Ravens still have slim playoff hopes

By: Corey Johns

Somehow, someway, the Baltimore Ravens have a semi-realistic chance at making the playoffs.

This year there has been very little middle ground in the NFL. There are some great teams and them some really bad teams. The Ravens miraculous win over the Cleveland Browns on Monday night improved their record to 4-7. That put them just two games out of one of the wildcard spots. Ahead of them in those spots are a Jamaal Charles-less Chiefs team, a Houston Texans squad without a stable quarterback situation, a Jets squad that has been dropping fast, a banged-up Steelers team, and Raiders, Bills and Jaguars teams that are all below .500.

The Ravens ave two of those teams left on their schedule. And they host both the Chiefs and Steelers in a few weeks. The Ravens also have a game against the troubled Miami Dolphins next week and then host a struggling Seahawks that is without both Marshawn Lynch and Jimmy Graham.

The Ravens are going to have their work cut out for them if they have any hope of making the playoffs, likely affording only one more loss. Though it is easy to see how the Ravens could lose their next four games, it is also easy to see how they could get wins to set up what might be a do-or-die games at Cincinnati at the end of the year. But, if the Steelers drop out to a point that the Ravens will have playoff hopes by Week 17, the Bengals could just choose to sit their top players.

This year has been a disaster for the Ravens. Currently, they are the most injured team in the league and have an injured reserve list that looks better than some team’s starting lineups, but they have remained competitive all season long. Every single one of the Ravens losses have been decided by one possession and they have had a chance to win or tie all of them in the final two minutes.

It is not in the Ravens’ nature to quit and pack it in to secure better draft picks. They go out every single week and play as best they can and that has somehow put them in position where the playoffs are not completely out of the question with five weeks to go.

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