Breaking News:A terrifying fire incident hit the Tampa Bay Buccaneers
We really have never seen late-season dominance like the Ravens are displaying over the past three weeks.
They notched road wins by 16 and 14 points, followed by a 37-point home beatdown of the 11-win Dolphins. The opponents in that stretch are our Nos. 12, 2 and 4 teams, respectively, in this week’s Power Rankings
And really, this late-season flourish only highlights what they’ve been doing consistently all season. The Ravens have led in the final two minutes of all 16 games. The only other team to do that? The 2007 Patriots. Baltimore has an MVP quarterback, the league’s No. 1 scoring defense and a coach who seems like he’ll be a strong candidate for the Pro Football Hall of Fame one day. These Ravens are 13-1 when they score at least 20 points.
Can anyone beat them? After clinching the top AFC seed, the Ravens are staying in Baltimore until whenever the wheels come off, or until they head to Las Vegas for Super Bowl LVIII — whichever comes first.
The Steelers get the first crack Saturday afternoon, with Pittsburgh-Baltimore kicking off the Week 18 slate at M&T Bank Stadium. Mike Tomlin0 vs. John Harbaugh, in one of the league’s best rivalries, with a playoff spot potentially on the line for Pittsburgh. This is the way God intended the final week of the regular season to open.
The only other team I am willing to put in the Ravens’ tier right now is one they just molly-whopped: the 49ers. Grill me if you will, but I believe they’re one of the few teams with a résumé even close to Baltimore’s. There’s a drop after that to the next tier, I believe, and it feels like a considerable gap as we sit one week from the start of the postseason.