The Ravens are 3-3. Could be better. Could be worse.
And while many fans might be unhappy with the team’s leadership on and off the field, Ravens owner Steve Bisciotti seems pretty content.
Via Jonas Shaffer of the Baltimore Sun, Ravens owner Steve Bisciotti appeared on the “Ravens Rap” show at a bar, and expressed nothing but confidence in quarterback Joe Flacco, coach John Harbaugh and General Manager Ozzie Newsome.
Bisciotti said “a bunch of people would be happy” if he “fired” a bunch of people, but that would betray his “confidence in their competence.”
“I look at them, and then I look at us as a team, and I don’t think they’re doing anything wrong,” Bisciotti said. “I think a lot of this comes down to, . . . I hate to tell you that all our planning comes down a lot to a bounce of the ball.”
Last week, it bounced off receivers hands for interceptions, which he doesn’t seem willing to pin on Flacco. He mentioned that fans were often “short-term thinkers,” and he tries to not let temporary incidents affect his plans.
“So all I can tell you is that if we had won in overtime [against Chicago], then we all would be on cloud nine,” he said. “We’d be 4-2. We’d be one of the best four teams in the AFC, and everybody would be happy. Instead, we’re in the middle of the pack, one game back.
“If we make the playoffs this year, John Harbaugh will have made the playoffs in seven of 10 years. When I fired Brian Billick, if John walked up there and said, ‘I will be in the playoffs seven of the next 10 years,’ you would’ve said, ‘Hallelujah, God bless you.’ But now because they all came at the same time, then you can say he hasn’t been to the playoffs. So if he doesn’t get to the playoffs in four of the last five years, then the immediate reaction is, ‘Off with his head.’ And yet that would still be 60 percent playoff success.”
He also compared things he’s seeing now to the 2012 Ravens, who won a Super Bowl.
“Go back in your own notes and your own criticisms — they were all the same, and somehow we won a Super Bowl. ‘Ray Lewis is done,’ ‘Ed Reed won’t tackle,’ on and on and on, and then you win a Super Bowl,” Bisciotti said. “Go back and look at every team that finally wins the Super Bowl and go back and read all the prognostications and all the criticisms through the year, and it’s the same every year. So I have a hard time saying that this is a unique year. I don’t see it that way.”
If the Ravens end up winning it all again, the criticism will abate for a moment. But if they don’t make the playoffs, that will be three years in a row, so fans who don’t take the same long view as Bisciotti will remain frustrated.