You can easily make a case for the Ravens offensive line being an appropriate metaphor for the entire team in 2017.
In fact, I do believe I’m going to make that case.
Before the season, the line suffered so many subtractions, mostly due to injury, that it was fair to wonder whether it could possibly meet any optimistic projections for the season.
The same could be said for the entire team. “We’re just trying to survive all these injuries,” one of the Ravens’ decision-makers grimly told me during training camp.
Once the season began, the patched-together line had good days, when the running game flourished, but also bad days, when no holes opened and Joe Flacco took a beating.