The Baltimore Ravens’ season has not gone the way they envisioned before the season began. With three regular-season games left, the team finds itself at 7-7 and on the outside looking in on the playoffs.
Several hurdles have plagued the team, from a historically bad start on defense to injuries to key defensive players to losing quarterback Lamar Jackson for several games. All of the issues have compounded.
Another issue plaguing the team is their underperformance at home. The Ravens are 3-5 at M&T Bank Stadium this season, but head coach John Harbaugh isn’t concerned.
Harbaugh Downplays Frustrations
Under John Harbaugh, the Ravens have historically been one of the better teams at home, especially in prime time. In Harbaugh’s 18-year tenure as the Ravens’ head coach, the team was 22-5 at home in prime time games. However, this season has been anything but typical for Baltimore.
The Ravens began the season, suffering a shocking loss to the Buffalo Bills following a fourth-quarter comeback on Sunday Night Football. They followed that up by losing to the Detroit Lions at home on Monday Night Football, and most recently lost at home to the Cincinnati Bengals on Thanksgiving night.
Harbaugh, though, doesn’t buy into the potential frustrations the Ravens may have with their home performances, as he discussed during his Monday press conference. Ravens.com provided the transcript of Harbaugh’s discussion.
“No, I don’t even know what you’re talking about. A point of frustration? No. The guys are locked in for the next game,” Harbaugh said. “That’s it, period. Seasons [will] go the way they go. You fight the way they fight. I know there’s a lot. You can look back all you want. You can say, ‘Well, this happened, or that happened, or where do we stand right now?‘ You can do that all you want. What’s that going to do for you? Where’s that going to take you? You have to look forward, and I look back with a lot of pride. Every game we’ve lost, our guys were fighting like crazy to win it. So no, there’s no frustration. To me, that’s made up.”
While Harbaugh feels the talk of home frustrations is overblown, some Ravens players feel the opposite.
Players Want to Perform Better at Home
Ravens’ head coach John Harbaugh doesn’t believe his team has been frustrated by its lack of success at home, but several players have voiced their disappointment with how the team has performed in front of its home fans.
Noah Trister of the Associated Press , in his December 17 article, wrote about how some Ravens players believe they can do a better job at home.
“I think we kind of have mentioned how we have to play better at home,” safety Alohi Gilman said. “It’s not a big jump, it’s just little things here and there. That’s not a question of our character, culture, or identity. It’s just a matter of executing on a high level, on a more consistent basis.”
Center Tyler Lindenbaum discussed the importance of defending the team’s home turf.
“Obviously, someone is coming into our house. We have to win games,” Linderbaum said. “We have to put on a show for our crowd and end up getting wins like how we’re supposed to.”
While the frustration the team has had with their home record, the worst since the 2015 Ravens, hasn’t made its way back to Harbaugh, the players on the team know the importance of playing well and getting the home crowd involved. The last chance the Ravens will possibly have to end their home schedule on a positive note will be this Sunday, in prime time on Sunday Night Football, against the New England Patriots .
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