The Baltimore Ravens have no shortage of motivation heading into Saturday’s regular season finale against the Cleveland Browns. With a win, they have a chance to clinch the AFC North. However, there’s another powerful motivating factor for them: revenge.
Back in Week 8, these two teams met in Cleveland while heading in complete opposite directions. The Ravens had won five straight while the Browns had lost five straight, leading many to assume the game would be a complete blowout.
It wasn’t. In fact, the Browns pulled off a stunning 29-24 upset in front of the home crowd, giving them their second of just three wins this season. Jameis Winston tore the Ravens’ defense apart with 334 yards and three touchdowns in his first start as a Brown, though Baltimore’s defense did itself no favors with many mistakes.
For this game in front of the home crowd, the Ravens would love nothing more than to show how far they’ve come since that gut-wrenching defeat.
“That’s definitely something on the forefront of everyone’s mind, knowing that we didn’t play the way we wanted to play during that game, but I feel like we have a totally different team than we were then, so it’s about showing exactly who we are, keep building on our momentum, and we have to keep taking it to them,” linebacker Roquan Smith told reporters Wednesday. “We have to defend our turf by any means, but we know it’s not going to be an easy one.
“These guys are fighting for their livelihoods. They have jobs. They have families they have to take care of, so we know it’s not going to be anything light, but we’re preparing for whatever.”
Smith brings up a good point about the dichotomy between the two teams. The Ravens are the biggest favorites of this NFL season and have everything to play for, while the Browns have seemingly been looking to the offseason for a while now.
Despite that, Cleveland’s players still want to go out there and give it their all each and every week, and Baltimore expects nothing less.
“Personally, I don’t really look into what people say as far as, ‘Oh, we should win this,’ or ‘We should win that,'” Smith said. “If it was based on that, the game wouldn’t be played. The game is played for a reason. Those guys are in the NFL. Those guys have a family to feed, kids at home [and] wives at home, so they’re going to put it all on the line and play for an opportunity for them to have a job next season.
“That’s why I know how I’d be if I was in that type of position, and I know guys on that side of the ball that will be the same exact way. That’s what it is. [There is] nothing else about that.”
