Pundit Includes Ravens Among Teams Facing Most Pressure in 2025

Success breeds high expectations, and with high expectations comes pressure.

The Ravens have been perennial Super Bowl contenders during the Lamar Jackson era, but they have yet to get over the hump. For that reason, NFL.com’s Tom Blair included them on his list of teams facing the most pressure this season.

Blair ranked the 11 teams, and the Ravens and Buffalo Bills were tied for third.

“For both of these teams, life is about as good as it gets in the NFL,” Blair wrote. “They have it all: superstar QBs in their primes, mostly rock-solid rosters, head coaches who generally know how to pull everything together. Franchises can go decades without checking off even one of those boxes, but Baltimore and Buffalo are set up to contend more or less indefinitely, or at least for as long as Lamar Jackson and Josh Allen are front-running the MVP race. So in one sense, they are pressure-proof, among the extremely small group of clubs that could reasonably be penciled into the 2030 playoff picture.

“Then again, the same thing can be said of Patrick Mahomes and the Chiefs – which is exactly why the Ravens and Bills are listed here. Because Mahomes has become the undisputed ruler of the AFC, and the longer Jackson and Allen go without supplanting him in the postseason, the more realistic it becomes, even if only incrementally, that their tenures will end without a title.”

The Chiefs have represented the AFC in the Super Bowl five of the past six seasons and the last three in a row.

“But as Baltimore and Buffalo both saw, the Chiefs did look pretty human for much of last season (except for, well … you know), and Jackson and/or Allen can prevail over Mahomes in any given January,” Blair wrote. “Finally pulling it off this postseason would be monumental for the legacy of either player and franchise.”

The Ravens are fully aware of the high expectations, and several players have said this offseason that they’re using past playoff disappointments as fuel for this season.

The two teams ahead of the Ravens and Bills on Blair’s list reside in the AFC North: the Pittsburgh Steelers and Cincinnati Bengals.