Everyone seems to forget that the Chiefs own the Ravens

For some reason, everyone seems to forget that the Chiefs own the Ravens.

The Baltimore Ravens are a great football team. Let’s get that much out of the way.

The Ravens are about as well-coached as a team can be and have been for years under John Harbaugh. The front office is the very model of how such an executive team should work. The roster is loaded with talent, front to back, and the team features the returning MVP Lamar Jackson, who just happens to be one of the most exciting young talents to enter the league in years.

The Ravens have every reason to consider themselves a contender for as long as these foundational elements are in place. It’s also a little silly to hear how often they’re lauded over the Chiefs.

The fun part of an NFL offseason is that the slate is erased and, once again, every fan base tries to find a reason to believe. Every season (just about) brings forth a new champion, and it’s absolutely fine for Ravens fans or NFL analysts to believe Baltimore can win. But then you read something like the following from Colin Cowherd:

"“Baltimore is going to go 16-0, fly through the playoffs and win the Super Bowl,” Cowherd said earlier this week. “The Ravens are the two scariest things in football — stacked and pissed.”"

To Cowherd’s credit, he mentions the Chiefs and San Francisco 49ers as the two other “great” franchises in the NFL right now. That’s not difficult to tell since both teams are young, loaded on both sides of the ball, and met in Super Bowl LIV several months ago.

However, what’s often missing in these pro-Ravens pieces is any mention of their need to overcome the Chiefs-sized hurdle in front of them. The hurdle isn’t the existence of the Chiefs as a separate team, per se. Instead it’s the fact that the Ravens cannot seem to beat them.

Overall, the Ravens are 6-4 against the Chiefs and they’ve lost the last three contests against them overall—all games since Andy Reid came to Kansas City. If you want to reduce the time down to Lamar Jackson versus Patrick Mahomes, the Chiefs are even undefeated there at 2-0 with regular season victories in each of the last two years.

Last season, the Chiefs won a 33-28 contest in which the final score paints a much closer picture than what actually happened. The Chiefs were up 23-6 and then 30-13 heading into the final quarter. Only then were the Ravens able to come back against a Chiefs team that utilized Darrel Williams and Darwin Thompson to fuel any offensive progress.

In short, the Chiefs were dominating the Ravens in this late September game by multiple possessions before slowing the horses and playing it safe by giving second and third-string players meaningful reps against a contender. Even without Tyreek Hill or Eric Fisher and with an ailing Frank Clark, the Chiefs owned the Ravens.

For those who want to point to the early season date and state that Jackson and the Ravens are better now than they were at that point, I’d like to remind you that the Chiefs defense in late September was a mere shell, then, of what they would become down the stretch—a unit that allowed a mere 10.4 points per game in the last third of the season.

The Ravens might be better now, but the Chiefs are as well. What was once a lopsided, offensive-heavy unit (that still put the hammer down on the Ravens) is now a well-rounded roster with elite performers on both sides of the ball.

Given that both teams play in the AFC, the Ravens are going to have to beat the Chiefs if they want to prove the supremacy that so many are already willing to attribute to them. Until they earn that bragging right, these sorts of preseason claims belong the Chiefs.