Ravens 'Damn Close' To Challenging Chiefs For AFC Title, Analyst Says

According to Pro Football Talk's Chris Simms, the Baltimore Ravens are very close to being a threat to the defending-champion Kansas City Chiefs

The Baltimore Ravens have been among the AFC's top teams for a while now and are looking to finally break through in the playoffs. Like all contending teams in the AFC, they'll have to go through the Kansas City Chiefs to truly prove themselves. 

The Chiefs have been the class of the NFL since quarterback Patrick Mahomes took over as their starter. In the last five seasons, Kansas City has made five AFC Championship Game appearances, three Super Bowl appearances and won two Lombardi Trophies. As the Chiefs continue to dominate the league, everyone else has to figure out how to catch up to them.

The Ravens are certainly a strong team, but are they a true threat to the Chiefs? According to Chris Simms of Pro Football Talk, the answer to that question is yes.

"And to the point of what we're talking about, how close are the Ravens to being a legit threat to the Chiefs, I think they're damn close," Simms said. Like, a team that when we go through the exercise on a few months where we have to pick a Super Bowl winner in August, I'm going to go this is one of the short list teams that I think can be there, or go to the Super Bowl."

Ravens quarterback Lamar Jackson entered the league one year after Mahomes, and the two teams have had a bit of a rivalry recently. The Chiefs won the first three meetings in the Mahomes-Jackson era, but the Ravens won the latest meeting in 2021. The two teams didn't play last season and aren't scheduled to meet this season, and have yet to see each other in the playoffs in this era.

Meanwhile, the Buffalo Bills and Cincinnati Bengals have also formed rivalries with the Chiefs and have each met them twice in the postseason. Those three are widely seen as the AFC's elite, but according to Simms’ cohost Mike Florio, the Ravens are close to breaking into that tier.

"It's Bengals, Bills, Chiefs. Bengals, Bills, Chiefs. Chiefs, Bills, Bengals, whatever order you want to put them in, and everybody else," Florio said. "The Ravens are the top team out of the everybody else that could infiltrate that trio that we assume the Super Bowl team is coming from one of those three."

With how loaded the AFC is, the Ravens will have to overcome a gauntlet to get where they want to be.

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