To be blunt, these last 3 Ravens games have been, in the immortal words of Penny Hartz, some roof stoof. Of course, we're a lucky fanbase in that these games really do feel like an aberration. A deviation from the norm. For some franchises, this is just life. But, for us, watching the Ravens rarely feels like an obligation like these past 3 weeks have. In fact, the Mia, Chi and Cle games all felt so foreign that each mentally transported me back to the last time watching a Ravens game was this joyless. A time of plodding, turnover-prone offense and suspect, bend-and-then-break defense. A time of baffling play calling paired with lousy execution and terrible clock management. A time with an injury riddled, ill-equipped roster. A time of flat, lifeless, excruciating-to-watch football and a fan base ready to move on from it as quickly as possible. A time called 2015.
Kudos for anyone fortunate enough to have not trudged through that season (or who has successfully purged it from their memory). I’ll provide the briefest of primers for you lot. Expectations for the year started high. The Ravens had just made it to the Divisional round the season prior and seemed to be trending in the right direction. Let me assure you, they were not. By the time their bye week rolled around, they were 2-6, and it didn’t get any better after the break. They finished the year 5-11 with a -73 point differential. A depressing hang, start to finish.
Yet, in another strange similarity between the two stretches, I recall the AFC being pretty mediocre in 2015, also. So hope lingered much longer than it should’ve for a team this lousy. In fact, going into MNF against the Cardinals with a 1-5 record, I distinctly remember there being a sliver of hope, a puncher’s chance, that the Ravens could still, somehow, in spite of their own terribleness, make the playoffs. That is, until, the ultimate nail-in-the-coffin play:
A missed tackle you can't blame on the defense...
There is no better microcosm of 2015 than that. The rest of the season was just one long unfolding of that play over and over again. And as Chris Johnson bounded off Brandon William’s belly and scampered away, so did our infinitesimal shot at the playoffs. That was the moment I officially turned my attention to player development, the draft and potential FAs, as I’m sure most of the Flock did, too.
But I don’t want to continue to harp on either this current run of wretched games nor that putrid 2015 season. The former is very un-2015 in one major way: They went 2-1. And, even if they’d gone 1-2 or 0-3, I’d still think it was more a hiccup than anything else. One that will hopefully be used as motivation as the season progresses. The latter was an outlier in an otherwise stellar coaching tenure for Harbaugh. It made us hit the reset button. It got us Stanley. Really, it was a net positive for the franchise. And I’ve completely and fully processed and moved on from it. That is, except for one major oversight. One lingering injustice. A pebble that’s been stuck in my shoe for seven years. One that is so asinine and insignificant, I doubt anyone else is even aware of it. But it torments me every time the 2015 season pops in my head.
It first started to fester again after the Miami trip—the most 2015ish of these games in that we actually lost that one. The 6-3 halftime score was on brand, as well. With this franchise, a score like that could've signified a lights-out defensive battle, but we all know that's not what transpired. It was just bad, unwatchable football by both teams. The headlines claimed the Ravens were stymied by Miami’s relentless blitzing, but most other Ravens rosters would’ve cracked that nut in about ten seconds. No, their own offensive ineptitude kept them from moving the ball. The coaches clearly crapped the bed both with their unimaginative scheme and their deer-in-headlights play calls. Lamar missed throws, the receivers fumbled the ball away for scoop-and-scores. The offense only, finally, found some success in the 4th quarter, via cheap flags and blown coverages—aka the 2015 playbook. But the defense’s strong start had already been undermined by their own blown coverages (and missed tackling, of course), meaning none of Miami's screw ups mattered in the end. So, unlike the Bears and Browns games where they gritted out gutsy Ws, the Ravens rolled over, took the L and limped back home. Beginning to end, a very 2015 performance.
When that trainwreck was finally over, we delighted in passing blame around like hors d'oeuvres at a dinner party. But, to my dismay, it seemed like no one was talking about the one bright spot in that game. The one person who excelled despite the overall shittiness of the rest of the evening. Which, of course, is completely understandable. After a win, even after an ugly win like Chi or Cle, picking a Player of the Game is always a fun, spirited exercise. Determining the PotG for a suckerpunch loss, though, is never enjoyable and most people just ignore the practice entirely. If someone were to ask you in the wee hours of Friday morning who should’ve been the Ravens PotG, you probably would’ve said: “Give it to a rotting turd on the side of the road and be done with it.”
Yes, the Miami game was atrocious. But those types of games, once the agony dissipates, give us the opportunity to shine the spotlight on some of the players we don’t get to when Lamar is storming back from 20 pts down to win in overtime. For the Dolphins game, I think the choice is obvious. With 8 punts averaging 40 yards, a long of 53 and 4 within the 20, I’m giving it to the amazing, always dependable, supremely surefooted Sam Koch. Everyone else played so bad, I don’t even need to look at their stats. Koch's the guy.
