Back in 2019, at the end of a long table, cornered at a Kansas City hotel restaurant awaiting the Chiefs game, I watched a bartender flick on the Baltimore Ravens-Tennessee Titans wild-card matchup and announce, to no one in particular, that Baltimore was going to lose because “they just hadn’t been punched in the mouth yet.”
This seemed like a patently ridiculous observation (so much so that I’m sure I tweeted it). At the time, Baltimore was 14–2. The Ravens had the best offense in the NFL and the third-best defense. Lamar Jackson was en route to an MVP season. The Ravens were scoring on more than half of their drives, a stunning 3% better than the next-best Chiefs.
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And, yet, in one of the great moments in uninformed, out-loud pondering history, the bartender was right (we all deserve to feel that way once in our lives). The Ravens lost. An exhausted Jackson was forced into a Jerome Bettis–like 20 carries. The quarterback was sacked four times and dropped back 36 total times. The Titans won by 16 points, shutting the Ravens out in two of the four quarters.