of Dan Orlovsky, Chris Simms, and Emmanuel Acho played the “Josh has never won one” sympathy card, and it also felt like these voters penalized Jackson for winning a default MVP in 2023 when the field wasn’t strong at all.
But let’s not continue litigating that one. Jackson had a lot to prove in the playoffs, and he got things started well against the Steelers in a 28-14 win on wild card weekend. Maybe back-to-back wins over the Steelers will get him on a roll against a defense he’s struggled with in his career.
But when the big rematch came in Buffalo, Jackson had an early interception and made a bad snap on a fumble worse by trying to do too much. It was only the second game all year which the Ravens had multiple turnovers on offense.
In the past, Jackson would have folded from there. We know he led the Ravens to a season-low in points in the playoffs in his first four postseasons. But this time, he played well without his top receiver, Zay Flowers, who was injured in Week 18 and missed these games.
Jackson was trying to lead a fourth-quarter comeback, but Mark Andrews turned into a real double agent. Let’s not forget he dropped a pass one play before the bad pass that led to the second-quarter fumble. Then Andrews fumbled after a catch in the fourth quarter. Then, after Jackson led a great touchdown drive in the final minutes to try tying the game, Andrews let the 2-point conversion pass slip through his fingers. The Ravens’ season essentially ended there.
Was it as much of a golden opportunity as 2023 when Jackson had home-field advantage in the title game, a great defense, and would have faced a San Francisco team in the Super Bowl that he already beat? No, it wasn’t. The Ravens would have needed to still outdo Buffalo in the end, win a title game in Kansas City, and beat a Philadelphia team that honestly made them look the worst they played all season in Week 13.
But this was another Super Bowl-caliber team that came up short. Baltimore’s defense started badly in 2024 before turning things around in the second half. The offense was great and did a lot of heavy lifting for a change. Jackson has never played better, and when people cite the separation numbers for his receivers, you can’t ignore the subtle movements he’s added to his dropbacks that are making defenders move and opening a lot of space for him to throw into big windows. It’s a very impressive offense.
But can they close it out? Can they protect the ball in crunch time every week in the playoffs? Can they beat the Chiefs in a big game? Can they beat the Bills in the playoffs? They’re now 0-2 in Buffalo this decade in January, so it’s not just Kansas City that’s a problem, and both games with Cincinnati could have easily swung the AFC North the other way last season, too.
The way the Eagles comfortably won three of their four playoff games last year on route to a championship is just not the norm in this league. You’re going to have to grind out a close on at some point, and even they had to against the Rams in the divisional round with the defense making the big stop.
Can the Ravens get through three or four playoff games in a row without screwing up to end their season? Their history says it can happen (2012 and 2000 if you want to go way back), but with each passing year, that just looks like the outlier.
The Five-Year Rule is something that has been brought up in multiple team previews the last few years, including the Bengals this week, and it features prominently as part of the narrative in Baltimore.
The Five-Year Rule is the fact that no team has won its first Super Bowl by starting the same quarterback for the same coach for more than five years. It actually goes back to 1950 when Paul Brown and Otto Graham joined the NFL from the AAFC and immediately led the Cleveland Browns to another championship, so this has held up for the last 75 years.
Scoff all you want, but that is three-quarters of a century. If you’re going to put together a championship team, it usually happens quickly, and you usually only get so many cracks at a Super Bowl before things blow up and the team moves on to the next coach or quarterback (or both).
But John Harbaugh and Lamar Jackson are going to be one of the strongest challengers yet to it in the modern era, if not the strongest, as there are fewer rumblings about Harbaugh losing his job than there have been about Sean McDermott in Buffalo as the Bills are in the same position with Josh Allen entering Year 8 with his coach. Jackson and Allen were obviously both drafted in 2018, and the Chiefs have been everyone’s nemesis in the AFC during this time, which is why the Ravens and Bills keep coming up short of even getting to a Super Bowl, let alone winning one.
Year 8 is asking a lot for a coach and quarterback to break through. However, the aforementioned title run by Harbaugh’s Ravens in 2012 was already one of the closest calls to the Five-Year Rule as he just got that one in the window with Joe Flacco as his quarterback in Year 5. They both joined the team in 2008, lost the AFC title game that year, then lost a real heartbreaker in New England in the 2011 AFC Championship Game (Lee Evans’ drop and Billy Cundiff’s missed field goal ending).
