Ravens Need to Escape Dreaded Label

The Baltimore Ravens were foisted with a tough evaluation after their Week 5 loss to the Houston Texans, as they went belly-up 44-10 in their first game without Lamar Jackson leading the charge. Missing their superstar only further exposed the team's uncoordinated play, contributing to what would be their third of four consecutive losses entering their bye week.

The Ravens weren't helped in having to line up against recent playoff teams repeatedly to open their schedule, doing so in all five of those early losses, but the Jackson-less Ravens were getting trounced so regularly and so embarrassingly that those who swatted them out of the way looked to have snapped back into place in the games that followed.

Former NFL QB Gives Ravens Unfortunate Label

Former player-turned-analyst Matt Ryan bestowed an unfortunate label onto the spiraling Ravens, one that they've still yet to buck: he referred to their matchups as the "get-right game" through the last two weeks following that Texans-induced low-point, and that's only proven even more true since.

The Texans didn't look very impressive through their first month, failing to reign supreme as the de facto AFC South leading role that they were poised to step into. They entered M&T Bank with a 1-3 record and one of the least-impressive offenses in the NFL, but looked to have regained a bit of control in spearheading that blowout and heading into their own bye week.

The same could be said of the Kansas City Chiefs, the team that squashed the Ravens immediately before. That's the one in which Jackson injured his hamstring, one which he's yet to return back to practice from, and the rest of the team's performances raised real questions about how this particular Baltimore roster is wired. The once-struggling Chiefs, meanwhile, returned right back into their formidable selves during that win, and they've looked the part of a contender ever since.

Ryan's words had a long time to echo through Baltimore during their week off, with another low-scoring affair against the Los Angeles Rams draining even more likelihood out of the Ravens' spiraling playoff dreams. And, like clockwork, a week after doing just enough to add another win to his team's ticker, Matthew Stafford threw five touchdowns against the Jacksonville Jaguars.