Injuries have decimated the potential of the Baltimore Ravens this season. Headlining a lengthy injury list is former MVP winning quarterback Lamar Jackson. This season, he had every reason to finally get over his Super Bowl-less hump. He has the weapons, he has one of the top defenses by talent, yet they only have one win over the equally disappointing Cleveland Browns this season. The Kansas City Chiefs look beatable, the Buffalo Bills, while dominant, are facing the same fate and with a wide open AFC, the Ravens should be in the thick of the contender conversation.
Now it looks like their season is over a month in. As much as you want to blame Jackson, this falls on the Ravens as a whole as well as Jackson. The 2025 season is going to haunt Jackson probably for the rest of his career. Things spun out of control Week 1 when he and the Ravens blew a 15-point, fourth quarter lead. At the time, we didn’t know it, but it just might be foreshadowing just how miserable of a season this is going to be.
Should Lamar Jackson get amnesty this season due to injury-riddled Baltimore Ravens?
It’s hard to say that Jackson should get a gimme this season with all the injuries the Ravens have had five games into the season. It’s hard because this team should still be winning in his absence and even if they aren’t, it’s not like when he’s played this year, the team is playing at the level it should.
In the Cleveland game, the Browns turned the ball over twice, resulting in short-yard situations. The Browns not only outgained the Ravens in that 41-17 Week 2 loss, but they also ran nearly 20 more plays than the Ravens offense. This offense is built to be bulletproof and yet, there’s holes all in it.
This team needs to play better with Jackson in the lineup, as well as when he’s out of it. It’s hard for me to defend Jackson this season because this Ravens team doesn’t look as dangerous as they need to. Maybe the Ravens can turn things around, but right now, they’re not a contender, and they’re on the verge of not even being a playoff team.
That has less to do with the injuries and more with how things have already gotten out of control. If the Ravens looked like they usually do in the regular season, they wouldn’t have just one win because Jackson is 1-3 as a starter. This team needs to play better and that starts with their best player. The most important thing is for him to get healthy, the next is to improve their play.
Why is Lamar Jackson struggling in such a pivotal season?
The Ravens’ struggles this year extend beyond just Jackson, but he’s not helping Baltimore through this horrid start. The Ravens are currently ranked No. 23 in total offensive yards this year. Jackson has less than 1,000 passing yards in four games and while he’s thrown for 10 touchdowns and just one interception, this offense is having some consistency issues.
The outlier is the Buffalo Bills game. The Ravens had 432 offensive yards in that game and have just two games with over 300 offensive yards and one with over 350 offensive yards. Why has this team drastically decreased in offensive production? The biggest reason is Derrick Henry.
Since rushing for 169 yards against the Bills, Henry doesn’t have a game with more than 50 rushing yards. That’s a problem considering he 79 yards away from his second 2,000-plus yard season in his NFL career. He has just 317 yards this year and hasn’t quite built on a strong 2025 debut. But it’s not just the offense playing poorly.
The defense has been one of the worst in the NFL. That can be accredited to the litany of injury on the defensive side of the ball, but this is just bad. The Ravens have, essentially, the worst defense in the NFL right now. They’ve been outgained in every game this season with three games allowing more than 400 yards and four games with 350 or more. They’ve also allowed at least 300 total yards in every game this season.
That’s not completely on Jackson, as he can only control the offense. But the fact that the defense is averaging over 400 yards per game, compared to the offense averaging just over 300 yards, it’s proof the Ravens offense needs to improve.
This doesn’t feel like the season Jackson finally gets to the Super Bowl. Already this season, he’s lost to the two teams that have held him back from reaching the Super Bowl in the Bills and the Kansas City Chiefs. The Ravens are known for regular season success, so if they can’t thrive in the regular season this year, it means their postseason hopes – if they even get there – look even more glum.