Ravens fullback Patrick Ricard said on Monday that it is “inevitable” that quarterback Lamar Jackson will win a Super Bowl, but it’s not a sure thing that Ricard will be teammates with Jackson when and if that happens.
Ricard is set for free agency and his comments came as he and his teammates cleaned out their lockers in the wake of their season-ending loss to the Bills on Sunday. There are plenty of other impending free agents on the team — left tackle Ronnie Stanley, left guard Patrick Mekari, and cornerback Brandon Stephens are among them — and other players who might be moving on for cap reasons.
That made the inevitability of change the focus for cornerback Marlon Humphrey when he discussed what the future holds for the Ravens.
“This team is done,” Humphrey said, via Jeff Zrebiec of TheAthletic.com. “When I look at it, some guys will be here, some guys won’t — who knows what? I know I have no more years guaranteed on this existing contract, so it’s whatever message you have. You could be on this team. You could be on another team. Some guys will stay, some guys will leave, and I fall into that same bucket. So, the message is, ‘We lost. Get over it,’ and we’ll kind of see where the offseason goes.”
The Ravens have gone 78-38 in the regular season since Jackson joined the team and that kind of sustained success only makes their playoff failures more frustrating. Figuring out how to keep the wins coming while getting over the hump in the postseason will be the focus of the offseason.
With Ben Johnson off the board, the Raiders will have to look elsewhere for their next head coach.
So where will they go?
Beyond Johnson, they’ve shown interest in and/or interviewed Lions defensive coordinator Aaron Glenn, Ravens offensive coordinator Todd Monken, Chiefs defensive coordinator Steve Spagnuolo, former Jets coach Robert Saleh, former Jets, Patriots, and Seahawks coach Pete Carroll, and Broncos defensive coordinator Vance Joseph.
Many believed Johnson was the guy whom minority owner and majority juice-holder Tom Brady wanted the most.
Brady could pivot to Commanders offensive coordinator (and former Patriots teammate) Kliff Kingsbury, whose offense outscored Johnson’s — and who remains very much alive for a Super Bowl berth. Because the Raiders didn’t interview Kingsbury when he was available for a virtual session (he took no such interviews), they can’t talk to him until after the Washington season ends.
Which might not happen for two weeks and six days.
The challenge for the Raiders becomes selling someone on a team with no quarterback, a very difficult division draw, and a roster that needs plenty of work.
Also, whoever takes the job will have to be fine with the reality of answering to two owners — majority owner Mark Davis and absentee minority landlord Tom Brady, who can’t attend most games because of his primary job with Fox.
Ravens fullback Patrick Ricard is slated to become a free agent in March, but he wants to stay in Baltimore and keep playing with Lamar Jackson.
Ricard said today that he believes Jackson is going to create a lasting legacy in the NFL that includes at least one Super Bowl ring, and Ricard wants to be a Raven when that happens.
“I think this year you’ve seen how he’s grown as a player, how quickly he’s making decisions, his growth of his reads, the way he throws the ball, the way he decides when to run,” Ricard told reporters. “It’s inevitable he’s going to win a Super Bowl and I want to be a part of it. It just sucks it hasn’t happened yet. I personally feel bad for him because he deserves it, just because of how great a player he is. He deserves to be considered one of the best quarterbacks — he already is, but I know everyone considers championships the standard. He’ll get it one day. I always love it when people compare him to Peyton Manning. Peyton Manning was 3-5 in the playoffs in the same span of time Lamar is and he went on to win a couple. There’s still time. He’s still young. He’s definitely gonna get one at some point.”
In the eyes of many, Jackson needs a Super Bowl ring to cement his legacy. Ricard has no doubts that Jackson will do it.
Through the first half of the divisional round, the trend has not been the NFL’s friend.
The total audience for the two Saturday playoff games was down from the year ago.
The Saturday afternoon audience was up, from 32.3 million for Texans-Ravens a year ago. According to ESPN, Saturday’s Texans-Chiefs multicast on ESPN, ABC, and ESPN+ generated an average audience of 32.7 million. That’s a 1.2-percent increase over last year.
With the Ravens were swapped out for the Chiefs, some would have expected a bigger bump with Kansas City in the mix instead of Baltimore. (The numbers for the Sunday night game will confirm or debunk that dynamic. Last year, it was Chiefs-Bills — and 50.39 million viewers. This year, it was Ravens-Bills.)
Meanwhile, last year’s Packers-49ers game on Fox averaged 37.5 million. This time around, Commanders-Lions shootout dipped to 33.6 million. That’s a 10.4-percent decline.
Putting the two games together, the Saturday audience fell from 69.8 million to 66.3 million, a five-percent dip.
Sunday’s numbers have yet to be released. Last year, NBC drew 40.4 million for Buccaneers-Lions in the early game. This year, it was Rams-Eagles in the same spot. And it was, as mentioned above, 50.39 million for Chiefs-Bills on CBS a year ago.
How close will Ravens-Bills come to that number?
The four divisional-round games averaged 40 million in all a year ago. To get there, an average of 46.85 million for the Sunday games is needed.
The script was different, but the ending was the same for Lamar Jackson.
Jackson’s first four trips to the playoffs ended with losses to AFC opponents and the fifth trip ended in Buffalo on Sunday evening, which means that the two-time MVP continues to be without the Super Bowl title that would confirm his place among the all-time greats of the game. Tight end Mark Andrews’s fourth-quarter fumble and dropped two-point conversion drew plenty of attention after the game was over, but Jackson also turned the ball over twice and stressed the need to “protect the ball” during his postgame press conference.
Jackson is now 3-5 in the playoffs and he was asked how difficult it is to deal with falling short again.
“I have to get over this, because we’re right there,” Jackson said. “I’m tired of being right there, we need to punch it in. We need to punch in that ticket. We have to get right in the offseason.”
The loss is sure to spark another wave of discussion about whether Jackson will ever win the big one. He’s not the first quarterback to face such questions — Peyton Manning was 3-6 in the playoffs before breaking through in his ninth season — but that won’t make it any easier to wait for the next chance to show that he and the Ravens can punch that ticket once and for all.