Now, the reason I can't shake this topic, the reason I keep seeing all these connections, the reason my mind got re-hijacked by all this meaningless nonsense in the first place, is it just so happens that the rightful PotG in that abysmal Miami game is the same person who should've been the Most Valuable Raven during that forgettable 2015 season. But, tragically, Koch, in what I consider an obvious display of criminal negligence by the voters, was cheated out of his award.
At this point, I do need to confess something, though. I’ve clung to this stupid, pointless grievance for all this time, but I don’t actually know who the Most Valuable Raven was in 2015. If I ever knew, it slipped through my swiss-cheese-like memory at some point (I even tried to drunkenly Google it as the Miami game was wrapping up, but I came up empty). One thing I am sure of, though, is that since Koch didn't win, the wrong person did. Which, as should be clear by now, I’ve never quite gotten over.
Is it ridiculously childish, borderline insane, to hold this absurd grudge against my favorite football team for seven years? Without question. But my inability to use my time wisely or focus my mental energy appropriately doesn’t make the statement any less true. Sam Koch was masterful in 2015, and he unquestionably deserved to be recognized for his great season.
Now I'll save you from the worst part of any piece about the most valuable anything—a meandering exploration of the v-word, with the sole purpose of dredging up some obscure definition to serve the writer’s argument. Whether they want it to mean that he elevated his teammates’ play the most, or that if he were removed from the team their record would be most negatively affected, will depend on who that writer is dead set on awarding it to. But I’m not going to force you into any of those mental gymnastics. It doesn’t need to be that difficult. It means “best.” No, maybe not in the dictionary or in other contexts. But in the world of sports, “most valuable” means “best.” And Sam Koch was the best Raven in 2015, pure and simple.
In those 16 god-awful football games, Koch, like in Miami, was the lone bright spot. The one player on the field I had any faith in. The one that, all year, did what he was tasked to do, without fail. No matter what circumstance he found himself in that season, Sam always delivered. If he was pinned deep, he would just rocket the ball 60 yards and let it trickle down towards the other end zone. Or if he was closer to midfield, he'd make it hang it in the air for an extra second, then plant it square into the turf around the 5, and, like a startled animal, it would dart directly out-of-bounds. Or, if he was feeling really cheeky, he could flat out mess with people. He'd apply just enough english to stir up some confusion in the returner. Like clockwork, they'd get overwhelmed trying to keep track of the trajectory, coverage and hangtime all at once and commit some bone-headed mistake. In a year almost completely devoid of “Oh Shit” moments, Koch, with plays like that, had me exclaiming as much at least once a quarter. During that whole season, he was as dominant as a punter could possibly be.
But even if you did want to twist and turn the definition of "valuable" as they so often do, Sam Koch is still your guy. He was saddled with an offensive unit with a religious devotion to going three and out. They were constantly forcing him to punt from inside their own 20. But, thanks to Koch’s brilliance, their ineptitude, outside of picks and fumbles, rarely left the defense with a short field to defend. Even if they seldom took advantage, he put the D in position to play their best possible game time and time again. And since Koch was regularly pinning teams inside the 10, they were forced to go, quite literally, the whole length of the field. No doubt turning touchdown drives into field goal drives, and field goal drives into punts. So if you removed him from the team, I'm positive that they’d struggle to even win the measly five games they won. More likely, they would've suffered even more humiliating blowouts than they did. Any way you slice it, Koch was the most valuable person on that roster.
So why was he jobbed so hard when it came to the end of the year awards? Well, for the local media members, I can only imagine, much like after a bad loss, that they simply had no interest in revisiting that season in any prolonged or meaningful way. So they probably just picked a name out of a hat and quickly pivoted to their mock draft pieces. Or maybe, even sadder, punter simply refused to cross their mind when they heard the phrase “Most Valuable." I honestly have no clue how they ended up so off base. But, for the moment, let's give them the benefit of the doubt regarding their due diligence and at least take a look at the other candidates. Again, I still don’t actually know who won. So, using some half-assed internet sleuthing and my own spotty recollection of the season, I’ll see if I can’t guess their pick
Let's start with the most obvious. Typically when it's a dogshit year (let’s be honest, any year), they’ll just blindly give it to the QB. But Flacco was hurt most of the season, and even when he played it wasn't great. Frankly, Flacco was not the best, most valuable, most available, or any other glowing adjective that year. He simply wasn't. I'd be shocked if Joe were the 2015 MVR.
