As we get into late August and finish up the final week of preseason, the excitement begins to mount.
Even living in what would be described as “Eagles Country” I still find myself Bleeding Purple! Now my
doctor said it’s because of an unhealthy amount of lead in my system, but I know it’s because September 10th is quickly approaching and once again Baltimore will be raving about a new football season! (See what I did there? Raving. Ravens!)


  Now before you roll your eyes and think.. “Here we go, another one of these people living in South
Jersey cheering against the Eagles because it’s the cool thing to do.” That is not the case. I was born and raised in Baltimore. I suffered the no NFL team drought. I had season tickets for the CFL Colts (Later the Stallions once Indy learned there was such thing as a Canadian Football League and sued us over our name.) I love the fact we were better than all the Canadian teams and kept winning their Grey Cup so they threw us out of the league. (Haters Gonna hate)


  What makes this year different? Why should there be a new electricity in the air instead of the stale
lingering taste of ‘Same old Ravens”? That is an excellent and fair question. The definition of insanity is to do things exactly the same way multiple times yet expecting different results. The embodiment of that theory was none other than Greg Roman. 3rd and long? Let’s do a 3 yard check down pass. Every damn time… So first and foremost, the addition of O.C. Todd Monken should bring a new and fresh approach to cutting Lamar loose to utilize his new weapons. And what weapons they are. The Number 3 jersey is already hanging in my closet. Odell Beckham potentially is an absolute game changer. The big question is, which OBJ do we get week in and week out? Do we get the selfish, short-tempered, locker- room distraction OBJ? Do we get the humble team player OBJ that was an crucial part of the Rams Superbowl season?

 

  Only time will tell. They also have veteran WR Nelson Agholor. (See… going to try and come back full circle for the Eagles fans.) While some say his best years are behind him, which may be true. He still acts as a target for Lamar and a veteran locker room presence. Plus we drafted an absolute rocket and route runner in Zay Flowers and you can’t forget old’ reliable, top 5 TE Mark Andrews. Plus, if shit goes really bad, we still have the best kicker in NFL history.


  I think we can take a lot away from the pre-season games. Yes we went 1-2 which is unfamiliar territory for the Ravens. I was going to make a Brock Lesnar comparison of the Commanders being the “1” in the Ravens 24-1 pre-season streak, but after losing to Tampa honestly 24-2 don’t really have the same impact! Some teams like the Chiefs, Bears, Steelers, Jets and a few others that fielded their entire week 1 starting roster at some point in the past 3-4 weeks, I feel like they can make a few better observations and take aways from pre-season. The Ravens however didn’t, so other than a few possible position battles we really didn’t learn anything about what the new Ravens will look like come week 1. I do think we can get excited about the overall variation in how the offensive plays were called and the offense was executed. Night and day from the previous coordinator. What we saw of Flowers and Melvin Gordon looked very promising, and of course, Tucker doing Tucker things.


Science was never my favorite subject but one of the concepts I always loved was Potential vs. Kinetic energy. In short if you have a ball at the top of a hill, just sitting there. That’s potential energy. Once that ball is pushed it has the potential to do so much stuff. It can roll fast, left, right, it can cause damage or chaos, it can roll safely to a stop with no damage. It has the potential to do all of those things, but we don’t know what it will do until we give it a push. Once the ball starts rolling in actuality, everything it does is now kinetic energy. The mystery of potential is erased and now we see what it’s actually doing with the opportunity. Right now, there are 32 balls sitting at the top of the hill. The Ravens being one of them. So much promise, so much possibility, so much… Potential. It’s not until the weekend of September the 7th all the way through Sunday Feb. 11th that we truly see what results and kinetic energy that converts into. Remember this. At the end of the season only 1 team hoists that Lombardi. 31 other teams walk away in some form or fashion with disappointment and looking forward to the potential of the following season.


So let me what you guys think? Any Ravens fans? Or fans of any team really. What are your predictions for the season. Who will be the busts? Who will be the breakouts? The next article will be after the season opener against the Texans and I will have a breakdown of that game and also my win-loss prediction for the season game by game, opponent by opponent. I’m open to all feedback as well as reasonable and respectful discussion about pretty much anything. Thanks for taking the time to read this. Until next time…. Keehner Out!