Baltimore Ravens

The Baltimore Ravens finished 2025 at eight and nine, missing the playoffs for the first time since 2021, getting swept by the Steelers, and closing the book on the John Harbaugh era two days after Week 18. This was supposed to be a Super Bowl team — preseason odds had them among the favorites — and instead they got muffed. They blew a fifteen-point fourth-quarter lead in Buffalo to open the year, started one and five for the first time in a decade, ripped off a five-game winning streak, then watched Tyler Loop's game-winner sail wide in Pittsburgh in Week 18 with a division title on the line. They tied the franchise record for home losses with six. The offense had teeth when Lamar Jackson was upright and the ground game was the plan; the defense, gutted by injuries up front, earned a new and unwelcome reputation as closers who could not close.

Put the season on the scoreboard. Baltimore's per-play passing expected points added — how much each dropback moved their scoring chances — was minus 0.04, while the rushing attack came in at plus 0.1 per carry, totaling plus 48.8 rushing expected points added. That's a run-first team that got pulled off its identity. They converted third down at 41 percent, but the red zone betrayed them — just 28 touchdowns on 177 red-zone snaps, a 16 percent rate hiding behind the yardage. The defense allowed plus 47.76 passing expected points added, and on defense that big positive number is ugly — quarterbacks printed money against them. This team was boom-or-bust: 41 points twice, shut out below 15 four times, a 34-point loss to the Texans in Week 5 one month before winning five straight. Steady they were not.

Now let's talk about the passing offense. The Ravens threw for just 192.8 yards per game, finished with minus 16.3 total passing expected points added, and gave up 45 sacks — one of the league's higher totals, boom-or-bust all year. The headline problem wasn't the ceiling — it was availability and turnovers: Jackson missed four games with a hamstring, Cooper Rush and Tyler Huntley took real snaps, and the offense coughed up 22 giveaways. When Jackson played, he smashed — 2,549 yards, 21 touchdowns, 7 picks in 13 games, completion percentage over expected of plus 2.9, and plus 18.2 passing expected points added. Zay Flowers was the engine — 86 catches, 1,211 yards, 5 touchdowns, a 30 percent target share, and plus 46.4 receiving expected points added. Protection and quarterback health dictated everything.

Now let's dig into the rushing offense. This is where Baltimore smashed — 157.7 yards per game, 2,681 total rushing yards, 23 rushing touchdowns, and plus 48.8 rushing expected points added on the season. The identity was real and it won games when they leaned into it. Derrick Henry was the straw — 1,595 yards on 307 carries, 16 rushing touchdowns, plus 9.2 rushing expected points added — and Week 17 in Green Bay was the purest expression: 307 team rushing yards, Henry tying his career high with four touchdowns on 36 carries. The frustration was consistency of use, not production. When the Ravens committed to the run, they were a different team. When they didn't, they got muffed.

Next up, the pass defense. Allowing plus 47.76 expected points added through the air is the single ugliest number on this team, propped up by just 30 sacks — tied for third-fewest in the league — and a per-play mark of plus 0.07 allowed, bottom-tier and trending nowhere but down. On defense you want those numbers deep in the negative; Baltimore lived on the wrong side of zero. The root cause was the pass rush collapse: Nnamdi Madubuike and Broderick Washington were both lost to season-ending injuries before the Week 7 bye, and a unit that had 54 sacks in 2024 could not replace them. Takeaways — 19 on the year, 1.1 per game — were the only thing keeping this group afloat. But 259 yards allowed per game through the air, with no consistent four-man rush, is how double-digit leads evaporate — and they evaporated often.

And the run defense. This was the one genuinely solid unit on the Baltimore defense — minus 21.79 rushing expected points added allowed, and on defense that negative number is good. They held opponents to 107.9 rushing yards per game and minus 0.05 per carry, legitimately above average — steady floor, low ceiling. The problem was that the run defense didn't matter enough on the nights the pass defense was getting torched, and 18 rushing touchdowns allowed on 419 carries say the red-zone run fits broke down too often. A steady unit in a boom-or-bust season — a floor, not a difference-maker. In a year when everything else on this defense cratered, the front holding up against the run was one of the few things that didn't get muffed.