January 12, 2013, Denver, and I was already writing the Ravens off in my head. Down seven with half a minute left, no timeouts, seventy yards from the end zone. Then Joe Flacco heaved it deep and Jacoby Jones got behind everyone for a seventy-yard touchdown to force overtime. The Mile High Miracle. Baltimore won it in the second extra period and rode that escape all the way to a Super Bowl. Some teams find a gear in January that they never show you in the fall.

A franchise built for the cold months

The Ravens do not waste their good teams. Their first deep run ended in a title, the 2000 season, a defense for the ages dragging them through January and winning it all. The 2012 run was the Flacco miracle and a second trophy. In between and since, Baltimore has been a regular January threat, the kind of team nobody wants to draw on the road in the divisional round.

The Lamar wall

Lately the problem has been the last step. With Lamar Jackson under center the Ravens keep arriving in January as a contender and keep running into a ceiling, a brutal AFC Championship loss to Kansas City after the 2023 season and a divisional exit against my own Bills the year after. The talent gets them there. The final game keeps getting away.

Two trophies, a signature miracle, and a current core still hunting the breakthrough. Ravens fans, your franchise wins the games most teams lose and then loses the ones it should win, which is a strange place to live. But you have the rings to prove the run is real. I would take that trade and the heartburn that comes with it.