Ravens still have a lot of concerns as winning streak ends

The Baltimore Ravens have been one of the biggest stories in the NFL over the past few weeks as they went from 1-5 to the top of the AFC North going into Thursday's game against the Cincinnati Bengals. But as their ugly, turnover-filled 32-14 loss showed, this is a team that still has a lot of flaws and concerns and should not be just expecting to cruise to a division title. 

Ravens have been winning ugly, and it finally caught up to them

Even though the Ravens were piling up wins over the past few weeks, putting together a five-game winning streak, there was not anything overly impressive about the way they were doing it, even with the return of quarterback Lamar Jackson.

The offense has, at times, looked broken, while Jackson himself has struggled since returning from his early season injury.

They were not only struggling to look like a cohesive unit and put up big point totals, they were struggling and winning ugly against teams like the Minnesota Vikings, Cleveland Browns and New York Jets. Had they been playing against better teams — and especially better quarterbacks — a couple of those games could have very easily been losses.

On Thursday, they had to play against a better quarterback — Joe Burrow — and they got absolutely cooked in a game that was not even as close as the 18-point deficit showed. 

Baltimore was not just beaten, it was humiliated. The Ravens offense turned the ball over five times against one of the worst defenses in the modern NFL era, while the Ravens defense had no answer for Burrow in his return to the lineup. 

The biggest concern for the Ravens, however, might just be the simple fact that Jackson does not look like himself, or anything even close to it. 

He has not thrown a touchdown pass in three consecutive games and has turned the football over five times during that stretch. If you go back over his past four games, he has just one touchdown pass, three interceptions and three fumbles, while also completing less than 58% of his passes. His production in the running game has also disappeared with just 84 yards rushing over that stretch of games.

That is not good enough for what the Ravens need. He is clearly not 100% healthy, and it is significantly hurting Baltimore's offense. 

As the Ravens started to win games there was a belief, just based on their schedule, that they would be the heavy favorites to win the AFC North. But they were consistently flying close to the sun in their recent games, and when you do that you are eventually going to get burned. 

That finally happened on Thursday. 

Their remaining schedule is also suddenly looking a lot tougher as they still have to face Burrow and the Bengals one more time, the Pittsburgh Steelers team they are chasing in the division two times, and non-divisional games against the New England Patriots and Green Bay Packers.

Outside of the Bengals, all of those games are against teams with winning records.

If they want to win enough games to win the division, they are going to have to play significantly better than they have been. The competition is about to get a lot tougher, and their recent performances are not going to be good enough.