Next in the pecking order is probably RB, so how about a bell cow back? Off the top of my head, I’m not sure who that was in 2015. Was it still Forsett? Or Pierce? Was Collins around yet? A quick Google and the answer is...a mixture of Forsett, Buck Allen and Terrance West. The fact that I didn't know who ran the ball that year without Googling is not a good sign. And none of their stats lead me to believe that I’ve completely forgotten some remarkable season. It looks pretty pedestrian all around, so I'm guessing none of them took the award home.
The receivers? Steve Smith exploded out of the gate that year and put up some monster numbers early on. But he only played in 7 games, so it can’t be him. In reality, the best receiver for the 2015 Ravens appears to be Kamar Aiken. He finished with 75 catches for 944 yards and 5 TDs. For all the talk of the Ravens never having a 1000-yard receiver, that’s pretty damn close. And pretty impressive for having to catch balls from three different QBs, the best of which being a past-his-prime Flacco. If this is who got it over Koch, it's still bad but no longer the crime of the century. It looks like we have a leader in the clubhouse.
Given this franchise's legacy and our undying love of all things defense, could it've maybe gone to someone on that side of the ball? I don’t remember this being a particularly stalwart unit, and PFF has them ranked 24th—not exactly promising in either regard. But maybe there was a standout stud playing head and shoulders above his mediocre unit. A young CJ Mosley, perhaps? Or Za'darius or Timmy Jernigan or Jimmy Smith? I love all those guys, but I don’t remember any one of them playing with their hair on fire that year. And it looks like that stat sheet backs that up. They all played fine but nowhere near as good as Koch.
Maybe they went with the more celebrated member of the Wolfpack. Tucker, a fan favorite and media darling, seems like a shoe-in choice for a throwaway season. But 2015 looks to be Tucker’s only down year (Obviously down year is a relative term when you're discussing the GOAT). He went 33/40 for 82.5%. He did make 100% of his extra points, and it looks like he won an early season game against the Steelers in OT. But I don’t remember Tucker being an All-Pro-level unstoppable force in 2015 like he was in other years. I'm guessing he didn't get it either.
So who did? Was it Aiken? Was it someone else I'm completely forgetting?
Obviously, this quick internet skimming hadn’t recharge my brain like I'd hoped, and I still couldn’t remember who actually won the award. But, I was and am so committed to this inane quest, one that no one else on the planet, probably not even Sam Koch, cares about, that I wouldn’t be denied. I waited til the next day and forced my then-sober self to re-Google. And, buried deep in a Sun article about Lamar's incredible 2019 season, I hit paydirt. The 2015 MVR was future HoFer, Marshall Fucking Yanda.
Now, this certainly muddies the water for my case. The guy has a place in the RoH and Canton waiting for him. He also fits the condition of "give it to a guy you wouldn't usually in a down year" exceedingly well. But I am steadfast in my resolve. Koch was better than Yanda in 2015.
Can I prove this? Of course not. Would you care if I could? The answer is still probably no. But I'll give it a shot.
In 2015, Koch punted 74 times for a total of 3,454 yards. His long was 67, and he averaged 46.7 yards a punt. He put 29 within the 20 and had none blocked that year.
For that same season, here are Yanda's stats: He was PFFs top rated guard and committed 3 penalties...that’s all I got (Apparently, lineman stats are hard to come by). So, in lieu of stats, I’ll provide this clip, which sums up Yanda's excellent year better than stats ever could:
Obviously, that video's both awesome and hard to argue against. And a top PFF ranking speaks volumes about his caliber of play in 2015. But stats and rankings, as always, fail to paint the complete picture, and, unfortunately, there's no Koch highlight tape to balance the scales. Which is a shame, because, to fully grasp this argument, you just had to see a Sam Koch punt that year. Had to hear the ball boom off his foot. Had to witness the visual trail his pendulum of a right leg produced. Had to watch a befuddled punt returner try and track his knuckleball in flight, their apprehension skyrocketing all the while. Watch them panic, stutter step and bail at the last second. Then watch them sulk back to the sideline deflated, as the punt team downed it on the 3. The entire experience was a thing of beauty.
And that's why I still give it to Koch. I have no doubt that Yanda was absolutely mauling people out there in 2015. He's a mauler, that's what he does. But nothing Yanda did still resonates with me seven years later. Whereas with Koch, I vividly remember his 2015 season. It's imprinted in my mind like little else in this world. How impactful he was. How happy I was to see him trotting onto the field, because I finally might see something exciting or something special for the first time all afternoon. That's truly remarkable. And truly deserving of the 2015 MVR. Better late than never.
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