The Ravens Just Played The Dumbest Game Of All Time And Won Anyways Thanks To Their INSANE Defense

Ronald Martinez. Getty Images.

Where do I start with this one. This team has been jekyll and hyde all season and it was clear pretty damn early which version of the Ravens was showing up tonight. They did a bunch of really impressive things to stake early control of the game and rendered nearly all of them moot by pissing down their leg repeatedly and letting the opposition hang around.

We've watched this numerous times where they've built double digit leads and eventually blown it. It's really hard to lose a football game where you have 4 takeaways. It's even harder to do that when you don't give any away yourself either. There were periods there in the 4th quarter where it really looked like we were going to find a way to do exactly that. They converted those 4 turnovers into a whopping 3 points. 

Offensively… we look LAWST without Mark Andrews. Or at least that's the easy and lazy takeaway. Certainly there's merit to that, but the real issue tonight is that our pass pro was absolute poo. Lamar had little to no time to work out of a clean pocket and get anything downfield. That left us to resort to a ton of screens and other short shit around the line of scrimmage instead of pushing the ball downfield the way we are capable of with our receiver targets. 

What's worse was the playcalling. The 4th and 1 wildcat with Gus was dumbfounding. So was our 4th and 1 attempt out of shotgun later in the game where we were lucky enough to have Gus plow his way across the line on a 2nd effort. Numerous other playcalls were headscratching too. We had an opportunity to sustain a drive with a lead in the 4th and started with an easy 5 yard gain on the ground with Gus. Then we threw on 2nd and 3rd, both fruitless. Why? Why complicate things more than we need to? Did we learn nothing from the pick 6 against Cleveland in a fairly similar situation? Dumb. Just so dumb.

On top of that…. this was one of John Harbaugh's worst coached games in his career here in Baltimore. Multiple non-challenges, a questionable challenge on that admittedly awesome rugby pass, and… man what the fuck was that 4th and 14 decision with 8 seconds left in the first half. My goodness my dude… what even was the objective there? I really hope John (I'm calling him by his first name for the time being, "Harbs" is off the table) takes the bye week to take a look in the mirror and figure out what the fuck is going on with the in-game decision-making on all fronts.

The upside tonight was that the Chargers are the Chargers. They're just an unstoppable force of loserdom. They even got the gift of all gifts with a rare JT missed FG inside 50 yards and they failed to capitalize.

That and the real story of the game… which is the Baltimore defense. If we weren't so traumatized by so many excruciated blown leads, maybe we would appreciate them a lot more. We should, really. So many of those guys just play possessed. Hamilton… what a bonafide star that guy is. Roquan as always. PQ. Beeks. Clowney. Oweh. Maulet with the huge blitz. Everyone gets involved and everyone gets a piece on this defense. If there's one thing I hope the country takes away from tonight's game, it's that this defense is legit as it fucking gets and gives us a chance against anybody.

If the rest of the operation can pull their weight, this might be a championship team. But it's hard to envision us ripping off 3-4 consecutive games where these consistent issues don't eventually re-surface against a team far better than the Chargers. That's how great teams fall short. Praying that's not the case here.

Hokay. 9-3 and on top of the AFC still. Bye week. Get rested, get the mind right, get a tune-up game at home against the Rams and then the gauntlet begins to try and get that precious 1 seed. 

Always tough to win on the road… but man. It didn't need to be that tough.