🏈 The Weekly Blitz: Second, third, and hundredth chances

The GIST: The Baltimore Ravens are *checks notes* dead last in the AFC North. And their most-recent outing wasn’t just a disaster: It was a historic one. Don’t let their respectable 4-3 record fool you — these perennial playoff contenders are down bad.

• 🚨 The Ravens’ forecast: Storm warning

⛈️ Making the wrong kind of history: The first half of the Ravens’ Week 7 divisional game against the Cincinnati Bengals was going according to plan after Baltimore opened up a 13–0 lead — but the second half was a completely different story, resulting in a 35–13 Ravens loss.

• That’s right, the Bengals put up 35 unanswered points in the second half, making the Ravens just the third team in NFL history (and the first since 1950) to lose a game by 20 or more points after leading by at least 13. Not great.

⛈️ We’ve seen this film before: That loss marked the Ravens’ 18th blown double-digit lead since 2018, more than double the league average over the same span. Baltimore faithful were hoping the team would leave that dismal trend in the dust when they fired former head coach John Harbaugh this offseason, but the curse has endured.

• Under new bench boss Jesse Minter, the Ravens boast the league’s best point differential in the first half (an impressive +65), but their second half disparity is -70, the worst mark in the NFL. Numbers don’t lie.

⛈️ But they have so many superstars?: Running back Derrick Henry hasn’t been his royal self, rushing for only 103 yards combined over his last two games. Some reprieve could be coming with superstar QB Lamar Jackson expected to return in Week 8, but even the two-time MVP can’t fix that second-half swiss cheese defense.

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• Just ask our Week 3 winner, John, who quipped "I guess not thinking too hard as a strategy worked!" Enough said.

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