2023 Ravens Are Among All-Time Best Teams Not to Make the Super Bowl
This is a troublesome week for Ravens followers, most of whom anticipated the workforce to be in Las Vegas proper now making ready for the Super Bowl.
Instead, the Ravens Flock has needed to hearken to pundits talk about whether or not Mahomes can unseat Tom Brady because the GOAT and speculate on whether or not Travis Kelce will suggest to Taylor Swift on the Super Bowl.
The Ravens aren’t the primary workforce to fall wanting making the Super Bowl after a dominant common season. The Baltimore Sun’s Childs Walker ranked the ten finest groups to not make the Super Bowl. The 2023 Ravens, who led the league in wins (13) and level differential (plus 203), got here in at No. 5.
“It’s a troublesome alternative between this workforce and the 2019 version that rolled up a better scoring margin with the league’s finest offense,” Walker wrote. “But the 2023 Ravens hit greater peaks in opposition to higher competitors, had been extra balanced and superior deeper within the playoffs. Lamar Jackson was statistically superior in his 2019 MVP 12 months, however he is anticipated to win the award once more this 12 months, and the 2023 protection was higher, main the league in sacks and takeaways whereas permitting the fewest factors. The Ravens are in mighty firm on this record, however their missed alternative will sting for a protracted whereas.”
It’s clearly not an inventory any workforce strives to be on, however profitable within the common season — which the Ravens do constantly — means they’re all the time within the championship image, and loads of franchises would gladly commerce locations with them.
Walker mentioned the No. 10 workforce on his record, the 2005 Indianapolis Colts, present “a hopeful story for Ravens followers questioning if Jackson will ever break by way of.”
“Peyton Manning was in his eighth season in 2005, with two NFL Most Valuable Player Awards on his shelf. His Colts, that includes an elite offense and an opportunistic protection masterminded by coach Tony Dungy, gained their first 13 video games,” Walker wrote. “But they fell behind 21-3 to the Steelers within the AFC divisional spherical, and Manning, who took 5 sacks, couldn’t rally them. To that time in his profession, he had made one AFC championship recreation in six postseason appearances. Why, critics puzzled, may he by no means win the massive one? Well, the following 12 months, Manning took a lesser workforce to Super Bowl glory.”
Mahomes Says He ‘Hates Going Up Against’ Jackson
Several days earlier than the Ravens and Chiefs met within the AFC Championship, Jackson was requested what it’s about competing in opposition to Mahomes that he likes.
“I do not like competing in opposition to him in any respect,” Jackson mentioned with fun.
Speaking to the media on the Super Bowl this week, Mahomes expressed an analogous sentiment when requested in regards to the progress he is seen from Jackson over time.
“All you need to do on this league is get higher 12 months in and 12 months out, and you’ve got seen that from Lamar,” Mahomes mentioned. “It’s laborious if you win the MVP that first season to try to be even higher, and he is completed that. That’s why he is most likely going to win the MVP right here in a pair days, and it is somebody that I hate going up in opposition to as a result of I do know that he will make performs everywhere in the discipline.”
