Not So Fast!

It looked like it had all come crashing down for the Baltimore Ravens when they lost to the New England Patriots in Week 16, and to make matters worse, Lamar Jackson was knocked out of the game with a back injury.  Lamar was unable to practice all week, and that left Tyler Huntley needing to beat the Green Bay Packers at Lambeau Field. Even that unlikely scenario though, STILL wouldn’t be enough to keep Baltimore’s postseason hopes alive.  For that, they needed to win AND have a 3-12 Cleveland Browns team beat the 9-6 Pittsburgh Steelers.

Media sources were putting out hit pieces to trash Lamar and build tension.  Season over, Harbaugh will be fired, right??

As Lee Corso would say, “NOT SO FAST!!!”

Both Christmas miracles came true for the Ravens—a brilliant performance by Derrick Henry and Huntley on Saturday night gave way to a very unlikely Browns win over the Steelers, one that featured a last-minute goalline stand by the defense of Baltimore’s own Jim Schwartz.  This sets up a showdown for the division in Pittsburgh Week 18 on Sunday Night Football!

There are tons of questions for both teams. The big one for the Ravens is “What’s Lamar’s status?”  Can he play?  And if he does, how limited will he be?  For the Steelers, where will their offense come from? DK Metcalf is still suspended due to his knucklehead behavior of getting into a confrontation with a fan.  Now, mammoth tight end Darnell Washington is out with a broken arm suffered in Cleveland.

This has the makings of an old-school smashmouth football game, dominated by the defenses.  John Harbaugh and Todd Monken need to avoid the temptation to get cute and just run the ball.  If Derrick Henry doesn’t have 20+ carries, both of them should be fired immediately.  On the other side of the ball, especially without Metcalf and Washington, the key for the Ravens is to shut down Jaylen Warren, Kenneth Gainwell, and the Steelers running game.

There’s no doubt that it has been a tremendously disappointing season for the Ravens, but sweet redemption is still possible.  No AFC team looks complete this year.  The Denver Broncos offense has looked suspect at times, and they have squeaked out some very close games where one play could have made the difference.  Drake Maye and the New England Patriots have looked great against a Charmin-soft schedule, and the Ravens had them dead to rights (if not for another classic Harbaugh collapse). The Jacksonville Jaguars don’t look invincible despite playing well recently.  The Los Angeles Chargers have had problems on offense, especially protecting Justin Herbert.  The Buffalo Bills are beatable.  The Houston Texans are probably playing the best of anybody, but it wasn’t that long ago that their offense looked very pedestrian.

So, as Terrell Owens would say, “Get your popcorn ready!”

That’s the beauty of the NFL.  Anything can happen any given game.  This year in particular, I feel that there are no dominant teams.  Any team can get hot and make a run, so why not the Ravens?  Who knows if it will happen or not, but I got my Purple Kool-Aid ready, and am excited to watch the drama of the NFL playoffs.

Now, let’s start by running the terrible towels right out of Acrisure Stadium Sunday night!

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