Baltimore Ravens aim for a bye in first round of playoff season – NFL News
The Baltimore Ravens seem well set on the course to claim a bye in the first round of the playoff this season without actually playing a game in the first phase.
The Ravens had slipped down from their archrivals the Pittsburgh Steelers in the American Football Conference (AFC) with a score of 10-4 in the National Football League (NFL) last week.
The side however was lucky again to have survived another chance with Steelers loss to San Francisco 49ers on past Monday night. This has again tied the score at 10-4 between the two sides atop the AFC north.
The Ravens have the tie breaker advantage again for having beaten the Steelers twice earlier in the regular season.
They now only need to record wins in their next two games, against the Cleveland Browns and Cincinnati Bengals.
The possible wins in these two games will give the Ravens an opportunity to claim the division title. Moreover, they will have a bye in the first round of the playoff, going straight into second phase without playing a single game.
It was this reason that the Ravens celebrated the loss of their rivals Pittsburgh Steelers as a gift from Jim Harbaugh, who is a brother of Baltimore Ravens coach John Harbaugh. Jim is the head coach at the San Francisco 49ers
and their win was a big relief for his brother’s side (Ravens) to compensate their bitter loss against the San Diego Chargers a week earlier.
"(John) was coming in and saying, 'Hey, did you see that game last night? Who won? Who won?' We were like, 'OK, we all know who won the game. We know you're way more excited now than you were two days ago,'" quarterback Joe Flacco
said. "He didn't know where to go with it once I told him I didn't watch the game. He was a little confused, but you could definitely tell that he was excited. We should be excited. We're obviously in a better position because of what happened (Monday) night."
Following Steelers loss and shift of tiebreaker advantage back to them, the Baltimore Ravens are now in control of their hopes for the AFC north title. They however will be looking to do a workout on their weakness of losing against
comparatively smaller oppositions.
Despite being consistent in their wins against good opposition throughout the seasons the Ravens went down against smaller opponents such as Seattle Seahawks.
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