The Baltimore Ravens’ 2018 “Identity Check”
By: Rajan Nanavati
Tags: NFL, Sports, Baltimore Ravens, Football, Maryland

It’s been five years since the Baltimore Ravens made an improbable run as the “6th seed” in the AFC playoffs, and ended said run with a Super Bowl XLVII win.

Since then, Baltimore has missed the playoffs in four of the past five years. In three of the past five years, they didn’t finish with a winning record. Every year, team brass comes out and tells its fans how “this year’s team will be different,” and how all the young players they’ve accumulated are now ready to step up and follow in the footsteps of great Ravens of the past.

But every time the Ravens look like they’re poised to take a step forward, there seems to be just as many things pulling them back as there would be to propel them forward, effectively keeping them in the same place year after year.

So as the Ravens enter the 2018–2019 season, they have to ask themselves: who, or what, are they? Can they extract “one last run” from a core of aging and expensive players that still form the backbone of this team, or is this the year they finally come to peace with taking a dedicated and full-fledged step backwards, in order to potentially take two steps forwards towards?

Either way, a lot of jobs are going to be determined by the outcome of this season. Head coach John Harbaugh can’t keep reminding everyone that he led this team to a Super Bowl, considering he’s won one playoff game since then. For a team that fancies itself as perennial contenders, such droughts won’t cut it.

There’s also the certified albatross of a contract belonging to Joe Flacco, which has been another anchor keeping this team from moving forward. The recent three-year, $66.4 million contract given to Flacco won’t allow the Ravens to part ways with him until after 2018 at the earliest, though they’d still face a crippling $16 million hit of dead salary against the cap for doing so.

Flacco continues to be a quarterback who’s too good to be bad but too bad to be good, which means the Ravens have to decide whether they go ahead and hand over the job to Lamar Jackson — one of their first round picks in the 2018 NFL Draft, and the clear heir apparent to the position — and bite the bullet with Flacco’s aforementioned release.

Regardless of who plays quarterback, the help around them is sparse. Running back Alex Collins was a rather pleasant surprise for the team, but he’s a free agent this offseason, and there’s always some skepticism around whether a team should spend big money to sign (or re-sign) a running back. The Ravens did invest in the tight end position in the 2018 NFL Draft, because their group of wide receivers is as talent-deficient as any group in the NFL.

The calling card for the Ravens has always been defense, but the situation isn’t much rosier on that side of the football. Outside of interior defensive lineman Brandon Williams, Baltimore is much thinner along the defensive front than we’re accustomed to seeing. In the back seven of the defense, there are salary cap questions everywhere. They’ll need to extend the contract of CJ Mosley (maybe the one true centerpiece of this team moving forward), and make a tough decision as to what they’re going to do with impending free agent Terrell Suggs, who’s as beloved a Raven as anyone to play for this franchise.

Baltimore’s passing defense finished #2 in passing DVOA last season, and while they’re bringing back all four starters in the secondary (cornerbacks Jimmy Smith and Brandon Carr plus safeties Eric Weddle and Tony Jefferson), what happens after this season, when the collective salary of those four guys will comprise almost 25% of the team’s salary cap themselves?

Everyone knows that this year will be the swansong for General Manager Ozzie Newsome. With his departure, Baltimore needs to find a long-term vision and commit to it.

As long as the NFL’s best group of “triplets” plays for their arch nemesis in Pittsburgh, the Steelers are going to be contenders. Cincinnati keeps treading water each year, and more importantly, keeps taking one of the two division games they play against Baltimore. Cleveland is still a few years from being good, but it at least seems like there’s a cogent plan and lots of young talent in place (for now, anyway).

Baltimore needs to approach the 2018 season like the plot of a movie: putting the plot lines and story in place, and allowing them to unfold over the foreseeable future. Like the difference between a good movie and a bad one, how they start things off this year will have an enormous impact on how everything goes from there.