Dominate the Super Bowl

Chapter 658: 657 Focus Duel
 

In 1995, the owner of the Cleveland Browns, Art Modell, announced that he was prepared to relocate the team to Baltimore.

Modell reached a tripartite agreement with the city of Cleveland and the League, where Modell was required to leave the team name, colors, and history all in Cleveland; a new Cleveland Browns team would inherit all of this in 1999. As for Modell, he would take the players, coaches, and his team culture to Baltimore to establish a brand new team.

And thus, the Baltimore Ravens were born.

In other words, the current Baltimore Ravens team in the League actually originated from the Cleveland Browns, but due to the tripartite agreement, the Browns’ records and history were all left to the subsequent new team, and the Baltimore Ravens started from scratch, essentially a brand new team.

That’s why the history of the Baltimore Ravens in the League has to start from the 1996 season.@@novelbin@@

But!

This Baltimore Ravens team became one of the most successful teams in the League.

From the 1996 season to the 2023 season, the Baltimore Ravens had a regular season win rate of 56.9%, ranking third among all teams in the League’s historical standings; their playoff win rate of 56.7% ranked fourth in the League’s history.

Fifteen playoff appearances, two Super Bowl Champions, seven division titles.

Furthermore, as of the 2018 season, the Baltimore Ravens were the only team to have made it to the Super Bowl more than once while still maintaining a 100% Super Bowl win rate, having advanced and won both times in the 2000 and 2012 seasons.

In the new millennium, while people have constantly discussed the New England Patriots, the Baltimore Ravens are one of the few teams whose records can be juxtaposed, maintaining their competitiveness from beginning to end.

This team values tradition and legacy.

Since 1996, Ozzie Newsome has served as the team’s manager, staying on even as the team’s ownership has changed hands.

The team’s head coaches have been consistent as well—over more than twenty years, there have only been three coaches, with the current coach John Harbaugh having been in charge since 2008 without any sign of wavering.

As mentioned before, Harbaugh is also an important member of Coach Reed’s coaching tree. His first job in the League in 1998 was as the special teams coordinator with the Philadelphia Eagles, where he spent a good ten years.

And then, there is now.

Harbaugh soared to the top, becoming the third head coach of the Baltimore Ravens.

Moreover, Harbaugh has not disappointed the trust placed in him. He has withstood the pressure and continued the team’s fine traditions, and has now become the central pillar of the Baltimore Ravens.

Under Harbaugh’s leadership, the Baltimore Ravens continued the tradition of a strong defense, while also carving out new realms in passing offense—comprehensive development and on-the-spot adaptability were key to the team firmly maintaining an advantage in the fiercely competitive NFL.

However, winning the Super Bowl in the 2012 season seemed to exhaust the team’s luck.

After that, Baltimore Ravens legend “Thor,” Ray Lewis, announced his retirement, and the team has since been trying to find the next spiritual totem, with injuries proving to be an unending hindrance.

In 2015, 2016, and 2017, the Baltimore Ravens missed the playoffs three seasons in a row; but in truth, they never performed poorly.

In the 2016 season, they had eight wins and eight losses.

In the 2017 season, they had nine wins and seven losses.

In both seasons, the Ravens were only a single victory away from the playoffs, narrowly missing advancement with very slight margins.

So, even though they missed the playoffs for three consecutive seasons, no one could underestimate the Baltimore Ravens—they were still an opponent every team had to be wary of.

This year was no exception.

This season, the Baltimore Ravens’ “Super Bowl Curse” seemed to peak—

At the beginning of the season, they had three wins and one loss, defeating the Buffalo Bills, Pittsburgh Steelers, and Denver Broncos by wide margins, showing exceptional performance.

But they hadn’t anticipated the onslaught of injuries, causing the team’s competitive form to become inconsistent and unpredictable.

After a sudden death loss to the inter-division rivals, the Cleveland Browns, in the fifth week’s overtime game, they fell into a quagmire, suffering humiliating, lopsided defeats to the Pittsburgh Steelers, Carolina Panthers, and New Orleans Saints.

Their record was only one win and three losses, shrouded by the gloom of three consecutive defeats.

The record plummeted to four wins and five losses.

It was terrible, absolutely terrible.

To make matters worse, during the ninth week of the regular season in the game against the division rivals, the Pittsburgh Steelers, starting quarterback Joe Flacco was injured and had to leave the field.

“The Steel Raven Battle” has always been one of the NFL’s most exciting, breathtaking, and thrilling rivalries. The key point is that regardless of whether the teams are at their peak or in a slump, they always engage in a tough battle upon encountering each other. The games are not only seesaw battles but also bloody, a true hand-to-hand combat.

The outcome was almost always mutually detrimental without exception.

This time was no different.

The Baltimore Ravens lost the game, and their main quarterback— their season record fell into a dire situation of four wins and five losses, standing at the edge of a cliff.

All of it was absolutely terrible.

However, that is how strong teams are. They should never be underestimated, especially the Baltimore Ravens. Harbaugh has always had a sense of relentlessness and toughness in his bones, which is the biggest difference between him and his brother Jim Harbaugh. Faced with adversity, John always held on a little longer.

In week ten of the regular season, the Baltimore Ravens had their bye week.

Using the bye week to their advantage, Harbaugh made a bold and brave decision:

He gave up on quarterback Robert Griffin III, who had starting experience and had reached the playoffs, and promoted this year’s draft slide and breakdown rookie quarterback Lamar Jackson as the starting quarterback.

Indeed, everyone understood the logic.

When the Baltimore Ravens picked Lamar Jackson with the thirty-second pick in the first round of this year’s draft, they clearly hoped he would take over for Flacco.

But reality dictated that the Baltimore Ravens had missed the playoffs for three consecutive seasons, and this season they were trapped in dire straits. The decision to use a rookie quarterback as the starter was a matter of personal opinion—whether it was reckless risk or extraordinary courage.

Remember how the New York Giants fumbled awkwardly last season, looking ahead and behind in indecision, even though it was a laughable state, but that was the norm.

But Harbaugh didn’t show that.

Decisive, determined, and efficient—he assessed the situation and made his choices immediately.

Moreover, it wasn’t a reckless gamble. Using the bye week, Harbaugh changed the playbook.

Yes, you heard it right. Harbaugh simply and neatly changed the offensive strategy, crafting an entirely new set of tactics around Lamar Jackson as the core.

Flacco was a traditional pocket quarterback, while Jackson was a typical running quarterback—two completely different styles, and Harbaugh needed to get the team ready.

However, Harbaugh was no stranger to running quarterbacks.

Back in Philadelphia, Harbaugh witnessed Coach Reed training Michael Vick, transforming this quarterback, who had rough passing skills, to maximize his strengths and shine, becoming the first of a new generation of running quarterbacks in the league.

Now, Harbaugh was prepared to follow in his mentor’s footsteps, to remodel Jackson. In just one week, he transformed the Baltimore Ravens into a completely different team.

It was a high-stakes gamble, and Harbaugh won it.