The Ravens are now 0-3 for the first time in the franchise's history. A sad mark for a franchise that is pretty regularly in contention for the playoffs and even Super Bowl favorites. The Ravens fall to 0-3 after another terrible defensive performance have them slip. Yet, the loss to the Bengals and the slide into 0-3 for the first time in the franchise's history is not the worst of it.
The Ravens missed a great opportunity today to put themselves one up in the division with a win against the Bengals. Setting them up to head into Pittsburgh on a short week after quarterback Ben Roethlisberger was carted off the field on Sunday with a knee injury that looks fairly serious against the Rams. The best chance that the Ravens will have to go up on the Steelers in their own turf will be on Thursday with Ben likely out of the game.
What that would have meant is that the Ravens could have bounced back to 2-2 in the division with a win against the Steelers and have 2 games up on their toughest division rivals. Meanwhile the Bengals face off against the Kansas City Chiefs in a tough matchup that could have seen them go 2-2 along with the rest of the AFC North. The Ravens would have gone from last place in the North to first place by way of division tiebreakers and the season would still be wide open for the Ravens to take the lead and keep it as a playoff contender.
Sadly for the secondary, the Ravens and us as fans, the Ravens let the perfect opportunity slip by them in a season that has such a small statistical chance of turning around that you have to start counting what is behind the decimal point.