On paper, the Baltimore Ravens have just about all the pieces of a Super Bowl team. A superstar quarterback in Lamar Jackson, a dominant rushing game and a (usually) strong defense should be the recipe for championship glory.
In practice, though, it’s not that simple.
The playoffs have been tough sledding for the Ravens over the past several years, and most of the time, they’ve been their own worst enemy. Now seven years into the Jackson era, this iteration of the Ravens faces plenty of outside doubts as to whether they can actually get over the hump.
As analysts try and speculate what the Ravens can do to get to where they want to be, they believe the answers are in the building already. Star safety Kyle Hamilton shared his outlook for the future during an appearance on “The Mina Kimes Show.”
“I’ve had so many people ask me what the Ravens are missing. I’m like, literally nothing,” Hamilton said. “We have everything you want to win a championship. It’s just we haven’t been playing well when we got to the point that we need to win. There’s no excuses for that. It’s just offense, defense, special teams, we have to do better.”
Perhaps no other playoff defeat illustrates that point as much as this year’s Divisonal Round loss to the Buffalo Bills. The Ravens were playing some of their best football in recent memory heading into this game, winning their previous five games by multiple scores, including a 28-14 blowout over the rival Pittsburgh Steelers a week prior. However, they shot themselves in the foot repeatedly against the Bills, committing three costly turnovers and dropping the tying two-point conversion, among other mistakes.
“During the regular season every year I’ve been here it seems like we get in a groove and there’s like a six-week stretch where we’re just blowing people out, and I think we sometimes struggle with playing from behind because we don’t do it a lot,” Hamilton said. “So in the playoffs, on the road, hostile environment, playing from behind was just unusual territory, so we have to lock in that much more. Obviously don’t plan on playing from behind in the future, but if it does happen, we have to be able to respond correctly and just execute,” he said.
“Specifically on this Bills game, we had a couple turnovers, our defense didn’t start well. Offense came out and scored on the first drive and we gave up a touchdown right back. We don’t want it to fall on our offense to have to go down and score; we want it to be on the defense to get that stop and win the game for us. Both sides of the ball, obviously it’s going to be a tough offseason to have to live with that. But we have another year and hopefully right that wrong.”
If this iteration of the Ravens is going to hoist the Vince Lombardi Trophy one day, then they must figure out how to get out of their own way, by any means necessary.
