Consistency could lift team above crowd of contenders
Pressure is on to separate from wild-card pack
Less than a half-hour after Sunday’s 23-0 win over the Green Bay Packers, all the turnovers and sacks the Ravens defense had just collected no longer mattered to one of the team’s leaders, Terrell Suggs.
The shutout, the Ravens’ third of the season, was a nice souvenir to take home from Lambeau Field, but if you asked Suggs, it was little else.
“We just have to build on it. You’ve got to be consistent,” Suggs said. “The worst thing in the world is to be mediocre. We can’t be mediocre. Let’s take the next step. Let’s get a game above .500. We’re taking next week like it’s our Super Bowl.”
Ten games into the season, the Ravens have proved they can play with anybody when they’re at their best, and they can lose to anybody when they’re at their worst. What they have yet to prove — and they’ll probably have to if they’re going to make the NFL playoffs — is that they’re capable of maintaining a high level of play on a consistent basis.
When the Ravens (5-5) host the Houston Texans (4-6) next week on “Monday Night Football,” they’ll be looking for their first back-to-back wins since weeks 1 and 2, when they defeated the Cincinnati Bengals and Cleveland Browns.
“That’s the thing, we have to play winning football,” coach John Harbaugh said Monday. “I think the formula begins to present itself as the season wears on here as to what that is for us. We need to put that together to win football games.”
Even with their lack of consistency throughout the season, the Ravens sit in the sixth and final AFC playoff position with a less demanding schedule than most — if not all — of their pursuers.
They have the tiebreaker edge over the 5-5 Buffalo Bills, who have given up 135 points during their three-game losing streak and have to go on the road Sunday to face the AFC West- leading Kansas City Chiefs (6-4).