It's time for a reality check for the fans of Baltimore - one that doesn't include a stop on the Tila Tequila late night circuit. 

The Ravens made the AFC Championship game last year, lost to the Steelers -- the Super Bowl Champions -- three times by a combined 16 points, and have 18 of 22 starters back for the upcoming regular season...which is now just four and a half days away. 

All of the talk in and around the Land of Pleasant Living is stained with purple Kool-Aid; talk of being serious contenders; talk of an improved offense and a defense, though missing a few key cogs, looking in tip-top shape through the preseason.  There is email banter about how we should have accepted the league's "invitation" to play the opening night game under the bright lights of Frank's Hot Sauce (aka. Heniz) Field in Pittsburgh on Thursday night - and how such a game would set an immediate tone for what is supposedly shaping up to be a run deep into January. 

There must be questions, right?  There must be glaring weaknesses that continually prevent the Ravens from being mentioned in the same conversation as Pittsburgh, Green Bay, Minnesota, New England, and Indianapolis.  Yes, there is always bias in favor of anything Favreian and the big market teams (Giants, Jets, Bears, and Cowboys), but how can the Ravens, the team of a consistently dominant defense and a vastly improved offense, not be included when it comes to serious post-season discussion?  The answer, dear friends, is difficult to swallow for several reasons. 

First of all, it's difficult to swallow simply because we've looked ridiculously good in the preseason.  Our first team defense has pummeled first team offenses and our first team offense has, at times, carved up and run over first team defenses.  But as any 2008 Detroit Lion or Indianapolis Colt will attest, preseason outcomes don't mean squat. 

It's difficult to swallow because we haven't regressed or gotten worse any particular facet of our team:

Quarterback
All reporters and scouts --  both locally and nationally -- are praising Joe Flacco.  From having another year of experience under his belt, to his command of the offense and the confidence he exudes on the field, all signs are pointing to a bigger year than his 2008 campaign (2,971 yards, 14 TD's).  When you factor in a healthy Derrick Mason and a healthy Todd Heap, combined with a formidable offensive line, all of a sudden 3,500 yards and 20 TD's are not out of the question.  Assuming the line and his primary targets remain healthy, at the very least he shouldn't regress. 

Running back
What's not to like here?  Le'Ron McClain was a stopgag solution last year -- for crying out loud we discovered him by default (!!!) -- and he gained 902 yards and scored 10 TD's.  Now he's our third option.  Willis McGahee, ye who was almost run out of town last preseason for showing up out of shape and carrying with him a mysterious/shady knee ailment, now has a younger running back breathing down his neck like white on Rice (literally).  It's resulted in McGahee looking like the back the Ravens thought they got two years ago when he was considered one of the AFC's elite runners.  And we haven't even gotten to Ray Rice.  Go look up the scouting reports on/in almost every respected web site or sports publication, and there is a sidebar on how and why Ray Rice is going to have a breakout year.  Sports Illustrated with its "Spotlight" blurb...espn.com with its "Fantasy Stars" blurb...and now Baltimoreregister.com with "Delaney's going to agree with the experts" blurb - Ray Rice is poised for a big year.  The kid was known at Rutgers for running between the tackles, but with his size and his ability to be shifty catching passes out of the backfield, he adds a dimension to the offense that is extremely difficult to guard against.  Oh, and throw in the freak of nature that is Michael Oher and Smarty Jones (aka. Harvard graduate) Matt Birk, and the Ravens have a beast of an offensive line to block for the three-headed monster coming out of the back field.  Final determination: running backs will improve! 

Wide receiver
This is perhaps the most ballyhooed position coming into (and out of) training camp.  "We need a playmaker," bemoaned the morons of Baltimore.  "Anquan Boldin or Brandon Marshall at any cost," demanded the transplanted Miamians.  Guess what, Anita Marks?  You've got a one-year contract that is up after Ravens season; and you have no vested interest in this city or OUR football team after you take your scraggly butt back to Miami to look for a better radio gig, so of course you want the Ravens to sacrifice their long-term outlook for the tedious prospects of short-term success: it makes for better radio conversations.  The problem here is this: surprising teams -- teams like the 2008 Cardinals, 2007 Giants, and 2000 Ravens -- are a dime a dozen these days.  Parity reigns supreme in the NFL, at least when it comes to the playoffs.  No one can predict who is going to shock the world in 2009.  And the Ravens getting one good receiver is not going to guarantee a ring; so I'm willing to take my chances with the receiving corps we have, plus Kelley Washington, plus possibly David Tyree (at the time of this post he was set to take a physical but was still unsigned), and combine that with: a good defense, an improved quarterback, and a better offensive line, and I'll take my chances.  I'm willing to admit our receivers aren't notedly better, but we're not notedly worse, either.  It's a push. 

I'm not going into our offensive line here (or our tight ends, for that matter), because I think everyone will agree that we haven't regressed in either area.  On the O-line we are young, we are versatile (Oher played left tackle in college and we found a servieable back-up with the Derrick Martin trade for lineman Tony Moll), and we are huge - Jared Gaither and Oher comine to measure over 13 feet and weigh close to 650 pounds.  With our tight ends, if Heap can stay healthy, there's no question that he will rebound on his 2008 statistics.  Often times being held back as a blocker to protect the rookie quarterback, Heap will once again prove to be a valuable offensive weapon - provided he can stay healthy (and to his credit, many of his injuries are a result of him stretching to catch a pass over the middle or jumping between defenders in traffic). 

In the interest of time, and probably your attention span, we'll take the entire defense as one category and then move on to the controversial nonsense...

