{"id":160150,"date":"2025-06-26T14:19:10","date_gmt":"2025-06-26T14:19:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/160150\/"},"modified":"2025-06-26T14:19:10","modified_gmt":"2025-06-26T14:19:10","slug":"recent-positional-ranking-delivers-brutal-blow-to-the-ravens-afc-north-standing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/160150\/","title":{"rendered":"Recent positional ranking delivers brutal blow to the Ravens AFC North standing"},"content":{"rendered":"

The roads wind and are ever-changing, but the NFL typically asks the Baltimore Ravens<\/a> and its other 31 franchises to travel similar paths. 18 weeks and 17 games… That helps us separate the elite. That’s where the cream rises.<\/p>\n

Only 14 teams will qualify for the postseason. 13 of those teams will lose their final game. Only one will be crowned as champion. Baltimore hopes more than anything that they will raise the Vince Lombardi Trophy this season.<\/p>\n

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If they’re to do so, the first step is to get invited to the dance. There’s a familiar saying that hasn’t failed us yet. ‘You can’t win it unless you’re in it.’<\/p>\n

The easiest route to the playoffs is to win one’s division. On paper, the Baltimore Ravens<\/a> appear to be the superior team in the AFC North. There is, however, one area where they feel inferior, and that stat experts over at Pro Football Focus sounded a mini alarm.<\/p>\n

PFF ranks the Ravens’ linebacker corps dead last in the AFC North<\/p>\n

Roquan Smith enters year four with the Ravens, and more of the brilliance we have seen is expected. He’s been named a Pro Bowler and First-Team All-Pro in each of his first three seasons in Baltimore.<\/p>\n

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One elite talent, however, does not make an elite unit. That must be PFF’s theory, as Baltimore landed 16 on PFF’s recent ranking of every NFL team’s linebacker corps<\/a>.<\/p>\n

“Roquan Smith took some time last season to adjust to life without Patrick Queen by his side, but he\u2019s been mostly outstanding since joining the Ravens in the middle of 2022. Since Week 9 of that season, Smith\u2019s 81.6 PFF overall grade ranks seventh among linebackers who have played at least 600 snaps.”<\/p>\n

Those are the words of Dalton Wasserman. He’s the writer of this one. Here’s more of what he had to say about placing Baltimore where he did.<\/p>\n

“Joining Smith once again will be third-year man\u00a0Trenton Simpson, who posted a mediocre 58.7 PFF overall grade in his first season as a starter. Baltimore doesn\u2019t have much depth behind those two, as\u00a0Jake Hummel\u00a0has played just 123 defensive snaps in his career. Otherwise, rookies\u00a0Teddye Buchanan\u00a0and\u00a0Jay Higgins\u00a0will be fighting for depth chart positioning through training camp.”<\/p>\n

Just in case you’re interested, each of the other three AFC North teams received higher rankings. The Cleveland Browns<\/a> finished 12th. The Pittsburgh Steelers<\/a> landed one spot behind them. The Cincinnati Bengals<\/a> were slotted one spot ahead of the Ravens at 15.<\/p>\n

This is no reason to sound any alarms by any means. The Ravens rule this roost. They’re expected to win this division and, in the process, make history<\/a>. They will become the first AFC North team to claim the crown three consecutive times since the NFL realigned its divisions before the 2002 regular season.<\/p>\n

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That being said, don’t view the linebacker issues as a death sentence. Look at this as an opportunity. If someone can step up, this Ravens defense gets even scarier than it was already expected to be.<\/p>\n

This article originally appeared on Ravens Wire: Ravens get a cold reality check in a recent NFL positional ranking<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The roads wind and are ever-changing, but the NFL typically asks the Baltimore Ravens and its other 31…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":160151,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2052],"tags":[1990,184,117,2282,256,54,7,21705,11232,6,7584,57,169,466,1994,2850,21579],"class_list":{"0":"post-160150","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-baltimore-ravens","8":"tag-afc-north","9":"tag-baltimore","10":"tag-baltimore-ravens","11":"tag-baltimoreravens","12":"tag-cincinnati-bengals","13":"tag-cleveland-browns","14":"tag-football","15":"tag-jake-hummel","16":"tag-jay-higgins","17":"tag-nfl","18":"tag-patrick-queen","19":"tag-pittsburgh-steelers","20":"tag-ravens","21":"tag-roquan-smith","22":"tag-teddye-buchanan","23":"tag-the-ravens","24":"tag-trenton-simpson"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/160150","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=160150"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/160150\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/160151"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=160150"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=160150"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=160150"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}