Ravens Bye Week Came at Right Time

The Baltimore Ravens were among the last NFL teams to have a bye week yet again.

Nov 25, 2024; Inglewood, California, USA; Baltimore Ravens coach John Harbaugh reacts against the Los Angeles Chargers in the second half at SoFi Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Kirby Lee-Imagn Images / Kirby Lee-Imagn Images

Most NFL teams have their bye week near the middle of the season, but some have theirs either very early or very late, and the Baltimore Ravens fell into the latter category for the second straight year.

After 13 straight weeks of game action, last week marked a much-needed reprieve for Baltimore. Many probably wouldn't like having such a late bye, but for the Ravens specifically, it came at just the right time.

"I'm happy with where it's at," head coach John Harbaugh said Monday. "It's like any circumstance – you take it as you find it, but I can find a lot of positives in it being this past week. It felt like it was at the right time. I think it's an opportunity for us to kind of just heal up, freshen up, and continue to get stronger.

"We want to play our best football right now – that's what we're really focusing on doing. Everything else is just a sideshow; everything else is just a distraction. None of it is important. What's important is our football. The football. Getting the football right, playing our best football that we're capable of playing, everybody locked in for that – that's really what it's all about. Nothing else matters; everything else is just static."

The Ravens had some notable injuries coming into the bye week, and already look healthier coming out of it. Nose tackle Michael Pierce practiced in full Monday as he works his way back from injured reserve, as did defensive tackle Travis Jones, who played through an ankle injury for weeks.

Additionally, the Ravens need all the rest they can get ahead of a grueling stretch. They play three games in a 10-dayspan from Sunday to Christmas Day, so having a chance to rest up and reflect just before is very helpful.

"The players – they focus on the rest. The coaches – they get to work on all of these things, and it's very comprehensive," Harbaugh said. "Everything that has to do with the next four weeks and past that is what we're looking at, in terms of finding ways to make plays, score points [and] get stops. All of the different things we can do to keep people off-balanced, create problems for our opponents, put our players in the position to make plays – those are the things that we're trying to find [and] turn over every stone along those lines and see what we can come up with, and that's what we did."

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