With the Ravens mired in a four-game losing streak and coming out of the bye week in sole possession of last place in the AFC North, I’ve offered a dozen thoughts, each in 50 words or less:
1. “Must-win game” is an overused term, but this is a 1-5 team that hasn’t won in over a month and is coming off extra rest. If Baltimore can’t beat a solid but unspectacular Chicago team at home, there’s no reason to believe this is getting better to any meaningful degree.
2. Of course, Lamar Jackson’s status weighs heavily after he didn’t take part in Monday’s practice, which was an unsettling post-bye development. It was easier to be cautious at the time of his Week 4 hamstring injury, but the clock’s really ticking if the rest of 2025 is going to matter.
3. Roquan Smith, Patrick Ricard, and Chidobe Awuzie appear on track to play Sunday after multi-game absences, but moving past an early-season avalanche of injuries doesn’t guarantee this team will now stay healthy the rest of the way. Ronnie Stanley’s troublesome ankle is just one lingering concern.
4. The bye passed with the Ravens making none of the coaching changes for which many fans were clamoring. That said, we’re talking about a franchise that once changed its offensive coordinator in Week 15 and won the Super Bowl less than two months later. Nobody should be feeling comfortable.
5. Eric DeCosta has already made a trade and continues looking to improve a roster with obvious flaws ahead of the Nov. 4 trade deadline. However, losing one of the next two games would instead prompt me to consider selling off any pending free agents who aren’t in the long-term plans.
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6. Jaire Alexander wasn’t playing even before Baltimore moved to a three-safety approach that figures to be a prominent part of the defensive strategy moving forward. Now add in the returning Awuzie, and the path to Alexander seeing the field becomes even steeper. DeCosta’s offseason moves have aged like milk.
7. The use of more outside-zone runs paved the way for Derrick Henry’s fruitful Week 6, so you’d expect that to become a bigger part of what the ground attack does. Considering how much the pass protection has struggled, running the ball at an elite level is an absolute must.
8. Offensive line scrutiny will persist, but position coach George Warhop and John Harbaugh have made it apparent that rookie third-round pick Emery Jones isn’t close to being a starting option. At least he’s finally on the practice field and developing after a lost spring and summer.
9. The 2010 Ravens collected a franchise-low 27 sacks in 16 games. The current team has eight sacks in six contests. Short of a high-profile trade or two before the deadline, I’m not even sure where to begin to try to unlock a more formidable pass rush.
10. Quite a few pundits and fans noted how Joe Flacco did the Ravens a favor by knocking off Pittsburgh last Thursday night. Of course, then you realize what he might do throwing to Ja’Marr Chase and Tee Higgins if Baltimore can’t pressure the pocket.
11. Speaking of the Steelers, their schedule gets more difficult from here, but Aaron Rodgers is still capable of picking apart a defense if — wait for it — you aren’t able to pressure him. On the flip side, the Pittsburgh defense continues to be very unimpressive for how expensive it is.
12. It’s easy to question leadership during tough times, but this is foreign territory for this generation of Ravens. I’ve occasionally wondered if this group carries too much of a front-runner trait that hasn’t handled adversity in the fourth-quarter collapses and January defeats. We’ll see if Baltimore gets off the mat.
