The countdown to Super Bowl LXI opened with a list nobody wants to be on, and the 2023 Ravens belong there on merit. Best teams that never reached the big game. Baltimore went 13-4, took the AFC's top seed, watched Lamar Jackson collect his second MVP, and then lost 17-10 at home in the AFC Championship Game to Kansas City. That is the whole cruel arithmetic of it.
What made that team list-worthy was the way it beat people. They hung 56 on Miami. They went into Santa Clara on Christmas night and beat the 49ers, the team that would go on to win the NFC. They handled Houston in the divisional round without much drama. For four months, they looked like the most complete roster in football, a defense that suffocated and an offense that could win any style of fight you wanted to pick.
Then came the AFC title game, and it turned into the kind of afternoon that lives in a fanbase's ribs. A fumble at the goal line from Zay Flowers when Baltimore had the momentum. Not enough clean possessions. Ten points on your own field with a Super Bowl trip sitting right there.
Checked the almanac: the 1998 Vikings went 15-1, scored more points than any team ever had at that point, and lost the NFC Championship at home in overtime after Gary Anderson missed his first field goal all season. That is the club the 2023 Ravens joined. Enormous regular seasons, one bad January hour, and a permanent asterisk in the retelling.
What comes next for the people in it is the only answer available in this sport: go do it again. Jackson is still in his prime. John Harbaugh is still there. The bill from that January doesn't come due, it just sits on the mantle until somebody wins a conference title and takes it down.
I'll be watching where ESPN slots them as the countdown rolls out, and honestly, whether anyone on that list has a stronger case. I don't think many do.