How many excuses will be made for the Ravens defense this week?

For two games in a row now, the Baltimore Ravens have a defense that has not lived up to its rankings. Against the New England Patriots, the defense allowed 496 yards and 28 points.

As it relates to the Patriots loss, we were told that the Ravens offense kept the Ravens defense on the field too long by not sustaining drives. Well, that’s a nice explanation, but how about the Ravens defense live up to its number one ranking at the time and get off the field themselves?

People can talk about how the Ravens were gifted good field positions against the Patriots that resulted in 14 points. I don’t care about that. The Ravens offense capitalized on two Patriots turnovers on special teams and did what it was supposed to do by turning those opportunities into points.

When the Ravens offense cut the lead to 23-20, the Ravens defense quickly allowed a touchdown to the Patriots to make the score 30-20 late in the fourth quarter. But instead of talking about that, I mostly heard people during the week complaining about how the Ravens offense lacked a sense urgency (which it did) but let’s be real people. The game was over when the Patriots scored 30 and the Ravens defense showed no signs late in that game that it could get off the field. I expected more from a defense that was ranked number one in the NFL.

As it relates to the Philadelphia Eagles, the Ravens offense had a good game scoring 27 points and yes two bad turnovers by Joe Flacco (int in Eagles red zone and a fumble in the Ravens own red zone) resulted to 11 points for the Eagles. But the Ravens offense at the end of the day scored 27 points in 23 minutes that’s actually pretty good.

The Ravens defense on the other hand was horrible in terms of stopping the run by allowing 169 rushing yards to the Eagles. The Ravens defense allowed the Eagles offense to convert 44 percent of its third downs (8/18) and 26 points. If not for idiotic coaching by the Philadelphia Eagles, the game most likely would have been sent to overtime by just settling for an extra point with four seconds left in the game.

The Ravens defense has allowed 54 points in two weeks but all I hear about is how Flacco and the Ravens offense are to blame for the recent struggles. Last time I checked, the Ravens had the number one ranked defense for a good portion of the season. How about holding the Ravens defense responsible for some of these struggles for once?

I don’t understand people. Ravens fans these days will criticize Flacco (Yes a lot of the criticism is warranted) but if you know Flacco is limited and if you know the Ravens offense as a whole is very limited, why do fans continue to hold offense to expectations that it cannot reach?

If you know the Ravens defense is the strongest unit on the team, doesn’t it make more sense to have a higher standard for them to perform? But no, people continue to give the Ravens defense a pass. In the end, was the offense supposed to score 40 points in the last two games to make some of you satisfied while this defense collapses late in the fourth quarter?