After whirlwind week, franchise left to prep for midweek matinee
Nine days ago, the Ravens faced a crisis.
They had just squandered an 11-point third-quarter lead and lost in overtime to the Tennessee Titans. The defeat, their third in four games, pushed them out of the final wild-card spot in the AFC playoff standings. Quarterback Lamar Jackson suggested the Titans “wanted it more” than the Ravens. With injuries and frustrations mounting, a team many pundits had picked to reach the Super Bowl seemed in danger of going down as a great disappointment.
Oh, to return to those innocent days.
Beginning the next afternoon with the news that running backs Mark Ingram II and J.K. Dobbins had contracted COVID-19, the Ravens fell into a pandemic-fueled nightmare of daily positive tests, game postponements (three of them now) and internal punishment for a strength and conditioning coach who, sources say, did not follow NFL- mandated
protocols.
Never in their 25 seasons in Baltimore have the Ravens prepared for a game as strange as the one they’re scheduled to play in Pittsburgh on Wednesday at the suitably odd time of 3:40 p.m. If they take the field, they’ll do so with a roster decimated by the same virus that’s haunted the world in 2020. They’ll play the undefeated Steelers without Jackson, without two of their three top pass catchers, without complete allotments of offensive or defensive linemen.
Before Monday night, their last full pre-lockdown practice was a walkthrough the day after the Titans loss. When they prepared to gather Monday morning, the NFL stopped them amid continuing concerns about the outbreak; not until 6:30 p.m. did the Ravens report for a socially distanced walk-through and conditioning session at the team facility. By then, anewspecter had emerged in the form of a National Weather Service forecast calling for up to 5 inches of snow in Pittsburgh beginning early Tuesday morning.
Barring any unexpected test results, the Ravens will travel to Pittsburgh on Tuesday night, after a secondwalk-through. On Wednesday, they’ll head toHeinz Field for a game whose latest rescheduling came after a group of Ravens players, according to a source with knowledge of the situation, made clear their displeasure. Frustratedwith the team’s handling of the outbreak and the NFL’s insistence on playing the Week 12 game, some Ravens were determined to not play Tuesday, a source said. One group even preferred to play Thursday.
But by Monday night, the Ravens’ reworked schedulewas official, and seemingly settled. Theywould play the Steelers on Wednesday afternoon — ESPN reported that NBC was committed to broadcasting the Christmas tree lighting atNewYork’sRockefeller Center in prime time— and theDallasCowboys inWeek13 on Tuesday, Dec. 8.
In sum, it was another unsettled day in a stretch unlike any other for a franchise that prides itself on stability.
The Ravens have not formally commented on the outbreak beyond a Friday statement from coach John Harbaugh — “Our organization has a plan in place, and we will bepreparedtoplay the Steelers”— and a release announcing the team’s new plans for thisweek.
But players turned to gallows humor on Twitter as they processed the horror and absurdity of it all.
“VirtualTuesdayNightGame?” cornerback Marlon Humphrey wrote Monday morning, when the game had been postponed just twice.
“I’m on the Marshawn pre game [sic] ritual if we gotta play this game,” inside linebacker L.J. Fort added, referring to retired running back Marshawn Lynch’s recent revelation that he always drank a shot ofHennessy before taking the field.
NBC’s game crew also marveled at the weirdness.
“I’ve never gone to practice on one Tuesday for a game the next Tuesday,” play-by-play announcer Mike Tirico said, before the switch to Wednesday was reported. “We found out the game was postponed during our production meeting call with Lamar Jackson onWednesday. I drove home, had Thanksgiving dinner, went to Green Bay and called BearsPackers, and now start preparing for who knows what type of game.”
“Iwas able to spend Thanksgiving with my family for the first time in ages. That was the silver lining,” sideline reporter Michele Tafoya said. “Now, it’s just waiting to seewhen the next shoe drops— whatever that is. I don’t think I’ve ever experienced a schedule change like this one.”
The Ravens have certainly played unusual games in the past, some of them against the archrival Steelers.
In the December 2015 chapter of the rivalry, the 4-10 Ravens threwthe Steelers’ playoff hopes into doubt with a 20-17 win behind quarterback Ryan Mallett, who was filling in for an injured Joe Flacco. Mallett never won another game as an NFL starter.
In a Thanksgiving Day game in 2013 at M&T Bank Stadium, Steelers coach Mike Tomlin stepped on the field during a Jacoby Jones kickoff return, earning himself a $100,000 fine from the NFL in a game the Steelers lost, 22-20.
If you like your strangeness in the form of wild endings, there was the 2007 game in which Cleveland Browns kicker Phil Dawson knocked a 51-yard field goal off the left upright and over the crossbar, only towatch the ball strike a support post and bounce back toward the field. Game officials ruled the kick no good, and the Ravens left the field thinking they had a 30-27 win. After conferring, the officials changed their call and summoned the Ravens back to lose in overtime, 33-30.
If we’re talking bad injury luck, the Ravens endured Week 17 of that doomed 2015 season with 20 players on injured reserve, including Flacco, outside linebackerTerrell Suggs and five of the team’s sixWeek1wide receivers.
And of course, no one can forget the lights going out in the middle of Super Bowl XLVII with the Ravens up 28-6 on the San Francisco 49ers. After the 34minute power outage, they barely hung on to win by three.