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With the playoffs just around the corner, the Baltimore Ravens are viewed as Super Bowl favorites, and based on the way they have played throughout the season, it's hard to deny that.
The Ravens have won 10 in a row to improve to 12-2 on the year, and Lamar Jackson looks like the frontrunner to win the MVP award. Mark Ingram is having one of the best years of his career, and the defense has been rock solid.
What's more, Baltimore will probably end up with the No. 1 seed in the AFC, meaning it won't have to play a road playoff game.
So, who is the Ravens' biggest threat?
The AFC is not as deep as it appeared going into the year. The Los Angeles Chargers have been a massive disappointment, Ben Roethlisberger's injury torpedoed the Pittsburgh Steelers' Super Bowl aspirations and the Cleveland Browns have fallen flat on their faces. Andrew Luck's sudden retirement threw a wrench into the AFC South, as well.
That basically leaves the New England Patriots and the Kansas City Chiefs as the top candidates to take down the Ravens in January, with the Houston Texans on the outside looking in. No disrespect to Deshaun Watson and Co., but the Texans probably don't have the talent to make a deep playoff run.
While the Chiefs have flown under the radar this year due to Patrick Mahomes' midseason injury and a surprisingly inconsistent season overall, they have come on strong late, and people are finally begin to remember just who the Chiefs are.
But they are not the club Baltimore should be most worried about.
No. That title belongs to the Patriots. You know, the team that has made it to three straight Super Bowls and won two of them and has won six championships overall since 2001.
Yes. That team.
So long as Bill Belichick is still the coach and Tom Brady is under center, you can never count out New England. I don't care how shaky the Pats' offense has looked in the second half of the season. Come playoff time, the Patriots are a different animal.
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Yes, the Ravens thumped New England in Baltimore earlier this year, but again, that was the regular season.
Playoff Belichick and Playoff Brady are different breeds than their regular-season counterparts. No one is better than devising a scheme to shut down the opposing team's game plan than Belichick (just ask Sean McVay), and no one is better at picking apart a defense in crunch-time playoff moments than Brady (just ask everyone in the AFC for the last two decades).
As dominant as Jackson and the Ravens' offense have been this season, you can bet Belichick will have a plan in mind to thwart what has been an early unstoppable Baltimore offense.
The Patriots have one of the NFL's best defenses, and Belichick knows how to make an opposing offense uncomfortable.
And while Brady may be showing clear signs of his age, let's remember that he did the same thing last year before going into superstar mode in the postseason.
The Chiefs may have Mahomes, but Andy Reid has always fallen short as a playoff coach, and Kansas City's defense is difficult to trust in a big playoff game.
New England, on the other hand, checks all the boxes.
If the Ravens want to complete their dream season, they will have to run through Belichick and Brady, and that is one tall task.
