Baltimore Ravens: No Longer Strong At Home
By Ben Palmer
The Baltimore Ravens used to have one of the best home records in football, now, over the past two seasons, they have one of the worst.
From 2008 to 2014, the first seven seasons John Harbaugh was with the Baltimore Ravens, the team was 45-11 at home. Over that same time span, only the New England Patriots (49-7) have a better home record.
For a long time, playing in M&T Bank Stadium was a scary prospect, the Ravens enjoyed a major home field advantage. But lately, that advantage has all but gone away.
Over the past two seasons, the Baltimore Ravens have gone 4-7 at home, which is the sixth-worst home record in the NFL during that time. So what’s changed?
Well some of those losses have been really bad luck. You’ve got two lost home games from last year after Joe Flacco went down with a season-ending injury, there’s the loss when Gary Barnidge caught a touchdown between his legs, and the loss when the Jaguars should have been called for a false start on their final play and weren’t.
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Still, that’s the beauty of football, it’s entirely unpredictable, losses due to bad luck happen. But part of the reason for the Ravens poor play at home has been their poor play all around.
As I’ve stated before, the Ravens are in desperate need of a more balanced offense if they want to turn things around this season.
The team playing poorly overall is obviously going to have an effect on their home record. They haven’t made the playoffs in two of the last three seasons and have lost 15 out of their last 23 games.
Hopefully, despite a four-game losing streak, Baltimore fans will continue to support the team, though it’s not looking good. The Ravens have yet to sell out the Thursday night game against the Cleveland Browns, which would break their streak of 168-straight sold-out home games (including the playoffs).
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They could turn the home record around though, playing the Steelers this week who haven’t won in Baltimore since 2012, and the Browns on Thursday, that home record could look a lot better soon, as long as the team looks good with it.