Baltimore Ravens: 5 Offseason moves to reach Super Bowl next year
Off the Baltimore Ravens shocking early playoff exit, the 2020 offseason will be critical to get Lamar Jackson the pieces to make a Super Bowl run.
There was little chance of stopping the Baltimore Ravens in the regular season as they were the highest-scoring offense and the third-most stingy scoring defense in the NFL for the year. Led by MVP-frontrunner Lamar Jackson, there was little question about the Super Bowl potential of this team — or so it seemed. Then the Tennessee Titans came to M&T Bank Stadium on Saturday night.
After a playoff debacle as a rookie against the Chargers last year, Jackson showed some postseason warts and some definite rust early on against the Titans. He and the offense failed to get anything going, including getting stifled on an early fourth-and-1 attempt, and the defense started off getting run over by Derrick Henry and couldn’t stop the bleeding.
Make no mistake, the upstart Titans executed their gameplan perfectly. Despite the Ravens selling out to stop Henry from running wild, Tennessee couldn’t be stopped. Furthermore, the defense played pristine bend-don’t-break defense to limit Baltimore’s explosive offense to just three scoring drives in a 28-12 win for the Titans.
Jackson, as mentioned, was not good early on. However, even when he made plays, it was either too late or he wasn’t getting enough help. Outside of rookie wide receiver Marquise Brown, you could make the argument that Jackson was on an island trying to do it himself while the defense didn’t help either as they had no answers.
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Subsequently, the team with the best regular-season record (14-2) in the NFL will be watching the AFC Championship Game from home and prepare for the offseason. With an MVP-caliber quarterback in Jackson, the future is still mightily bright in Baltimore. However, the loss to Tennessee showed there is still work to do.
What does that work entail if they want to realize their potential and make the Super Bowl next season? These are the offseason moves the Baltimore Ravens need to make for the 2020 campaign.