Defense
Rex Ryan is gone.  Boo hoo.  A few weeks ago, he was laughing about and applauding the fact that a few of his players were getting into fist fights during practice.  Yeah, that's a great sign of things to come.  I'm of the opinion that the Ravens -- offensive or defensive players -- were always at their worst when they were undisciplined.  Whether it's missing a key block, a block in the back, unecessary roughness -- or, in new Jets linebacker Bart Scott's defining moment, throwing a referee's flag into the crowd at a pivotal moment on national television -- I'm a firm believer that a team must have discipline to be successful.  Look no further than polar opposites New England and Oakland for proof on that theory.  In other words, good riddance, "Mad 'Backer," let me know how Jamie Sharper and Ed Hartwell are doing these days.  Who knows, maybe you can sell them some hot sauce.  

Jim Leonard also left - but with Dawan Landry coming back (and lest you forget that he was more than capable two years ago), that doesn't concern me.  The cornerback situation makes me a little anxious because they gave Dominique Foxworth starter's money when he didn't start the majority of games in any season until last year, and while Chris Carr adds a lot of depth to that position, I feel like we don't really have one true "starter" at cornerback.  (Yes, Fabian Washington was a first round pick, but he needs to show more consistency in my book.  He can prove his worth, and I honestly think he will this year - but as of right now, his track record is too spotty to consider him a great corner.) So, in the end, we have depth at corner, but nobody who is "shut-down"-worthy. 

The defensive line and linebackers hardly need mention here.  With Haloti Ngata, who is probably THE best player in the NFL never to have started a Pro Bowl (which is crazy, considering he's only entering his fourth season), and an insane amount of depth at linebacker (SO insane, in fact, that we had 27 other teams' scouts at the Ravens' preseason games - feasting on the potential cuts), I'm going to go out on a limb and specifically refute Bart Scott's jab at head coach John Harbaugh.  Scott claimed that Rex Ryan was the real head coach of the Ravens last year; when in fact, apart from installing a game plan and calling the plays, Ryan (and every other defensive coordinator we've had) will always play second fiddle to the real head coach of the Baltimore defense -- Ray Lewis.  Not to go on a tangent here (I could write an entire column about this), but there's a reason that the Ravens defense has groomed defensive coordinators and sent them onto bigger and better coaching jobs around the NFL during Ray Lewis' tenure as the defensive band leader: Marvin Lewis, Rex Ryan, Mike Nolan to name a few.  There is one person that the defensive players answer to - and that person has anchored the defense since 1996.  Ray Lewis has been, is, and always will be until he retires, the field general of that defense.  Defensive players play beyond their potential because of him.  They'd rather answer to a coach on the sidelines after a mistake than to have to look Ray in the eyes in the defensive huddle answer to his passion. 

Now: The ugly
As positive as we've been up to this point, and as fired up as I was today at work reading about and anticipating the start of the upcoming season, it causes me great grief and reflection to see that the (love 'em or hate 'em) foremost NFL writers of the country today (Peter King as the main culprit) have predicted the Ravens to finish no better than 9-7 and barely make the playoffs as a wild card. 

One only needs to look at our schedule to figure out why.  A quick glance and assumption at what THEY thought as they went through Baltimore's schedule (key word: THEY, this is not my thought on the season):

KC - win
@ San Diego - loss
CLE - win
@ New England - loss
CIN - win
@ MINN - loss
Bye
DEN - win
@ CIN - win
@ CLE - win
IND - loss
PITTS - loss
@ Green Bay - loss
DET - win
CHI - win
@ PITTS - loss
@ OAK - win

That's not unfathomable, honestly.  You could trade a home Pittsburgh win and a Chicago loss, but that's pretty much what the "experts" would say.

Do I think that's how it will play out?  No way.  Our defense is too good; Flacco too improved; our offensive line too overpowering; our running game too versatile - we have the tools to gring out and wear down opponents.  And we have the game plan to finesse and trick our opponents into quick scores.  Unpredictability will serve us well.   

However, think of this:  Last year we had the wonderful element of surprise.  NOBODY thought we would be as good as we were.  Nobody thought that Le'Ron McClain would preserve key wins by pounding opponents into submission in the waning minutes of the fourth quarter.  We owned time of possession last year.  We were huge underdogs in the 2008 opener against Cincinatti for God's sake! 

Everything is reversed this year - as The Sun wrote earlier this week.  Coming off of a 5-11 season, the Ravens played the fourth-best teams in the divisions they were scheduled to play (apart from their own).  This year, we'll be playing the second-best teams, and our schedule is brutal for a November-December stretch: Indy, Pittsburgh, at Green Bay, Detroit, and Chicago.  Granted, four of those five are at home, but Indy has given us fits in recent years; at last glance we were 0-3 in our last three games against the Steelers; and Chicago is much improved with Jay Cutler.  Let's hope that we're healthy. 

When it's all said and done, though - there's nothing but optimism heading into Sunday.   (Push sarcasm button.......now).  The painstaking research that has been poured into this article has proven that the Ravens are an improved team in many areas - tangible and intangible.  The schedule is what it is: formidable - and our defense is what it is: dominant.  History has shown that you don't bet against Ray Lewis.  History has also shown that the last time the Ravens went undefeated in the preason was 2000, and I'm pretty sure something special happened that year. 

It's no coincidence that my daughter ran around the house on Labor Day with a Flacco bobble head going, "Wacc-o.  Wacc-o.  Wacc-o."  The season is finally here.  Start mixing the Kool-Aid.