OWINGS MILLS — The Ravens have no fear of opposing NFL stadiums.
Baltimore is an NFL-best 6-1 on the road this season.
The Ravens will look to continue that success in perhaps their toughest environment thus far — Levi’s Stadium, home of the San Francisco 49ers.
It is not a coincidence that the Ravens are so good on the road.
“On the road, it starts with the communication [and] trying to be as efficient as possible with communicating, because it’s going to be loud,” center Tyler Linderbaum said. “That’s an emphasis here – just overcommunicate – and then when the lights are on, try to play your best. I think that’s what the guys we have on this team go out there and try to do.”
The Ravens have road wins against Cincnnati (27-24), Cleveland (28-3), Tennessee (in London, 24-16), Arizona (31-24), the Los Angeles Chargers (20-10) and Jacksonville (23-7).
The only loss was at Pittsburgh, 17-10, in Week 5.
However, this matchup against San Francisco has a different vibe. Both teams are 11-3 and for only the second time since the 1970 merger, teams with a share of the league’s best record will meet in Week 16 or later.
The only other game in that period involving teams that shared the league’s best record this late in a season was January 2, 1994, when Dallas defeated the New York Giants en route to victory in Super Bowl XXVIII.
“You can’t ignore it; it’s two great teams going at it on Monday night. We’re on Christmas Day; it’s kind of as big as it gets. But we have to be where our feet are, and that’s Wednesday meetings, right now. [We] can’t look forward to the game right now, because we want [to] prepare ourselves the correct way. I think we all know what’s up, but at the same time, we just have to go out and play our game.”
While the Ravens have been strong on the road, coach John Harbaugh doesn’t think the team has reached its ceiling.
“I don’t think we have played our best game yet,” Harbaugh said. “That’s something you work for, [and] we talk about all the time. We try to improve all the time, and we had a really good practice and we’re continuing to try and do that and put our best game in front of us still.”