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With preseason game #2 in the books, there must be Ravens fans out their feeling gloomy. I , for one, am not one of them. The Ravens suffered a crushing defeat at the hands of the Eagles, the first team offense never got going, and as a whole the team just did not look good. But I am surprisingly happy about the outcome and how it happened.
Lets take a look at why:
#1- Health
Health is an unpredictable thing, and you never know when an injury is going to strike nor how bad it is going to be. So to make it out of our second preseason game with only few minor injuries is great.
#2- Tempered Expectations
Honestly, the Ravens were getting too much preseason love. Peter King, ESPN, and Teddy Bruschi are just some of the many pumping up the Ravens in the past few months. Bill Barnwell just wrote an article about how they are the favorites to win the North. There is nothing good that can come from higher expectations. We know the Ravens are a good team, but they seem to prefer sneaking up on people.
#3- Working out the kinks
If you dominate all four preseason games, it does not give you much to work on. And at some point during the season a team is going to solve you and take it to you. Better to have those flaws exposed early, and let your coaches have two more preseason games to fix those flaws and go up from there.
#4- Penalties Galore
The Ravens always seem to have one of these games. Maybe they got it out of the way now.
These are among the reasons I am actually happy with the result. It may look embarrassing, but I think it is for the best. Not having Kelechi Osemele, John Urschel, and Rick Wagner, plus Monroe and Hurst getting banged up definitely contributed to the lackluster performance from the first team offense, but Joe has got to limit the turnovers.