Baltimore one-and-out in playoffs: What now for Ravens?

The Baltimore Ravens took an embarrassing loss at home in the Wildcard round of the 2018 playoffs. With so many unanswered questions, where do we go now?

Despite some late-game heroics, the Baltimore Ravens came up short vs. the Los Angeles Chargers on Sunday afternoon in the Wildcard round of the 2018 NFL season’s playoffs. The Ravens showed brilliance on defense and the complete opposite on offense (until the late fourth quarter). Baltimore looked completely outmatched, but somehow made a game out of their performance. Moral victories aside, what now?

The Baltimore Ravens will be selecting in the early-twenties of the underwhelming 2019 NFL Draft with a roster completely in limbo. The current squad is somewhere between contenders and pretenders, but it’s an incredibly unhealthy, and murky, mess of the two. The team also has a solid amount of cap space, but no top-tier free agents to sign.

Despite a magical season, 2018 has left us with a lot of questions: What does Baltimore do with John Harbaugh? What about Joe Flacco? What direction does the front office take this off-season? Who goes and who stays?

There’s a lot of time between now and the start of the 2019 NFL season, but it feels like an eternity full of questions that we don’t know can get answered in a short amount of time. Doesn’t make sense, does it? Nothing really does right now.

Baltimore is no doubt a talented team who deserved a playoff spot and fought like hell to get their dues, but the future is confusing to say the least. The Ravens should, and more than likely will, begin moving forward with the Lamar Jackson era in Charm City, but that will leave us with more questions than answers.  I can think of more than a few players who make sense both to cut and retain for 2019, while also being able to make an argument for and against keeping the current coaching staff together. While the Ravens draft needs seem identifiable, it feels like there’s a lot more holes to fill than we realize. This Baltimore Ravens squad seems like a complete conundrum.

What should we expect moving forward? This Baltimore Ravens squad has the heart of a Super Bowl contender, but the overall talent of the roster has us thinking otherwise. The AFC North is only getting better, and the Ravens will have to keep up if they want to stay relevant headed into the 2020’s. The 2019 off-season will be a very telling one, as all of Ravens Flock will be waiting impatiently for the answers to our thousands of questions.