Steelers Now
Ravens All-Pro free safety Kyle Hamilton believes Baltimore has everything necessary to win a championship, saying they literally need nothing else.
“I’ve had so many people ask me what the Ravens are missing. I’m like, literally nothing. We have everything you want to win a championship,” Hamilton told Mina Kimes of ESPN. “It’s just we haven’t been playing well when we got to the point that we need to win. There’s no excuses for that. It’s just offense, defense, special teams, we have to do better.”
One week after the Ravens eliminated the Pittsburgh Steelers in the AFC Wild Card playoffs, the Ravens themselves were knocked out at the hands of the Buffalo Bills, 27-25.
Baltimore came close, getting to within two points at a snowy Highmark Stadium on Sunday night, before Mark Andrews dropped a potential game-tying two-point conversion pass from Lamar Jackson with under two minutes to play.
“During the regular season every year I’ve been here, it seems like we get in a groove, and there’s like a six-week stretch where we’re just blowing people out, and I think we sometimes struggle with playing from behind because we don’t do it a lot,” Hamilton said. “So in the playoffs, on the road, hostile environment, playing from behind was just unusual territory, so we have to lock in that much more. Obviously don’t plan on playing from behind in the future, but if it does happen, we have to be able to respond correctly and just execute.
“Specifically on this Bills game, we had a couple turnovers, our defense didn’t start well. Offense came out and scored on the first drive and we gave up a touchdown right back. We don’t want it to fall on our offense to have to go down and score; we want it to be on the defense to get that stop and win the game for us. Both sides of the ball, obviously it’s going to be a tough offseason to have to live with that. But we have another year and hopefully right that wrong.”
Hamilton is right, the Ravens have had several impressive seasons over the last few years, but the playoffs have not been kind to Baltimore. John Harbaugh has just four playoff wins since 2014, and two of those wins came against the Steelers.
Lamar Jackson, who is a two-time League MVP, is great in the regular season. Bu the has failed to produce in the playoffs, posting a 3-5 postseason record. Until Jackson gets over the hump, people will continue to doubt the Ravens as Super Bowl-caliber team. He could be the modern day Dan Marino and Philip Rivers.
