For the second time in five seasons, the Ravens had a special year. They finished with the No. 1 seed in the AFC. And they fell short of the Super Bowl.
After the game, quarterback Lamar Jackson was asked whether he’s frustrated by the way things ended or hopeful for the future.
“I’m not frustrated at all,” Jackson said. “I’m angry about losing. We were a game away from the Super Bowl. We’ve been waiting all this time, all these moments for an opportunity like this, and we fell short, but I feel like our team is going to build. This offseason, we’re going to get right, get better, grind and try to be in this position again but on the other side of victory.”
He described the mood in the locker room with two words: “We’re mad.”
“We got to this position,” Jackson said. “One game away from the Super Bowl — what I’ve been talking about and my team has been talking about all season — and we fell short. Like I said, the offense, we didn’t put [enough] on the board. We scored once. That’s not like us. We drove the ball down the field — that’s cool –—but we’ve got to put points on the board. I feel like my team is just angry. [We’re] not frustrated; we’re just angry, because we know how hard we worked to get here.”
They’ll need to work even harder to get back. It takes a great regular season, and one or two playoff wins to even have a shot at getting to the Super Bowl. It’s far from impossible, but it’s closer to 10 than 1 on the difficulty meter.