When you look at the list of Baltimore blunders in the introduction, you could argue that Mark Andrews’ fourth-quarter fumble and dropped 2-point conversion in Buffalo was the toughest Baltimore ending to swallow since that 2011 finish.
But maybe the 2025 Ravens can channel the 2012 Ravens as Harbaugh was able to rally the troops, put that loss behind them, navigate a tough regular season, get Ray Lewis back late in the year, and send him out on top with another ring. A last hurrah for that era of Ravens football as Ed Reed soon followed Lewis out the door.
That’s what Harbaugh did in Year 5 at age 50. Now that he’s going on 63 in Year 18, is the message still resonating with a whole different cast of players? Is he a disappointing coach if his players annually make huge mistakes in the biggest game, or has he just been unlucky? He looks like a genius if Tyler Huntley scores that quarterback sneak touchdown in the 2022 wild card, but instead, he fumbled for a 98-yard touchdown the other way. Tough break, but it’s wild how frequently this happens for Baltimore in January.
Answering these questions likely depends on what you think of Harbaugh and the job he’s done overall as a coach in the 12 seasons since that ring. The fact that the team is usually a play away from advancing is probably a good sign that he’s doing the right things to have them in position so often.
Harbaugh just may be uniquely qualified to be the coach who continues to get chance after chance to break the Five-Year Rule, hoping someone goes full Rahim Moore and his Ravens get lucky for a change.
Without that moment in Denver, our perception of Harbaugh as a coach is certainly much worse today. The Ravens didn’t make the playoffs in 2013-17, which sparked the move to draft Jackson in 2018 when he replaced Flacco in the second half of the season. They lost to the Chargers in the wild-card round, but Jackson was already MVP in 2019, and the Ravens had the No. 1 seed. But that just led to more playoff disappointment after the shocking 28-12 loss to the Titans.
In 2020, the Ravens won a playoff game in Tennessee, then lost 17-3 in Buffalo after another bad offensive showing. Jackson was injured in December 2021-22, and he never made it back for either season. While the Five-Year Rule has been so strong that it hasn’t even mattered if you sat as a rookie or had an injury-impacted season, those two years could be viewed as an argument for why this isn’t necessarily Year 8 for Jackson and Harbaugh.
But even if you view it as Year 6, that’s still going to be longer than it’s ever taken a duo to win their first Super Bowl together. Given how frequently teams change coaches these days, you’re probably wondering what other duos have made it to Year 8 without a Super Bowl win like Jackson-Harbaugh and Allen-McDermott.
Here’s the list of 13 quarterback-coach duos who never won together after 8-plus seasons that I want to say is about as close to 100% complete as possible for the Super Bowl era:
That’s 13 duos and 12 of them peaked together in the first five seasons. The only one who didn’t was Reid-McNabb, and that was Year 6, and McNabb wasn’t even a full-time rookie starter, and that’s probably just showing us how they shouldn’t have lost at home to Jake Delhomme in the 2003 NFC Championship Game.
But the part about this that probably makes me grin the most is that you could argue eight of these 13 duos peaked in Year 5 on the nose. As if the football gods were letting them know you better win this year cause it’s never going to get better, and it really didn’t for them.
