GOOD, BAD & UGLY: Slip Sliding Away

The Ravens 2025 Season is Circling The Drain

Who are the Ravens?

Are they a ground and pound team that exerts its will upon opponents? An offensive juggernaut? A fast, physical team that flies to the ball? A squad comprised of playmakers who rise to the occasion during a game’s critical moments? A team that forces turnovers and protects the football? Maybe a balanced unit that wins small battles on special teams to flip the field in favor of the defense or provide scoring opportunities for the offense? Or are they a very well coached team that can leverage the game’s nuances to gain small advantages and uncover ways to win?

The fact is, the Ravens are NONE of the above.

There’s always a chance that the collection of talent the Ravens have cobbled together can someday display such desirable traits but not this roster with THIS coaching staff. Before this season, I have never seen a Ravens team that has not played hard for John Harbaugh, regardless of the circumstances. But all that has changed. The players show up, punch the clock and make “business decisions” throughout the course of the day to avoid injury.

Sure, they may get excited at times after a big play but it’s hard not to think that the jubilation isn’t just self-indulgent. The players get noticed. They appear on highlight reels and that expands their influence and possibly their net worth. But they aren’t playing for John who judging from his body language and tone in which he delivers his messages at the podium lately, is but a shell of the man he was while addressing the media during training camp. Then, there was hope. Today, the Ravens seem hopeless.

“We will keep fighting and we believe we can get it done.” pic.twitter.com/9xrcm9puXH

— Baltimore Ravens (@Ravens) December 7, 2025

Full disclosure, I’ve grown tired of writing this piece. As a fan of the team, I have intestinal turmoil watching what they’ve become and then reliving it the next day. Even after hours of decompression, I feel like an elderly Michael Corleone.

Yesterday the Ravens celebrated their 25th anniversary of the 2000 team – the Super Bowl XXXV winners. THAT was a team that balled out. THAT was a team that overachieved. THAT was a team that played for each other. If they lost, it hurt them and it hurt us. If they lost, it was apparent in their voices, and the pain was written all over their faces. Not this Ravens team.

Isaiah Likely on the controversial call to overturn his fourth-quarter touchdown:

“They made a call. Gotta live with what the refs say at the end of the day” pic.twitter.com/139RNC8zrx

— Baltimore Banner Sports (@AllBannerSports) December 7, 2025

I have nothing against Isaiah Likely. I appreciate the player and his unique skill set. I prefer him over Mark Andrews at this point in their respective careers. Isaiah seems like a good dude as well. But call me old school, old fashioned or like Dave, just call me old, but it grinds my gears to see a player talk in such a dismissive way, about a pivotal point in the game that went against the team, and then grin while matter-of-factly moving on to the next play. I wish that I could get over it so easily.

I get that IS what needs to be done at the time, but am I wrong to hope that in some way that the play hurt Likely or the team as much as it hurts the fans and the city? But it doesn’t. The players just move on to the next week, and the next. Then one day we’ll once again hear in a subsequent presser that they are close to putting it all together. Again.

Isn’t putting it all together something you do at training camp during the dog days of August? It’s an old and tired and cliché, but what the hell, let’s just get ‘em next time.

Until there isn’t a next time.

Sitting at (6-7), the Ravens now move on to Cincinnati where they are shockingly a 1 ½ point favorite over Joe Burrow & the Bengals. Then the Ravens will host the Patriots when they’ll try to advance their home record to (4-5), followed by road trips to Green Bay and Pittsburgh. Maybe this is recency bias polluting my thoughts, but I don’t see another win on the schedule this season. But hey, there’s always next year and I’m sure the Ravens will get some dubs during the preseason.

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