We all know many who are unsuccessful despite an abundance of talent.  We call them lazy or we say they lack focus or ambition.  We call them underachievers.  Last week Steve Bisciotti said that in 2005 Brian Billick and the Ravens underachieved.  But is that a description that really fits the Ravens?  Are they talented enough to be labeled underachievers and can they perform better with greater persistence and determination?

Ever think that maybe they just aren’t that good?

Most that are close to the team expected the Ravens to be a shoe-in for the post season in 2005 and certainly finishing no worse than a 10-6 record.  Even the often critical columnist of The Sun Mike Preston stated during the preseason that the Ravens were loaded. 

What happened?

Many observers who are removed from the team and are perhaps more objective in their opinions about the Ravens, expected the Ravens to be a third place team in the AFC North.  Did we all fall for the hype?  Did we believe Ray Lewis when he said he would be the NFL’s MVP?  Didn’t we believe that Jamal Lewis would hit the field with a vengeance and determination never before seen from No. 31 – that he had something to prove after his incarceration and during a contract year? 

When Brian Billick said that this version of the Ravens was his most talented to date, didn’t you take another leap of faith?  What about when Jim Fassel was named the offensive coordinator and he proclaimed that Kyle Boller was ready to take it to the next level – did you buy in?

Don’t worry, you weren’t alone.

But if the Ravens played hard in 2005 as Brian Billick suggests and they were as talented as he says, why the abysmal failure?  Some might say it had to do with injuries but look around the league at the playoff participants.  All teams had their fair or unfair share of injuries, didn’t they? 

It all comes back to the question, “Are the Ravens just not that good?”

A cursory look at the team would suggest that they have a screaming like a banshee need at offensive line; they need a defensive tackle that can collapse the pocket; their secondary is in dire need of an injection of youth; the position of quarterback is labeled “consistency not included” and both tailbacks are unrestricted free agents and another may never be the same after a severely broken leg in 2004.

It’s enough to take your breath away isn’t it?

It sounds like a lot of work needs to be done before the Ravens can think about the post season again – a place that they’ve gone only twice since the Super Bowl season winning just 1 of 3 games.  If someone told you after Super Bowl XXXV that the Ravens would only win one more playoff game over the next 4 years you would have thought that someone had taken one too many jolly trolley trips in the VW Bus with Ricky Williams, right?

Yet that is exactly what has gone down and judging from the many holes to fill, it looks like the Ravens won’t make it back to the dance in 2006 either.

Yet in today’s NFL, you never know.

Look around the league and you will find that 7 of the 12 post season participants were not part of the playoff landscape in 2004.  Five of the NFC’s 6 playoff participants finished with a sub .500 record last year and even the Seahawks, the only returning team finished just 9-7 last season.  Each of the 7 new participants surely felt that they had holes to fill and chances are they didn’t fill them all, they just filled enough of them to get back to the dance where as we learned in 2000, anything is possible.

That is the beauty and the ugliness of the parity created by the salary cap.  Anyone except Arizona has a chance.

Clearly the Ravens have a lot of offseason re-tooling to do but even if they fail to check off their entire shopping list, there’s still a chance that they could surface in the 2006-07 post season.  That's the way of the NFL world.

Let’s just hope that this time next year Steve Bisciotti isn’t calling Ozzie Newsome an underachiever.