Quarterback | Head Coach | Team | Years | Seasons | Peak |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Dan Marino | Don Shula | MIA | 13 | 1983-95 | Year 2 – 1984 (Lost SB) |
Jim Kelly | Marv Levy | BUF | 11 | 1986-96 | Year 5 – 1990 (Lost SB by 1 point) |
Steve McNair | Jeff Fisher | TEN | 11 | 1995-05 | Year 5 – 1999 (Lost SB) |
Donovan McNabb | Andy Reid | PHI | 11 | 1999-09 | Year 6 – 2004 (Lost SB) |
John Elway | Dan Reeves | DEN | 10 | 1983-92 | Year 5 – 1987 (Lost SB after 10-0 lead) |
Dan Fouts | Don Coryell | SD | 9 | 1978-86 | Year 4 – 1981 (Lost AFC-CG) |
Dave Krieg | Chuck Knox | SEA | 9 | 1983-91 | Year 1 -1983 (Lost AFC-CG) |
Cam Newton | Ron Rivera | CAR | 9 | 2011-19 | Year 5 – 2015 (Lost SB) |
Danny White | Tom Landry | DAL | 8 | 1980-87 | Year 2 – 1981 (Lost NFC-CG to “The Catch”) |
Boomer Esiason | Sam Wyche | CIN | 8 | 1984-91 | Year 5 – 1988 (Lost SB) |
Mark Brunell | Tom Coughlin | JAX | 8 | 1995-02 | Year 5 -1999 (Lost AFC-CG at home) |
Matt Hasselbeck | Mike Holmgren | SEA | 8 | 2001-08 | Year 5 – 2005 (Lost SB) |
Andy Dalton | Marvin Lewis | CIN | 8 | 2011-18 | Year 5 – 2015 (Lost AFC-WC) |
Lamar Jackson | John Harbaugh | BAL | 7+ | 2018- | Year 6 – 2023 (Lost AFC-CG) |
Josh Allen | Sean McDermott | BUF | 7+ | 2018- | Year 4 – 2021 (Lost AFC-DIV “13 Seconds”) |
Another encouraging sign for the Ravens getting it done with Jackson-Harbaugh is that you have to say their peak was Year 6 (2023). You’re hosting the title game, MVP quarterback, No. 1 defense (triple crown winner, actually), and Brock Purdy and Kyle Shanahan will be waiting for you in two weeks. That was the moment, and they blew that one.
But it’s still better than if 2019 (Year 2) was the peak and it’s been diminishing returns ever since. However, let’s play devil’s advocate. It’s probably not a good sign that the Ravens are known for bad turnovers and losing the ball in key playoff moments.
But it looks even worse, especially for Harbaugh, when you consider they are historically bad at not forcing the same mistakes of their opponents in the playoffs. The Ravens have forced just two turnovers in Lamar Jackson’s eight playoff starts, including none in his last five starts, an NFL playoff record.
The Eagles picked off Mahomes twice in the second quarter of Super Bowl 59. They added a fumble for good measure in the second half, giving them more takeaways in one game than Jackson’s had from his defense had in eight playoff games. That’s absurd, and there are many such cases of this out there in playoff history.
Jackson was terrible in the playoffs early in his career, but he’s been slowly getting better. Few quarterbacks would succeed without getting any takeaways, as that helps with short fields and easy points.
Jackson and his offense need to protect the ball better in the playoffs. That’s not up for debate. But it sure would help if this defense that gets a lot of valid regular-season props would start forcing those turnovers in the playoffs, too. Two takeaways in eight games? It’s about time some positive regression hits there in January.
We know Lamar isn’t leaving Baltimore anytime soon. Then again, in a post-Luka Doncic trade world, maybe anything is on the table these days. But it’s far more likely that Harbaugh gets the boot before the quarterback here, so if Jackson ever wins a Super Bowl for the Ravens, don’t be surprised if it’s under a different head coach.
Respect the Five-Year Rule, Baltimore.
The Ravens return a lot of the same pieces from last year, which isn’t a bad thing when you have this kind of success. But one of the greatest players in franchise history is gone after tarnishing his legacy, the offense added another washed-up wide receiver, and the secondary is striving for huge things in 2025 behind second-year coordinator Zach Orr.
When you get the offensive results the Ravens had in 2024, you don’t want to make too many changes. They didn’t either as much of the core will be back for coordinator Todd Monken, who has done a great job with Jackson and the supporting cast:
Cooper Rush (Cowboys) is the new backup quarterback, which is a big departure from the usual backup to Jackson. But let’s hope it doesn’t come to that.
Also, it’s certainly possible that the Ravens turn the ball over a few more times in 2025 after just 11 giveaways (4 interceptions by Jackson) in 2024. But that’s always fine as long as you avoid the critical ones that lose games, and more importantly for this team, protect it better in the playoffs.
There aren’t many NFL teams where mentioning the kicker is even necessary for a season preview. The Ravens certainly haven’t been one of those teams as they’ve had the best to ever do it, Justin Tucker, since 2012.
But that era is done as the Ravens released Tucker in May following allegations from many women that Tucker engaged in sexual misconduct during massage sessions, not much different than the case against disgraced quarterback Deshaun Watson. In June, the NFL suspended Tucker for 10 games in the 2025 season for this misconduct, and while he denies any wrongdoing, he remains without a team and may never kick in the NFL again.
Tucker has really messed up his legacy, and the elephant in the room is that he was already on the decline before this mess hit the news. Tucker was just 22-of-30 (career low 73.3%) on field goals last season, and he missed a pair of extra points, too.
