OTL: Harbs May Not Be “Overwhelmed,” But Flock is Reeling

The problem with being a Baltimore Ravens fan is that whether you are “spoiled” or not, I don’t think anyone knows how to feel today. Losing the Kansas City Chiefs is almost muscle memory at this point, part of the process, a regular pain. Losing 37-20, seeing the defense become a walking MASH unit, having Lamar Jackson leave the game with a hamstring injury that looked suspiciously like quitting on the team in even the most purple tinted glasses point of view, and seeing the team show a lack of pride as their essence got pounded into the grass at Arrowhead… yeah that’s all new.

What just happened was probably the worst loss the Ravens have taken since they got blown out in London by the Jaguars.

Harbaugh said he’s concerned about 1-3 start, but he’s not “overwhelmed by it.”

— Jeff Zrebiec (@jeffzrebiec) September 28, 2025

If it helps guys, John Harbaugh says he’s not overwhelmed. Take that how you will, but I would like to know what would overwhelm Harbaugh. Is he being stoic? Maybe. Is he trying to keep things together? Almost definitely. Let me just say you’re allowed to be overwhelmed when you lose 37-20 and your ‘Super Bowl favorite’ team is off to an abysmal 1-3 start.

Harbaugh wouldn’t comment on whether Jackson would’ve stayed in game if it was closer.

— Jeff Zrebiec (@jeffzrebiec) September 28, 2025

Jeff Zrebiec reports that Harbaugh would not comment on whether Jackson would have stayed in the game if it was in reach. You’d think that Harbaugh would want to get out in front of this one. The fact that the question is being asked, combined with the lack of an answer from Harbaugh fuel the speculation that there was something off about that hamstring injury. Has Harbaugh lost Lamar Jackson, and if so, has he lost the locker room? It’s the kind of question that has you walking on eggshells. You don’t want to question an injury, especially when the number of injuries have stacked up like pancakes at Plum Crazy. Yet that question is at the very front of your mind.

The Ravens will fall to 1-3 with 10 starters dealing with injuries:

QB Lamar Jackson
LT Ronnie Stanley
FB Patrick Ricard
DT Nnamdi Madubuike
DE Broderick Washington
NT Travis Jones
OLB Kyle Van Noy
MLB Roquan Smith
CB Nate Wiggins
CB Marlon Humphrey

— Jamison Hensley (@jamisonhensley) September 28, 2025

I’ll leave this here. The optics are the optics. No medical staff rushed to his side. The MVP quarterback looked dejected more than anything, yet I’ll move on.

Lamar Jackson injured his Hamstring, came over to the bench and threw his helmet

Looks like his day is over. pic.twitter.com/f1tvqGIFIf

— SM Highlights (@SMHighlights1) September 28, 2025

Baltimore Beatdown’s Nikhil Mehta wrote this about the Ravens hard to take loss:

It would be easy to point at the list of injured Ravens to explain Sunday’s ignominious performance. By the end of the game, Baltimore was without five of their six-highest paid players along with Wiggins, one of the few bright spots on the defense this year. However, it was clear early on that the Chiefs were the better team. Losing Jackson may have been the death knell for the game, but the Ravens were flatlining far before that.

This is a very important point. After an impressive opening drive, the Ravens fell apart. The Chiefs were scoring at will, while the Ravens kept giving them the ball back after failed drives. The Ravens offensive line was ineffective. Jackson had no time to do anything with the football. The Ravens had no answers to the blitzes they see every time they play Steve Spagnuolo and the Chiefs. The cliche of adding insult to injury needs to be reversed. The Ravens added injury to a performance that insulted their entire existence.

I’ll go back to the original statement of this article. I don’t think anyone knows how to feel. We’re all searching for the words right now if we’re not distracting ourselves from it entirely with selective amnesia. Sarah Ellison had a great post on X that puts a lot of things into context.

This is why you can’t keep saying, “We’ll get ‘em next year.”

Ravens were pretty healthy the last two seasons, and couldn’t take advantage in the playoffs.

Now injuries are mounting with 7 defensive starters injured, and 3 offensive starters, including Lamar Jackson.

You treat…

— Sarah Ellison (@sgellison) September 28, 2025

She says this moment is “Why you can’t keep saying we’ll get ‘em next year.” She highlights the injuries and the fact that the Ravens have been relatively healthy in the past two seasons to no avail. The Ravens are certainly at the point where you have to wonder if this is going to be a wasted season. It certainly has that kind of a potential. Ever since the collapse against the Bills to start the season I have been saying that the Ravens’ biggest problem was that they haven’t taken accountability for their shortcomings and they never quite change. Most seasons this catches up to Harbaugh’s team in the playoffs. It is not waiting for its vengeance this year and bad luck is coming with it because misery loves company.

Meanwhile the Pittsburgh Steelers are 3-1. They beat the Minnesota Vikings 24-21, surviving a fourth quarter scare. Joe Burrow is out for the Bengals, the Ravens were struggling and now they’re limping into Week 5. The biggest winner of the week was the Steelers as the path to a division title is certainly there for them. Cody Benjamin of CBS Sports is certainly in agreement with this statement. In his article of weekly winners and losers he has Mike Tomlin as one of the biggest winners of the week:

It’s not safe to bet against Tomlin’s Pittsburgh Steelers when they’re underdogs, and it proved true again in Ireland, where Aaron Rodgers turned in arguably his sharpest performance of the season against a Brian Flores-led Minnesota Vikings defense that just got done shredding the Cincinnati Bengals the week prior. Tomlin’s own “D” also showed up, logging 10 tackles for loss and forcing two timely turnovers of Carson Wentz. His Steelers may be more scrappy than spectacular (as usual), but it’s good enough for first place in the AFC North as we stand.

The Steelers have the same (if not worse) problems with justifying their lack of success in the playoffs as the Ravens do. Right now though, the only AFC North team thinking postseason is the Steelers. The Ravens are trying to rebound and prevent a spiral that knocks them out of playoff contention by Halloween. The Steelers added Aaron Rodgers and for the regular season at least, it’s business as usual for Pittsburgh. Tomlin has his team comfortably in first place of the division, and the Steelers are taking care of the teams they’re supposed to beat, even if it’s not pretty.

Enough beating a dead horse. It’s the worst kind of Monday. Try to make it a good week anyway.

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