The Bad:
Special teams have been problematic for the Ravens this year. The Ravens have had the following problems. The Ravens let the New England Patriots back into their week November battle after Cyrus Jones muffed a punt, with a 17 point lead. In the first game against the Bengals, Cincinnati opened up the game with a kickoff return for a touchdown. In a Thursday Night game against the New York Jets, the Ravens allowed a few big kick returns, got a punt blocked and missed an extra point. Even in a great season there were things the Ravens constantly needed to work on. Special teams provided a great example of this.
The Ravens defense had a rough start to the season. They got by in the first two weeks and than they got steam rolled against the Kansas City Chiefs and the Cleveland Browns. (The Browns game is reserved for the ugly section). Some of it was due to the injuries of Tavon Young and Jimmy Smith, yet it wasn’t good. The Chiefs game was particularly frustrating because the Ravens seemed to change their game in order to keep up with the Chiefs. The game got away from them and the five point loss made a misleading final score.
The Ravens got away with some tight games early in the year. The Arizona Cardinals pushed them to the brink and Lamar Jackson responded to win it. The game at Heinz Field was about as ugly of a Ravens game as you will ever see. The Ravens won despite Jackson having three interceptions, and the team getting pushed by Mason Rudolph and Devlin Hodges. The Ravens took the first overtime possession of that game and went three and out. The win streak started with Marlon Humphrey punching the ball away from JuJu Smith-Schuster. The Ravens got lucky to win that game. The whole thing deserves to be in the bad category.