OTL: A Win, But Ravens OL Abused Once Again

Happy Monday, Flock! As we sit here with all but one of the AFC games (Vegas hosts Dallas tonight) in the rear view of Week 11, the current playoff picture is as clear as mud. The bad news is that there are seven AFC teams with fewer losses than the Ravens have, and two others who also have five losses but who hold the tiebreaker over Baltimore thanks to head-to-head wins (Kansas City, Houston).

The good news? Only one of those teams is in the AFC North, and they’re just a game up, with two head-to-head matches yet to come. NFL.com has the Ravens with a 77% playoff probability, which comes solely from their chances to take home the division crown.

Still, many Ravens fans aren’t terribly interested in hearing about the playoffs at the moment. This was a team that came into the season with what we thought were legitimate Super Bowl aspirations. We aren’t satisfied to just get into the tournament any more. We have a two-time MVP quarterback, a Hall of Fame running back, what was touted as the league’s best secondary, and a head coach that the sports yakkers all swear to us is one of the best ever.

So, after an ugly nailbiter against a lowly Browns squad that ran out two rookie quarterbacks, it certainly isn’t all sunshine and roses, playoff probabilities notwithstanding.

There’s basically no chance that the Ravens will be the top seed or enter January as conference favorites like a couple seasons ago. Their path will be the one more familiar to them: pesky underdogs who get hot at the right time.

And while that could certainly turn out for the best, what is it that has held them back so far, and will likely continue to do so in the future?

Nine out of ten purple-clad maniacs will agree: it’s the offensive line, stupid.

Live look at the Ravens OL pic.twitter.com/INiJHdN9p6

— #RingerNFLShow (@ringernflshow) November 16, 2025

Baltimore’s inadequacies in the trenches were again on full display yesterday in Cleveland. Myles Garrett racked up four sacks (the team had five) and five more quarterback hits, the Ravens had TEN negative plays and were stuffed in short yardage situations regularly (again), and Lamar Jackson was inaccurate and looked jittery and indecisive, which is logically chalked up to having zero faith 95 wasn’t about to throw him into the turf once again at any moment.

It’s a broken record at this point, but….let’s talk about Daniel Faalele once again, shall we?

Look at number 77 pic.twitter.com/thqn7HaXs8

— Yuri (@Yuri_Ravens) November 16, 2025

#77 ladies and gentleman pic.twitter.com/W2uktEPSay

— Justin Ford (@JRFord0) November 16, 2025

Pro Football Focus grades aren’t out for the Cleveland game yet, but it’s hard to imagine Faalele’s season-long 56.2 improving. Nor should we expect fellow guard Andrew Voorhees’ 56.3 to get any better.

The Ravens guards are guarding absolutely nothing at this point.

And it’s not like those two are alone in being problems. Here’s Garrett tossing Roger Rosengarten aside like he’s a tackling dummy:

Myles Garrett with his 2nd sack of the game

BALvsCLE on CBS/Paramount+https://t.co/HkKw7uXnxV pic.twitter.com/zKmmUDPtWm

— NFL (@NFL) November 16, 2025

Of course, Garrett is an alien; a one of one generational talent. Thankfully, we won’t see him again until 2026. But a larger problem is that this coaching staff seemed to think they didn’t really need to do anything special to slow him down coming into the game. He quickly disabused them of that notion with his dominant first half, and they seemed to commit more bodies to him in the second.

But it’s that same strain of arrogance from John Harbaugh & Co. that keeps Faalele in the starting lineup game after game, season after season, that aided in Garrett going off like he did.

And like other dominant front sevens are likely to when facing our purple and black in the not-too-distant future.

We all agree: it’s hard to imagine Ben Cleveland or Emery Jones Jr. could be any worse. But we’re just shaking our fists at the sky at this point, Flock.

We’re onto the Jets, and it seems our only option is to hope against hope that the play of the heavies currently in the lineup improves over the next two months.

The post OTL: A Win, But Ravens OL Abused Once Again appeared first on Russell Street Report.

Source: https://russellstreetreport.com/2025/11/17/out-to-lunch/otl-a-win-but-ravens-ol-abused-once-again/