Ravens preseason win streak: What the world looked like in 2015, the last time Baltimore lost a preseason game

The Ravens had their wings clipped on Monday night.

One of the NFL’s more impressive (and, generally, useless) streaks ended when the Commanders upended the Ravens 29-28, ending Baltimore’s 24-game preseason win streak.

While preseason games aren’t indicative of future success, the streak seemed to mean something to Ravens coach John Harbaugh. A lot of something:

“The thing about something like that — you’re proud of it, of course, you appreciate it, but the thing that you’re proud of, is that all the games are mostly just like that,” Harbaugh said following the loss. “Preseason games that people want to write about and say they don’t mean anything, because you never played the game. You were never out there in preseason games. You were never were fighting for a spot.

“And yet you have the have the audacity to say that the effort that somebody puts into that, to win and fight and win a game like that was meaningless. Tell me what was meaningless out there, what you just saw? … I can’t respect anyone that says that.”

MORE: Inside the Ravens’ historic preseason winning streak

Sometimes a strong preseason can be a window into a similar regular season. Oftentimes, the games and their results simply do not matter. The 2017 Browns and 2008 Lions both went 4-0 in the preseason. Both teams also finished winless in the regular season.

To further the point, the Ravens last lost a preseason game on Sept. 3, 2015, a 20-19 defeat against the Falcons. They lost three preseason games that year, and finished the regular season at 5-11, the worst mark during the Harbaugh tenure. Incidentally, the Ravens hold a single playoff win since the streak started in 2016.

But, they’ve been a wrecking ball before the games mattered — that is until they ran into their Beltway rivals on Monday night. 

Here’s what to know about the now-defunct Ravens winning streak, and what the world looked like the last time they lost a game in 2015:

Ravens preseason win streak

In total, the Ravens won 24 consecutive preseason games dating back to 2016, during their winning streak. They last lost a game in 2015, when they fell to the Falcons 20-19 in their preseason finale on Sept. 3. They went 1-3 that preseason, and finished the regular season 5-11, their worst record since 2007.

It wasn’t all dominance by the Ravens in the preseason. They won eight games by a single score or less in that span.

The world looked a bit different in 2015, the last time the Flock lost a preseason game:

• “Uptown Funk” by Mark Ronson and Bruno Mars finished as the top song of the year
• Summer blockbuster “Jurassic World” starring Chris Pratt, Bryce Dallas Howard and a cast of CGI velociraptors dominated the box office
• Quarterback Lamar Jackson was set to start his first season under center for the Louisville Cardinals
• A gallon of gas averaged $2.72 across the United States
• Drake’s “Hotline Bling” was released in July (and spawned a number of wonderful memes afterwards)
• Taylor Swift’s “1989” tour swept the country
• Marvel’s “Luke Cage” and “Jessica Jones” hit Netflix

MORE: Commanders’ Sam Cosmi cares not for the Ravens’ preseason streak

When one streak ends, another begins, so maybe the Ravens will start a new one come the final week of preseason this year.

Here’s how the Ravens’ preseason winning streak played out over the years:

Note: No preseason games were played in 2020 due to the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic.

Some things aren’t forever, and streaks and records are made to be broken. All this goes to show that there is only one constant, and her name is Taylor Swift.

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