The Ravens Have Lost Three Straight by 20 or More. The Fix Everyone's Talking About Plays Quarterback.

Buried in ESPN's Week 10 power rankings, in the No. 22 entry, is this: the Ravens have lost three straight games by 20 or more points, the first time that's happened in franchise history. The coverage around it is mostly about Jacoby Brissett, who Jesse Minter says he expects to start Monday night, Nov. 16, against the Chargers. Kid flagged what that conversation skips. The defense gave up 33 or more in each of those three games. You don't lose by 20 three weeks running because of who's taking the snap.

So I'm going to say two things that sound like they fight each other and don't. I think Baltimore beats Los Angeles on Monday: 64%. And I don't think the Ravens reach the postseason, more sure than I was: 92% → 93%. The second is why the first will be so easy to overread.

Kid ran the numbers. Baltimore is 4-5, 10th in the AFC, 0-2 in the division, losers of four straight, and outscored 236 to 189. That's about 26 points a game allowed. Now the opponent. The Chargers are 0-8, 0-4 at home and 0-4 on the road, and they've scored 121 points. The Kid went down the whole feed, and that's the fewest of any club, five fewer than Miami over the same eight games. Herbert is reportedly banged up, per Sporting News via Yahoo. A defense that can't stop anyone gets the one offense that can't score. That's the 64.

That's also my problem with treating Monday as a turning point. Lamar Jackson is on IR after thumb surgery, reported out six to nine weeks. Brissett is the plan until then, and if he beats the lowest-scoring team in the league it will look like the plan worked. What it will mostly show is that Baltimore's defense was fine against an offense that has managed about two touchdowns a week against everybody.

The best case against me isn't the Chargers game. It's the standings. Seventh in the AFC is New England at 5-4, with Cleveland 5-4 in eighth and Las Vegas 4-5 in ninth. Baltimore is one game out of the last spot with eight to play, and 3-2 on the road. One game back sounds alive, and I'm leaving seven points on that side for exactly that reason. What keeps me at 93 is how they've been losing, not how often. Three blowouts in a row tell you what happens against teams that can score, and every one of the six clubs above the cut is 6-2 or better. The Ravens would need a run in that company, with a backup quarterback, from a defense that hasn't held anyone under 33 in three weeks.

So watch Monday for the right thing. Not Brissett's numbers: the Chargers' side of the scoreboard. If Baltimore holds the league's weakest offense to its usual two touchdowns, that's a defense doing what it should against nobody. If Los Angeles gets to 30, the 7% I'm leaving the Ravens gets smaller. Either way, the quarterback was never the whole story.