Lamar Jackson knows that NFL teams are really judged by their performance in January, not September.
Unfortunately for the Baltimore Ravens and their star quarterback, they can’t skip ahead to the playoffs immediately.
“We’ve got to win regular-season games to get to January,” Jackson said. “We can’t just start the season and finish 5-12. That won’t get us into the playoffs. So we need to focus on each game to make it to the playoffs. While the playoffs are on our minds, we need to focus on winning this game first.”
The Ravens start their season on Thursday night against Kansas City, but this game is less significant compared to their last encounter, where the Chiefs won at Baltimore and moved on to the Super Bowl.
Missing out on that chance took away some of the excitement from a strong regular season by the Ravens. Even if they win this week, they’ll still face questions about whether they can perform well when it really counts.
“We were close. We’ve got to get back to where we were and, like I always say, ‘Finish,’” Jackson said. “Week 1 — it starts Thursday night.”
Jackson made it further in the playoffs last season than ever before, but both he and his team are still waiting for a major breakthrough, which won’t happen for a few more months at least.
This could make it hard to stay motivated, but the Ravens will try to return to the form that gave them the best regular-season record in 2023.
“You can’t look too far ahead. Just focus on the present, and if you do that, good things will happen,” tight end Mark Andrews said. “If we play each day and each play the way we should, we’ll get to where we want to be by the end of the year.”
The Chiefs don’t have much left to prove after winning two Super Bowls in a row, and the Ravens can’t prove too much with just a Week 1 win.
Still, this game is highly anticipated as the NFL season opener, featuring a matchup between Lamar Jackson and Patrick Mahomes. While Baltimore isn’t focusing heavily on revenge, Derrick Henry, the Ravens’ new running back, thinks it might be a factor.
“That was who they lost to to get to the big one, so I’m sure that’s in the back of their minds,” Henry said. “I’m sure everybody is locked in and going to be ready to go.”
The last time these teams faced off in the regular season, Baltimore won 36-35 in 2021. However, the Ravens haven’t won in Kansas City since 2012.
Now they have to play there for the Chiefs’ first game since winning last season’s Super Bowl, with any celebrations Kansas City might have planned.
“I just think it’s kind of cool,” Ravens cornerback Marlon Humphrey said. “Obviously, it’s not cool for us, but it just shows who you’re playing. You’re playing the defending Super Bowl champs, and that’s a ceremony that you want to be a part of, but you want to be on the other side.”
In the AFC championship game, both teams struggled offensively. The Chiefs won 17-10, with neither team scoring a touchdown in the last 40 minutes. Both teams have made changes since then, but many of the key players are still the same.
“There’s always carry-over, absolutely,” Baltimore coach John Harbaugh said. “There’s carry-over for both teams. There’s carry-over strategically.
There’s carry-over for the individual battles that guys are going to have that are still on the team. One thing always leads to the next. One wave leads to the next wave, and these waves happen to be coming right after the other.”
