The End of “Play Like a Raven?”

There is a poster hanging over my childhood bed. It’s been there for over a decade. Written on this particular poster is the saying that perhaps more than any other has defined my charmed life as a Baltimore Ravens fan.

“Play Like a Raven” may be a simple four-word phrase, but it embodies much more. It means playing with physicality. It means playing with mental toughness. It means playing with the expectation that you will show up every week with a greater will to win than the opponent.

In short, it represents every cliche that has defined the organization under Head Coach John Harbaugh, who brought the term with him to Baltimore. The poster in my bedroom was signed by former Ravens running back Justin Forsett during training Camp. Forsett’s NFL journey embodies what it means to “Play Like a Raven.” He was a journeyman running back who the Ravens brought in to be a depth piece in 2014, but the Ray Rice disaster and early-season injury to Bernard Pierce meant his number was soon called upon, and he took full advantage of the opportunity, rushing for over 1,200 yards in 2014 and earning a Pro Bowl invite.

Perhaps beyond anything, playing like a Raven has meant for 18 years Ravens fans have been able to expect that regardless of which 46 players were suiting up, Harbaugh’s teams were going to show up every week prepared to play with the expectation that they were going to compete for the full 60 minutes.

Until now.

In the past, the Ravens just did not get their butts kicked. Beyond all the accomplishments that will likely leave him a spot in Canton, that has been the most significant distinguishing characteristic of Harbaugh’s almost two decades in Baltimore. While they would sometimes lose close games that spiraled out of control in the fourth quarter by multiple scores, true beginning-to-end beatdowns were few and far between.

Disasters such as the “mutiny game” against the Houston Texans in 2012 or the London Debacle against the Jacksonville Jaguars loom large in Ravens fans’ memories precisely because of how rare they have been. But now, for the first time in 18 years, the Ravens have been dominated for 60 minutes in back-to-back weeks, with the 37-20 loss to Kansas City (with a final score closer than the game was) being followed up by this past Sunday’s embarrassing 44-10 beatdown at the hands of the Houston Texans.

In past years, mass injury situations like the ones currently facing the Ravens have often been when Harbaugh has done his best work as a Head Coach. Severely undermanned Ravens have an incredible knack to kick above their coverage, continuing to compete with teams regardless of whether they had any business doing so. According to FTN Fantasy’s adjusted games lost metrics, the 2021 Ravens were the most injured NFL team this century. Yet Harbaugh managed to get eight wins out of that group that spent much of the season exclusively using practice squad defensive backs and well-past-their-prime running backs picked up off the street. Even with Lamar Jackson also injured, they lost by just one point each to the league’s best regular-season team that year, the Green Bay Packers, and the eventual Super Bowl Champion Los Angeles Rams.

In 2015, the other season of the Harbaugh era that was thoroughly derailed by injuries, a 4-10 group once again full of backups and using their fourth starting quarterback of the season, still managed to beat a Pittsburgh Steelers team in the middle of a playoff race.

And yet now, Harbaugh has failed to work his same magic.

The Ravens should have had more than enough motivation on Sunday. Coming off the embarrassing loss in Kansas City and sporting a 1-3 record, this was the exact type of “backs against the wall” moment in which Harbaugh’s teams typically thrived. But instead of playing like a team trying to exorcise some demons, they played like a group that would rather be anywhere else. Instead of praising his group for showing up ready to play under adverse circumstances, Harbaugh called out Rashod Bateman for giving up on a route that wound up being intercepted.

John Harbaugh said it looked like Rashod Bateman gave up on the go route that led to Cooper Rush’s interception. He hasn’t talked to Bateman about it, but he didn’t look happy.

“You’ve got to keep running through that ball.”

— Jonas Shaffer (@jonas_shaffer) October 6, 2025

Beyond effort and physicality, the Ravens are a team lacking in detail. This is particularly true in their pass defense, where they are easily beaten in zone coverage. The players simply drop to their landmarks and look at the quarterback without reacting to the receivers. They are not playing with leverage, they are not properly communicating to pass off crossers and they are not physical enough in attacking underneath receivers. In short, they look like a defense that is simply not taught well enough.

While most teams might explain away these issues by the onslaught of injuries, the Ravens were not like most teams. There was simply a different standard, one that was defined by Harbaugh’s unusual ability to get the most out of his players. But the Ravens are no longer playing like a team responding to their head coach. When asked whether the coaching staff is getting through to the players, veteran edge Kyle Van Noy gave a non-committal answer.

Asked about whether the messaging of the Ravens’ coaches is getting through, Kyle Van Noy said that’s “probably a question that’s above my pay grade.”

He later called the messaging “fine.”

— Jonas Shaffer (@jonas_shaffer) October 5, 2025

It would be understandable if Harbaugh’s message is no longer resonating with the players, if perhaps the Week 1 loss in Buffalo broke this team to a point beyond repair. Theo Epstein, the legendary baseball general manager, wrote in a Boston Globe op-ed after leaving the Red Sox in 2011, despite having won two World Series, that he felt leaders in sports have a certain shelf life.

Football legend Bill Walsh used to say that coaches and executives should seek change after 10 years with the same team. The theory is that both the individual and the organization benefit from a change after so much time together. The executive gets rebirth and the energy that comes with a new challenge; the organization gets a fresh perspective, and the chance for true change that comes with new leadership. This idea resonated with me. Although I tried my best to fight it, I couldn’t escape the conclusion that both the Red Sox and I would benefit from a change sometime soon.

His hypothesis proved even more true than he could have imagined. The Red Sox won championships in 2013 and 2018, while Epstein went to Chicago and built the team that ended the Cubs’ 108-year World Series drought in 2016.

Harbaugh has proved to be an exception to the ten-year rule, but it is worth noting that he was also reaching a point where his coaching mortality in Baltimore was in question after missing the playoffs for the third consecutive year in 2017. But the arrival of Lamar Jackson breathed new life into the organization, and he got a fresh start. But eight years and many playoff losses later, Harbaugh’s message might be becoming stale all over again.

With the team seemingly in crisis and staring down a potential 1-5 record, he now faces perhaps the biggest challenge of his coaching career, as no matter what some fans want, he is not getting fired in the middle of the season. As much as Harbaugh keeps saying not to panic because this regime has been here before, that is not really the case, which is to his credit. Yes, they have been injured, and yes, they have started slowly, but they have never had to deal with a team consistently getting dominated in all three phases for 60 minutes.

Perhaps the Ravens will dig out of it. Maybe they will get healthy, and with a much easier schedule after the bye, they will rally to win a weak AFC North, for which the sportsbooks still list them as the favorites.

But if Harbaugh fails to stop the current downward spiral, the organization will have no choice but to make a change. Something has changed in the last two weeks. More than any other point over the past 18 years, Sunday felt like the end of something. If the foundation of the Ravens’ success under John Harbaugh can be summed up by a poster in my childhood bedroom, then so can their current struggles.

They are no longer playing like Ravens.

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Source: https://russellstreetreport.com/2025/10/08/street-talk/play-like-a-raven-2025-2/