Despite clinching a playoff berth last weekend, the Baltimore Ravens are a team with a myriad of issues with just two weeks to go in the regular season.
They’ve seen their comfortable division lead evaporate and fired offensive coordinator Cam Cameron. Three straight losses has the Ravens heading in the wrong direction.
According to Garrett Downing of the Ravens’ official website, safety Bernard Pollard had some pointed comments about Baltimore’s struggles over the last month.
“We’re not good at a lot of things right now. We’re going to be exposed. We’ve been exposed,” Pollard said. “And now it’s time for us to go back to work and figure out how we can fix that?”
The Ravens are a miracle conversion on a 4th and 29 in San Diego away from a four-game losing streak. In that stretch, the Ravens have squandered a 9-2 start to the season and blown a chance at a first-round bye. Baltimore still did clinch a playoff berth last week with the Pittsburgh Steelers loss to the Dallas Cowboys in overtime last week. The Cincinnati Bengals could still wrestle the AFC North division title away from the Ravens, forcing Baltimore to go on the road throughout the postseason.
For Pollard, the time is now to get things turned around.
“We got to make a freaking run,” Pollard said. “For us, man, we dug a hole. We can’t complain. We did it. We [threw] this thing away. We [threw] it away. As a team, we got to come together and we got to fix it. Everybody is talking about, ‘What happened?’ Well, what happened is us.
“We are the problem. We have to fix this issue. Everybody is talking about, ‘Well, you’re in the playoffs,’ Well, who cares? Because the way we’ve played, who cares about the playoffs? If we don’t fix it, that’s going to carry over to the playoffs. And we don’t want that to happen. We have to come together.”
The Ravens have a tough test again this Sunday as the New York Giants roll into Baltimore. The Giants have hit a skid of their own leaving them on the outside of the playoffs looking in. New York will still make the postseason if they win their final two games but need help to surpass the Cowboys and Washington Redskins for the NFC East crown. A loss would put their postseason hopes in serious jeopardy.
If the Ravens fall to the Giants, it sets up a Week 17 battle between the Ravens and Bengals in a match up that could be for the division title and the chance to host in the first round of the playoffs.
