Everything is on the line for the Baltimore Ravens in Week 14. Sitting at 7-5, the Ravens will take on the 9-3 Cleveland Browns on “Monday Night Football” in what will be a defining moment of their season. If they want another shot at the playoffs, they need to win tonight.
Technically, this game isn’t a must-win scenario that will see Baltimore get booted from contention if they lose or lock in a spot if they win. But realistically, a loss would be a devastating blow to the Ravens’ playoff hopes that would all but eliminate them without a ton of luck and quite a bit of math creating a back door.
Entering this game, Baltimore currently has a 63% chance of making the postseason, according to FiveThirtyEight’s calculator. Beating Cleveland would take that up to 88% while a loss would tank the Ravens’ chances down to just 36%.
Baltimore hasn’t performed as expected this season due to a ton of different reasons, but are fresh off beating the Dallas Cowboys 34-17 Tuesday. The Browns are in a far better spot with a four-game winning streak and are coming off a stunning 41-35 beating of the Tennessee Titans that had Cleveland up 38-7 at halftime. However, neither team is guaranteed a playoff berth right now, even if the Browns’ chances are significantly higher.
While Cleveland has looked like the better team as of late, there’s reason to believe Baltimore can get the better of them tonight. The Ravens absolutely dominated the Browns in Week 1 en route to a 38-6 win. Baltimore held Cleveland to 306 total yards of offense and created three turnovers while quarterback Lamar Jackson had his best game of the season, finishing with a 152.1 passer rating (out of 158.3). However, a lot has changed since then.
The Browns came into Week 14 with the No. 2 rushing attack in the league. Running backs Nick Chubb and Kareem Hunt have helped Cleveland rush for a combined 1,893 yards, averaging over 150 yards on the ground per game. Quarterback Baker Mayfield has been on fire lately, seeing a clean pocket thanks to the Browns’ stellar offensive line. Over the last two weeks, Mayfield has completed nearly 71% of his passes for 592 yards, six touchdowns, and no interceptions, for a 133.3 passer rating.
That will be a lot for the Ravens’ defense to overcome and they already have a lot to improve upon from last week’s game against the Cowboys. Granted, Baltimore had a good excuse for their sloppy play with players still on the Reserve/COVID-19 list and a wonky schedule, but the defense struggled to execute against the Cowboys despite what the scoreboard read at the end of regulation. The Ravens allowed one of the worst offenses in the NFL to gain 388 total yards. However, the real concern was how Baltimore fared against arguably the worst offensive line in the game right now, seeing running back Ezekiel Elliott average 4.3 yards-per-carry while only sacking quarterback Andy Dalton once.
But it’s worth noting the Ravens’ offense and defense have been hot-and-cold this season, with no clear indication which version we’ll see each week. Where the defense was pretty cold and the offense looked like their old selves in Week 13, the previous week was a flip of that against the Pittsburgh Steelers. This week, who knows?
But with their playoff hopes very much on the line this week against a very good Cleveland team, Baltimore needs to be hot on both sides of the ball for all 60 minutes. With four weeks left in the regular season, there is no room for error if the Ravens want to make the playoffs.
[listicle id=57340]