Ravens Still Hurting Themselves in Crucial Area

The Baltimore Ravens can't seem to get out of their own way.

Sep 15, 2024; Baltimore, Maryland, USA; Baltimore Ravens head coach John Harbaugh speaks with an official during the first half against the Las Vegas Raiders at M&T Bank Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Tommy Gilligan-Imagn Images / Tommy Gilligan-Imagn Images

The Baltimore Ravens have seen more laundry on the field this season than any team wants to.

Through three weeks (excluding the two Monday Night Football games), Baltimore leads the league with 31 penalties for a total of 278 yards lost. Sunday's game against the Dallas Cowboys was particularly bad, as the Ravens had 13 penalties for 105 yards. Some of those calls were questionable at best, but regardless of the cause, the penalties are simply killing this team.

No need to tell head coach John Harbaugh that, as he's already well aware that the penalties need to stop.

"There are some head-scratchers, but there's also some ones that are legit, and when you have the number [of penalties] that we have right now, it's too many," Harbaugh told reporters Monday. "That's just something that has to get cleaned up. That ones that maybe shouldn't be called, we can't do anything about those. But the ones that should be called, we have to clean those up. That's on us, it's our responsibility to do it. It's hurting us. It's costing us points in the end."

As mentioned previously, some of the calls on Sunday were controversial to say the least. Chief among those calls was a roughing the passer on Odafe Oweh late in the fourth quarter, which gave Dallas a critical first down on its final touchdown drive. Cowboys quarterback Dak Prescott also avoided an intentional grounding penalty in the end zone, which could've been a safety for the Ravens.

If the Ravens can get an explanation from the league about what they did wrong on those plays and others, it could help them avoid such mistakes in the future.

"I'm not allowed to comment on that, but like I always say, the best thing I can say is, 'The things that we can see are wrong, we'll coach our guys on,'" Harbaugh said. "The things that we can say that we can't see that are wrong, we'll ask the league about. If they confirm that it wasn't a wrong play by the guy, then we'll let them know. That's all that we can really do."

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