The Baltimore Ravens and the Kansas City Chiefs sit atop the NFL as the league’s best two teams, but there’s no rivalry until the former beats the latter.
Sometimes the best rivalries in football aren’t even between teams in the same division. Yes, rivalries like the Green Bay Packers vs. the Chicago Bears or the all-too-familiar Baltimore Ravens vs. Pittsburgh Steelers are some of the league’s best, there have been some awesome rivalries out of the division and sometimes even out of the conference.
The first big one that comes to mind is the New England Patriots and the Indianapolis Colts. Sure, it’s not as prevalent now, but at one point in time, it was the rivalry. The biggest reason for it was the dueling quarterbacks: Tom Brady and Peyton Manning. The two are all-time greats who were must-see football when they played each other. These two made a rivalry that was non-existent before their arrivals to their respective teams.
Unfortunately, since Manning left Indianapolis/retired the rivalry has gone stale. It truly was fueled by the quarterback play. Now, the NFL is looking for its next Manning vs. Brady rivalry.
It may have it in the form of the Baltimore Ravens and the Kansas City Chiefs. The two teams have MVP quarterbacks in Lamar Jackson and Patrick Mahomes respectively, with the latter winning a Super Bowl this past February. The quarterback-play is there, as is the top-end talent throughout the roster and terrific coaching staffs and front offices. There’s only one thing missing now… an actual rivalry.
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In the Jackson vs. Mahomes era, the two have gone head-to-head twice with both victories going to Mahomes and the Chiefs. While both games have been close, being decided by just eight combined points including one overtime finish, it simply isn’t enough to truly call it a rivalry… not a good one at least.
It falls entirely on the Ravens here. The team is loaded offensively and stout defensively. The team went 14-2 a year ago and arguably got better this offseason. There’s tons of talent and potential to win a Super Bowl now. Their biggest obstacle now is the Chiefs.
Baltimore does all the right things by beating opponents they’re supposed to beat and then in-turn playing up to elite competition. So far though it hasn’t won “the big one” against the best of the best of course being the Chiefs, and until it does so we can’t call this matchup a rivalry just yet. Rivalry interprets that there is equal competition between two parties. Yes, the Ravens have played the Chiefs incredibly close and nearly won both games, but close doesn’t win football games. It’s simply hard to call it a rivalry when you’ve yet to beat them.
Kansas City is the big brother to Baltimore right now. If the Ravens want to surpass the Chiefs, they’ll need to finally do it on Monday Night Football. Do this, and we can talk about these two teams creating a brand new, shiny rivalry. It’s desperately what the sporting world wants and the Ravens have yet to give. Hopefully, that changes Monday night.
The potential is there for the Baltimore Ravens and the Kansas City Chiefs to become a premier rivalry, but the Ravens have to actually win a game first. If they can pull off a win on MNF, we can begin the conversation about the new great rivalry forming between these two teams.