Illegal Formation, the Baltimore Ravens, and "What-If"

The 2024-25 NFL season kicked off last weekend, and America rejoiced - football was back. 32 professional football teams prepared all offseason sculpting and building a team worthy enough to hoist the Lombardi trophy in New Orleans, but only one of them will actually seize that opportunity. Fans of all teams could finally watch their favorite teams once more after a long and grueling offseason.

The NFL kicked off with a very anticipated rematch of the 2024 AFC Championship game with the Kansas City Chiefs hosting the visiting Baltimore Ravens on Thursday Night Football. With how close their last matchup ended, resulting in the Ravens falling short of the Chiefs 17-10, fans were eager to watch Lamar Jackson get his revenge after KC had just won the Super Bowl. So much so in fact, that the NFL audience made Thursday night's game the most watched opening game in NFL history, with 28.9M total viewers.

During the NFL offseason, the league let teams know that they were going to be more strict with illegal formation calls on offensive lines this '24 season. And because they wanted to emphasize this new ruling, they seemed determined to let the rest of league know on Thursday night with an incredibly large audience. It just so happened to be that the Ravens started the game with the first offensive drive of 2024.

On the first drive, illegal formation was called three times in seven plays. It hurt Baltimore's momentum, and the Ravens OL saw the yellow flags fly pretty often the rest of the game. Yet, the Chiefs saw very few flags for the same penalty, despite lining up similarly to how the Ravens did. Baltimore LT Ronnie Stanley claimed that the NFL made an example out of him to the rest of the league to prove their emphasis on illegal formation. Personally - I believe him. I'm not sure I buy into the talk that the NFL favors the Chiefs in literally everything, but the fact that Baltimore started out Thursday night on offense did not bode well for the offensive line, who was chosen to be the league's example that they were not messing around.

Baltimore Ravens Head Coach John Harbaugh said in a press conference following the game that he challenges the NFL to call illegal formation the same way they did against Baltimore all season, but mentioned he was not worried about the increased calls. Time will tell if the league will follow through on more aggressive illegal formation calling, if teams will adapt and adjust their OL lineups, or if what happened Thursday night was just an anomaly.

With the Ravens ultimately losing to the Chiefs by one touchdown 27-20, NFL fans are left wondering "what-if" the Ravens were not called for illegal formation as much as they did, and if Baltimore might've had a better chance at winning in Week One.

-- Justin Birkelien

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