One of the hardest things to do in sports is endure. In The Ringer’s 32-team bracket to decide the best NFL team of the quarter century, only the New England Patriots had more entries than the Baltimore Ravens. All of those Patriots squads were led by the same quarterback and head coach. Both of the Broncos teams in the bracket had Peyton Manning. The two Packers squads each had Aaron Rodgers. The Steelers, Ben Roethlisberger. The Saints, Drew Brees and Sean Payton. You get the picture.
The Ravens landed three teams in our initial bracket. Those teams featured three different starting quarterbacks, each of whom had much different playing styles, and two head coaches—proof of the franchise’s ability to find the perfect alchemy and build championship-caliber teams.
The Ravens have had three distinct eras in the past 25 years, from the early-aughts Baltimore teams that featured one of the best defenses in league history, to the Joe Flacco Ravens that caught fire in the playoffs in the early 2010s, to Lamar Jackson’s current squad that’s on the cusp of breaking through in the AFC. Baltimore has been a defining team of this quarter century, but that evolution hasn’t always been easy.
The Ray Lewis Era of Defensive Domination
The draft was the foundation of the Ravens’ success in this quarter century. Just look at this run of multi-time Pro Bowlers drafted or signed out of college by Baltimore!
And it started as soon as the franchise relocated from Cleveland to Baltimore.
Do you know how good an NFL general manager has to be at his job to land future Hall of Famers with the first two draft picks for a fledgling franchise? That’s what Ozzie Newsome did in Baltimore’s inaugural draft in 1996, selecting left tackle Jonathan Ogden and middle linebacker Ray Lewis at no. 4 and no. 26, respectively. By 1997, each player was considered among the best at his position, and they combined to make 11 first-team All Pro squads by 2010.
The Ravens planted a seed for growing a healthy franchise, establishing roots as one of the best drafting franchises the league has ever seen.
The early Ravens were effectively operating as an expansion team after former owner Art Modell relocated the team’s personnel from Cleveland, and Lewis quickly emerged as Baltimore’s biggest star.
On the field, Lewis was one of the most rangy linebackers we’d ever seen in the league at that point. While linebackers in the pass-heavy modern NFL game have been pushed out of the box or at times taken off the field altogether, when watching a young Lewis, it’s clear he had the skills to thrive in any era. Beyond his impressive athletic traits, Lewis had charisma and knack as a motivator that made it easy for him to become the true leader of the Ravens as the 2000s began.
Those early-aught Baltimore teams featured a mix of homegrown players and veteran free agents, like tight end Shannon Sharpe, defensive back Rod Woodson, and quarterback Trent Dilfer. Baltimore went 8-8 in 1999, Brian Billick’s first year as head coach, and in year two the Ravens produced the greatest defense (statistically) of the last 25 years. You’ve probably heard all the stats: they surrendered just 10 points per game; they won 12 games despite having an offense that went five weeks without contributing a touchdown; and they had four shutouts in the regular season. They allowed just one touchdown in three AFC playoff games on their way to Super Bowl XXXV. In the Super Bowl, you could see the way Lewis and Baltimore’s front seven sucked the life out of the New York Giants offense.
But while Baltimore’s defense that year is celebrated as one of the best ever, being that one-sided as a team wasn’t a long-term winning formula. Adding future Hall of Famer Ed Reed and perennial Pro Bowler Terrell Suggs allowed Baltimore to remain one of the NFL’s most talented defenses, but as the aughts progressed, Baltimore was left behind by its competitors in the AFC. The Patriots, Steelers, and Colts were among the teams that found sustained success thanks to their franchise quarterbacks, while the Ravens hoped to follow the Dilfer blueprint with Kyle Boller and an aging Steve McNair. Rule changes in the mid-2000s opened up the modern passing game in a way the Ravens couldn’t take advantage of since they didn’t have high-level quarterback play. As that decade neared its end, it was clear Baltimore needed to pivot.
Flacco’s Elite Moment
The Ravens scuffled to a 60-52 record between 2001 and 2007, and had built a reputation for heartbreaking losses in the postseason (something that still seems to dog the franchise to this day). Firing Billick, hiring John Harbaugh, and selecting quarterback Joe Flacco in the 2008 draft started a sea change in Baltimore that led the franchise into a new era, building to its championship run in 2012.
Flacco won at least one playoff game in each of his first four years in the league, but had a clear sack and turnover problem when he played on the biggest stages. The Steelers forced three interceptions and sacked Flacco three times in the 2008 playoffs. Flacco threw a pair of interceptions in the divisional round against the Colts the following year, and he struggled against Pittsburgh’s pass rush in the 2010 postseason. Flacco finally played well against an elite quarterback in the playoffs in the AFC championship game of the 2011 season, with 306 passing yards and two touchdowns, and just one interception, against Tom Brady’s Patriots. Flacco led what would have been a game-winning drive if not for a crushing drop by receiver Lee Evans. It was clear that as Lewis and Reed were near the end of their careers, the Ravens were evolving into Flacco’s team. The quarterback, not the defense, would have to be the team’s strength if the Ravens were to stay in contention.
The defining season of the Flacco era was a roller coaster, as the Ravens went 10-6 and lost four of their final five games to close the regular season. They had to play most of the season without Lewis, who tore his triceps in October. The Ravens had a top-15 scoring defense in 2012, but by several efficiency metrics, it was their worst performance in this century—ranking last in defensive success rate against the run and fourth worst against the pass since 2000. With Brady and Manning putting up two of the best years of their careers, while surrounded by more offensive talent than Baltimore had, Flacco would have to be perfect to make a deep playoff run—and he was.
