The Baltimore Ravens have never been the most liked or respected team in the NFL. In fact, they have been one of the least of such ever since they came into the league in 1996.
They built a bad reputation right off the bat when their star player, middle linebacker Ray Lewis, was pleaded guilty to obstruction of justice in exchange for his testimony during an Atlanta murder trial in January, 2000. From then, the Ravens have been one of the most hated teams in football.
Even though the Ravens have won two Super Bowls since then, the disrespect continues.
The top sports outlet, ESPN, projected the Ravens to finish third in the AFC North with the same exact 8-8 record that they finished with last year. In addition to that, Mike Golic and Mike Greenberg from Mike and Mike in the morning gave their take on the 2014 Ravens.
"I can't fall in love with anything about the Ravens," Greenberg says. He picks the Ravens to end the year with a bad-looking 6-10 record. Golic didn't think too highly of them either, stating "I'm having a tough time figuring out that team," and predicting them to go a little better at 7-9.
Out of the 11 experts on NFL.com, none of them picked the Ravens to appear in a Super Bowl. The Patriots, Broncos, Packers, and Seahawks make up 21 out of the 22 teams.
CBS Sports predicts the Ravens to lose to the Cincinnati Bengals at home in week one 27-17 and Doug Farrar of SI.com is predicting Cincinnati to win the division over the Ravens.
There were a couple of experts to give the Ravens respect. SI's other analyst, Chris Burke, did indeed pick the Ravens to take the AFC North crown. Although Fox Sports didn't predict the Ravens to win the division, they picked them to grab the sixth seed and make the playoffs with a wild card.
As you can see, not much has changed since 2000 and I don't think it will any time soon.