The Baltimore Ravens have now won nine games in a row. After clinching a playoff berth, Baltimore and MVP frontrunner Lamar Jackson are destroying the NFL.
How do you stop what can’t be stopped? You don’t, and that’s what we’re dealing with in the 2019 Baltimore Ravens. After dropping two games in the early part of the season to the Kansas City Chiefs and the Cleveland Browns, Baltimore has now won nine straight games and clinched a playoff berth on Sunday by defeating the Buffalo Bills in Orchard Park.
How are they doing this? It’s pretty simple really, as quarterback Lamar Jackson is running away with the NFL MVP in his second season in the league. Nobody loves being a sophomore more than Jackson, who won the 2016 Heisman Trophy during his second season in the ACC with the Louisville Cardinals. Clearly, his dual-threat playmaking abilities are translating to the NFL level.
Jackson completed 16-of-25 passes for 145 yards, three touchdowns and an interception on the road vs. an elite Buffalo defense. He also had 11 carries for 40 yards on the afternoon in Week 14. It wasn’t a game where Jackson humiliated the opposition with his legs, but rather played with the necessary poise to beat a team he might end up facing again in the AFC playoffs.
Baltimore has a clear path to home-field advantage in the AFC. With the head-to-head tiebreaker over the New England Patriots, the AFC’s path to Super Bowl LIV might very well run through M&T Bank Stadium in Baltimore. All the while, the Ravens and their plus-one attack are ripping to shreds everything we thought we knew about modern NFL offense. Sometimes, you go old school.
With a fellow Heisman Trophy winner in the Baltimore backfield in Mark Ingram II, the Ravens are never short of big-time offensive playmakers who aren’t afraid of the big moment. Complemented with Don “Wink” Martindale’s never-say-die defense and the best special teams unit in football, thanks to head coach John Harbaugh, Baltimore is 100 percent the team to beat this season.
What we’ve seen the last two weeks is the Ravens have what it takes to beat the best teams in football when the game is on the line. Sure, they can blow people out. Just ask the Houston Texans how that goes. But beating a team that is a mirror image of itself to some degree in Buffalo on the road tells you everything you need to know about Baltimore. They’re Super Bowl ready. Are you?