Flacco threw for 1,140 yards and 11 touchdowns over the four-game stretch of the postseason, taking just six sacks and throwing no interceptions. It was the most prolific statistical performance we’d ever seen in a postseason, ranking first in passer rating and expected points added at the time. The “Mile High Miracle,” his 70-yard game-tying touchdown to Jacoby Jones against the no. 1 seed Broncos, might have been the most improbable single play of that postseason. Flacco’s crowning achievement was putting on a passing clinic against San Francisco in Super Bowl XLVII, throwing for three touchdowns against a loaded 49ers defense coached by Vic Fangio.
Lewis, who returned from the injury to play in the postseason, retired after the Super Bowl, and the Ravens fully became a quarterback-driven franchise for the first time since its inception. But maintaining stability was hard. Save for a near-4,000-yard passing season from Flacco with Gary Kubiak calling the offense in 2014 (more proof the Shanahan system can truly fix anybody), Flacco turned right back into a turnover and sack machine, and he only made the playoffs once more as the Ravens’ starter after that magical 2012 run. Harbaugh, too, seemed like he was on the hot seat, going 40-40 from 2013 to 2017 and losing five games against playoff opponents in 2017 despite having a top-10 scoring offense and defense. This era, to the extent that anyone would call it that, was totally over.
The Lamar Jackson Era
Harbaugh’s job was saved and the trajectory of this franchise was forever altered when the Ravens drafted Lamar Jackson with the final pick of the first round in the 2018 draft. Jackson arrived as a Heisman winner from his career at Louisville, a raw but capable passer and the most dynamic dual-threat quarterback to enter the league since Michael Vick in 2001. While we don’t have to run down the entire story of why Jackson slipped to the end of the first round, it’s clear he never should have been on the board so long.
Baltimore took its time with Jackson, giving Flacco one final opportunity to show he still had something left. Harbaugh ultimately handed the keys to Jackson after the Ravens’ 4-5 start to the season. Jackson won his first three starts, part of a 6-1 run that got the Ravens to the playoffs. Jackson gave the Ravens something they never had with Flacco: a quarterback dynamic enough to keep pace with the elite AFC quarterbacks year over year. Jackson wasn’t just flashing some promise as a pocket passer, he was instantly the most valuable ballcarrier in the organization. The Ravens were evolving in real time, and it was incredibly fun to watch.
That season quickly made Jackson a must-watch player, but 2019 established him as an offensive system unto himself. He was arguably the most efficient runner in the NFL, producing the best rushing season by a quarterback we’ve seen, while also having the 13th-highest passer rating of the quarter century. Twice, he finished games with a perfect passer rating. Jackson was the unanimous league MVP, and was just two votes away from winning Offensive Player of the Year as well. It felt like we were watching a real-world manifestation of Madden 2004’s Michael Vick, a player who was totally untouchable on the field but was somehow better at manipulating the threat of his rushing ability to manufacture passing opportunities.
The Best of the NFL’s Past Quarter Century
Jackson’s immediate impact revealed the biggest misevaluation of a quarterback draft prospect since Brady slipped to the sixth round in 2000. Then-Ravens offensive coordinator Greg Roman built a system around Jackson’s unique talents, and redefined the way a quarterback can be involved in the running game. In 2019, he became the first quarterback since 2000 to have over 100 designed carries—a workload similar to that of a typical no. 2 running back. Jackson developed a unique gravity as a runner that still affects the way defenses react to him today, often pulling multiple defenders out of position to open lanes for his backs.
The Chargers beat the Ravens in the playoffs in Jackson’s rookie year by exposing some holes in Jackson’s game as a pocket passer (as well as several weaknesses in Roman’s play calling), but I’d argue that game helped push Jackson to become the kind of pure quarterback he is today. Jackson has thrown for 7,850 yards, 65 touchdowns, and just 11 interceptions over the past two seasons—and won 25 of his last 33 regular-season contests. Jackson has proved himself to be one of the most transformative offensive forces we’ve ever seen, and essentially as long as he’s been healthy Baltimore’s been a top-five scoring offense. “The vision that we have together is that Lamar Jackson is going to become and be known and be recognized as the greatest quarterback ever to play in the history of the National Football League," Harbaugh said in 2024, and with Jackson in his prime, he seems to be on the way to actualizing this goals.
Assuming he remains healthy, Jackson should leapfrog Lewis and Ogden as the greatest pick in franchise history.
But as has been true in each of the first two Ravens eras, Baltimore still tends to play its worst football in the postseason. The Ravens have made just one conference championship game in the Jackson era (losing to Patrick Mahomes’s Chiefs in January 2024), and Jackson finds himself in a similar position to early-career Peyton Manning: He’s clearly the league’s most uniquely talented quarterback, a player who routinely dominates in the regular season, but his teams come up short in the playoffs. The Super Bowl is the only thing standing between him and the all-time greats.
For all its problems with maintaining a contender in the pre-Lamar years, this franchise has remained competitive through the Brady-Manning years, the beginning of the Mahomes dynasty, and are now regularly one of the favorites to contend for a Super Bowl—no matter how stacked the AFC competition may be. If Jackson and the Ravens can finally get over that hump in the coming seasons, Baltimore would be the only team in the league to have a championship in every decade of the 2000s thus far (New England and the New York Giants are the only other teams who qualify, having also won titles in the 2000s and 2010s).
So if you want your favorite team to be like the Ravens and win consistently throughout the next 25 years? All it takes is drafting all the best players year after year after year. Good luck with that.
