The Ravens do a great job of marketing their past and keeping former legends close to the front office and boasting about their accomplishments.

There is a sentimentality and hubris that has been woven into their roster decisions for years now – like not realizing after his third season in the NFL that Lamar Jackson meant more to their success and their roster well-being than any player meant to any team in the league, and immediately paying him that way the moment they could. It was implied in them bucking what anyone in the industry would have said about extending rapidly-descending tight end Mark Andrews a year ago or paying $19.3M to bring bottom five starting corner Marlon Humphrey back at that price in 2026.

General manager Eric DeCosta continually gets the media to tell you how great his rosters are and how powerful of a Super Bowl contender this is … but they have one meaningful playoff run since he took over for icon Ozzie Newsome in 2019, and they are bottoming out under his hand-picked rookie head coach and novice staff. They're already doing things no Ravens team has ever done before (failing to score 14 points in four straight games) and only one Ravens team has done before (allow 33 points or more in three straight; DeCosta’s horrid 2025 defense did that as well).

Meantime, the coaches they kicked out of the building, like John Harbaugh (Giants) and Todd Monken (Browns) are shattering expectations right away. The Ravens had three quarterbacks suffer injuries in the equivalent of one quarter of football in Buffalo two weeks ago, and overmatched head coach Jesse Minter is being asked about divesting himself of defensive play-calling duties nine games into his career.

The Ravens are far more likely to be picking in the top 10 the next two years than they are to flirting with anything close to a home playoff game, they have at best the second-worst overpriced payroll in the NFL (to Dallas) and the worst cap situation in the NFL now and moving forward. Given all of that, finding a way to lose their starting kicker (Jake Moody) through a totally unforced error, and making a second straight bizarre trade for a starting center after getting utterly fleeced by the Eagles for Cam Jurgens just a month ago, is a total failure at the trade deadline.

More Failing Grades

The Ravens won’t start turning things around until they acknowledge that they are a failing front office; when owner Steve Bisciotti starts to hold personnel guys accountable in ways he always did his coaches, instead of throwing out ridiculous platitudes about DeCosta “batting .800.” They have been getting called out around the league since pulling out of the Maxx Crosby trade in March, and we were reporting even before the deadline what would happen.

But they seem to always get a pass in Owings Mills, where it really matters (or on the yacht in Florida).

There were numerous football trades that could have been made if the Ravens got real and started marketing Derrick Henry and Ronnie Stanley and Rashod Bateman and Calais Campbell to others. Instead, they traded basically a fourth-round pick for the rebuilding Cardinals third-string QB (Jacoby Brissett), a potential top 40 pick for a concussed offensive lineman the Eagles were going to bench, and added starting center from the Falcons (Ryan Neuzil) who is probably a back-up here who they should have landed in the spring given all their machinations at center.

“There were trades they could have made, but they were never going to make them,” one GM told me. “DeCosta would never sell.”

Indeed, the NFL believed the Ravens would think starting to reposition for the future and shedding players – most have no future here anyway – was beneath them. It’s what losing franchises do.

But that’s exactly what this is – in steep decline since losing to the Chiefs in the 2023 playoffs, churning through coaches and coordinators like bad teams do, and 6-9 since last Thanksgiving like bad teams are. They are headed for a second-straight losing season, and are 3-9 in their last 12 at home and 3-7 in their last 10 against winning teams.

All the pretending isn’t fooling anyone.

And it’s not serving the fans, or the few young blue-chip players on this roster who might still be here whenever this franchise does remotely resemble a real contender again.