Baltimore Ravens: It Could Get Ugly Against the Seattle Seahawks

The Baltimore Ravens have played in close games for most of the season, but a blowout at the hands of the Seattle Seahawks is likely.

This has been a season of misery for the Baltimore Ravens. The injuries have piled up to the point that it’s hard to tell who is on the field at times. Matt Schaub has taken over for Joe Flacco and so far, it has been everything we expected from Schaub. More interceptions and a pick-six in both of his starts. He was also battered around quite a bit on Sunday is expected to take some time off practice this week to recover.

Now they get to welcome a Seattle Seahawks that is the hottest team in the NFL. Talk about bad timing for the Ravens.

Seattle continues to be a team that gets better as the season goes along. After a slow start to the season, they have been putting a hurting on teams ever since their bye week in Week 9 to the tune of an average of 34.5 points per game. Russell Wilson has catapulted himself into the MVP discussion after accounting for 12 touchdowns in the past three weeks. It’s hard to imagine any defense stopping them, let alone a defense that has been a major disappointment for the majority of the season.

The Ravens defense has actually played well in recent weeks. Baltimore allowed teams to accumulate over 350 yards of total offense in six of the team’s first eight games. Since the bye week, Baltimore has not allowed any team to reach that mark. The secondary that has been getting the most blame for the defensive struggles held the Miami Dolphins to just 82 yards passing, by far their best performance of the season.

Now let’s state the truth about the recent run of success on defense. The Jacksonville Jaguars, St. Louis Rams, Cleveland Browns and Dolphins are not exactly offensive juggernauts. The Jaguars are the best of the group, ranking 18th in total offense. The other three teams rank 26th or worse.

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The Seahawks have been a force on offense even with the injury to Marshawn Lynch. In fact, some – myself included – believe this offense is even better with Lynch off the field. Thomas Rawls has been one of the NFL’s biggest surprises and could be forcing Lynch out of Seattle when the season ends. Over their past three games, they are averaging 459 yards of offense against some quality opponents.

What is more daunting for the Ravens is Seattle’s defense that ranks second in yards allowed and third in points against. They have picked off 20 passes already this season and are expecting more this week. With how Schaub has been serving the ball up in his two starts, those numbers could rise significantly.

I will provide a score prediction later in the week, but believe this is the game where things go south for the Ravens. Baltimore has not lost a game by more than eight points this season, but this game has all the makings to be their first double-digit loss.

It is an understatement to say that the Ravens have not been playing great football this season. They draw us into every game though because they keep it close enough that you think they will get a win. This might be one of those games where we turn off our televisions early.

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Maybe the Ravens shock us all and keep it close. That has been the only consistent part of their game this season. Don’t expect it. Seattle is a team on mission and are likely going to hand it to the Ravens.

If Schaub throws a few more picks, I’ll get my wish for Jimmy Clausen to start.

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