Being a ravens fan is quite the experience.

How can I put into words what this experience is like? Simple. The past two seasons, excluding the postseason, the ravens averaged 31.3 points a game. To put that number in perspective, 31.3 P/G would be the 2nd best scoring offense in both 2019 and 2020. Yet, in the postseason, that number drops to a staggering 11.8 points / game. You don't need to be a genius to know that's awful. Now, of course, that's an extremely small sample size- just three games. But, surely its not a coincidence the ravens offense seemingly disappears in the postseason, right?

Its not.

Over the past 2 seasons, the ravens offense averaged 35 points against defenses which were below average , in terms of points allowed. In this situation, I qualify "below average" as being worse than 50% of teams. So, in other words, teams that were 17th or worse in terms of points allowed out of 32 teams. Now, obviously, 35 points per game is really good. To give that number some context, 35 points per game throughout an entire season would be tied for 4th best in NFL history. Furthermore, the average number of points scored per game on below average defenses the past two seasons was 27 PPG. With that in mind, we can safely say the ravens offense is very good when it comes to playing below average defenses. In fact, they are 30% above average, which is superb.

But how do they fare against above average defenses? Well... not great. Over the past 2 seasons, the ravens have averaged 22 PPG against above average defenses. That is not a high number at all, and for me at least was a surprise. I expected that number to be much higher. Anyways, how does 22 PPG compare to the rest of the league? Well, the average number of points scored per game against above average defenses was 20. This means the ravens offense is just 10% better than average when playing above average defenses.

You can interpret this in many different ways. Personally, I think this shows that the ravens offense isn't as dominant, or explosive as some may think. Against middling, unexceptional defenses the ravens offense is one of the best, if not the best in the league, mostly thanks to their dominant rushing attack. But against exceptional, or just average defenses, the ravens offense doesn't seem to be anything special. Now you may be saying to yourself "It's still above average, so whats your point?" And you would be right of course. But you have to remember, the majority of people would consider the ravens offense elite, top of the line, outstanding. Are elite offenses typically just average or slightly above average against good or just okay defenses? Everyone's answer will be different, but for me, thats a hard no.

In short, while its easy to say the ravens offense just chokes in the playoffs, that's not really true. Rather, as a result of playing exclusively good defense since its the playoffs, the ravens offense falls back down to earth, which is being more or less average.