The writing was on the wall for Tucker in April’s draft when the Ravens used a sixth-round pick on kicker Tyler Loop from Arizona. He made 83.8% of his college field goals, including a 62-yard kick. He’ll be the team’s new kicker, and while those are big shoes to fill, it’s not like the Ravens are losing the best version of Tucker.
Loop just can’t be Billy Cundiff on the field for Baltimore, or that opens up a new problem for this team in close games. Off the field? Please be as normal as possible. You have job security for 15-plus years if you can pull this off.
Former Ravens linebacker Zach Orr has been on the coaching staff since 2017 and last year was his first as defensive coordinator, taking over for Mike Macdonald (Seahawks). It was always going to be a tough job to follow up, but after a bad start, things turned around for Orr in the second half of the season.
But they’re going to need some more takeaways, because after leading the NFL in that category in 2023, the Ravens had just three games with multiple takeaways in 2024, and they had no takeaways in the playoffs.
The Ravens have a real shot to get better and get back to season-long results on defense. They retained much of the front seven and improved the secondary by adding corner Jaire Alexander (Packers) and drafting safety Malaki Starks, the No. 1-rated safety in the class, in the first round. Throw in corner Nate Wiggins going into his second season after a promising rookie start, and if Alexander can stay healthy, he’s another CB1 type on a team that still has Marlon Humphrey.
Simply replacing Brandon Stephens, the corner opponents liked to pick on the most, with a healthy Alexander should be an improvement for the Ravens. But adding Starks and some seasoning to Wiggins makes this potentially an elite secondary again.
Just make sure to get Kyle Hamilton some work on the jugs machine, as this dropped interception with the game on the line can’t happen again.
Kyle Hamilton with the worst dropped interception I’ve ever seen pic.twitter.com/XCEIIO2Ll1
— The Ravens Realm (@RealmRavens) October 27, 2024
I didn’t mean to bury the lede so far into this one, but the Ravens have the highest odds to win Super Bowl LX (+650 at FanDuel). The schedule certainly gives them an early litmus test as they’ll open in Buffalo, host the Lions on a Monday night in Week 3, and are in Kansas City to end September.
The games with the Bengals and Steelers aren’t until Thanksgiving and later, and the NFL has Baltimore going to Pittsburgh in Week 18 for a change. There’s also a trip to Green Bay the week before, so there are plenty of challenges early and late with this schedule.
But I think that’s a good way to toughen this team up and let them build up during the softer middle. They can still be an elite offense with great potential to get back to playing elite defense for the whole season, too.
I’m not sure the No. 1 seed is in their favor with having to play the Bills and Chiefs on the road in September. That could really hurt for tie-breakers if they lose those games again. But I’m definitely taking over 11.5 wins for this team, and they will win the AFC North again as they have a stronger offense than Pittsburgh and a better defense than Cincinnati.
I’m fading Lamar for MVP as we need to let that debate entertain some different players after the toxicity of the last two years with Jackson’s seasons getting picked apart in every fashion. Plus, I simply think the TD: INT ratio won’t look as dominant as 2024, a stat that casual voters love, so if they weren’t giving him the award at 41:4 in 2024, they won’t do it if he’s at 36:7 or whatever in 2025.
But call me crazy, I do think the Ravens have the ability to break through and reach a Super Bowl. Part of this is going against the odds of the Chiefs going to their fourth Super Bowl in a row, because come on, how many years can they keep doing this? Also given Jackson’s history of dominance against the NFC (2024 Eagles withstanding), he’s always felt like a lock to win a Super Bowl if he ever gets to one.
However, I won’t go that far with this team just yet. They have to prove they can seal the deal. There’s a tiny window here where Henry will still be reliably elite, where Flowers won’t want a big extension, and where Kyle Hamilton won’t be the highest-paid safety in NFL history.
Managing all those salaries and players’ development curves is why Super Bowl windows are relatively short. That’s why you have to maximize every opportunity, because you don’t know when you’ll be waiting another 13 years for a Rahim Moore-sized break in January.
After 5,000 words here, I just hope this latest Baltimore attempt doesn’t end because a rookie kicker misses an extra point in the divisional round in Kansas City or whatever. Only then will I start to entertain the “Lamar is Peyton Manning and Mahomes is Tom Brady” comparison.
Related Articles: