Baltimore Beatdown
Coming up short of advancing to the Super Bowl last season left players with a ‘bitter taste’ in their mouths and a chip on their collective shoulders.
After steamrolling several of the best teams in the league from both conferences down the stretch of the 2023 season and through the divisional round of the playoffs, the Baltimore Ravens came up short of advancing to the Super Bowl in the AFC Championship.
Despite moving the ball well on offense for most of the game and pitching a shutout in the second half, they weren’t able to avoid crucial mistakes in key moments and ultimately fell 17-10 to an inferior Kansas City Chiefs team many pundits called the most flawed of the Patrick Mahomes era.
The stunning defeat still resonates with the Ravens’ returning players and served as fuel during their time away prior to returning for voluntary workouts and Organized Team Activities.
“I believe that just motivated us throughout the whole offseason,” quarterback Lamar Jackson said Wednesday in a press conference. “People are still talking about it; us players still talk about it. It definitely left a bitter taste in our mouths just being that close. We worked so hard in getting there and didn’t do what we wanted to do, didn’t fulfill our dream. Definitely a little chip on our shoulder.”
The Ravens had what many believed was the most complete team in the league last year and certainly the best of Jackson’s tenure as the face of the franchise, which helped propel him to earning his second career league MVP honors. Jackson admitted to believing that coming up short a game shy of making the Super Bowl hurts even more than losing in the big game itself because of all the work the team put in to make it to that point.
“We worked so hard for 17 weeks, plus the little playoff games, and we get to a game away and lose,” Jackson said. “We didn’t really put any points on the board, and we were just scoring 30 points against crazy teams — great defenses. Don’t get me wrong, that’s a great defense as well, but we had played the top-ranked defenses. We just have to finish. We have to find a way to move the ball in the right direction and put points on the board because our defense did their thing the whole night.”
Third-year All-Pro safety Kyle Hamilton reflected on the experience and the fact they made it to the team’s first conference title game in over a decade as “something to look back on and be proud of.”
“Obviously, we didn’t have the result that we wanted, but I mean, getting that close and knowing that you have the capabilities to do it and were two, three plays away from going to the Super Bowl – and who knows what would happen in that game,” Hamilton said. “I think you’ve got to cherish those seasons [and] stuff like that and build on them....
