I'm not pulling on the lab coat and latex gloves and surgical mask and doing another post-mortem of this latest awful loss to the Pittsburgh Steelers. Enough has already been written about that to wipe out entire forests.
No, I'm here today to talk about next season. Of course, that's assuming there is a next season and NFL players and owners don't slaughter the golden goose and fail to sign a new collective bargaining agreement.
No, I don't see that happening, either.
Take a sport at the height of its popularity, a sport worshipped by millions, a sport that has fans and networks and sponsors throwing money at it — and shut it down just to make a point to the other side? No one could be that dumb.
But if they do play football next season, it's pretty clear what the Ravens' No. 1 priority has to be.
They need to significantly revamp their offense. Or they need to significantly change their play-calling. Or both. Because the way this offense sputtered all season long was ridiculous.
The 126 yards of total offense against the Steelers — just 28 yards in the second half — was a new low. So were the three turnovers that led directly to 17 points for Pittsburgh.
(OK, I said I wouldn't do a post-mortem on that 31-24 loss. I lied. But it'll only be a semi-post-mortem.)
You go ahead and blame Joe Flacco for kicking this one away. Blame him for the third-quarter pick and the botched snap that led to a couple of Steelers scores.
Or blame Ray Rice for that disastrous fumble. Or Anquan Boldin for dropping that pass in the end zone. Or T.J. Houshmandzadeh for letting that final pass from Flacco smack off his shoulder pads and fall harmlessly to the turf, the pass that would have given the Ravens a first down and kept their comeback drive alive.
But the truth is, this offense has been shaky all year.
Sure, it looked good against the Kansas City Chiefs a week earlier. But the Chiefs are a mediocre team at best. They looked like playoff pretenders against the Ravens. And the fact is that when the Ravens absolutely needed to move the ball Saturday, when the sell-out crowd at Heinz Field was rocking the place and everything was on the line, the offense choked big-time.
So a season that began with so much promise, with players and coaches saying " Super Bowl or bust," just went bust.
I can't wait to hear what owner Steve Bisciotti says at his annual "State of the Ravens" news conference.
Give the big guy credit — he's done everything he can to deliver a Super Bowl winner to this city.
Whatever the Ravens coaches and players ask for, he delivers.
We need to turbo-charge the offense — that's what Bisciotti heard from John Harbaugh and his staff last year.
We need to show more imagination on offense, the coaches said, take some shots downfield and loosen the defense so Ray Rice and Willis McGahee and Le'Ron McClain have room to operate and make big plays.
So Bisciotti cracked open his checkbook again and signed wide receivers Boldin, Houshmandzadeh and Donte' Stallworth.
And the fan base was euphoric.
Finally, no more dull, plodding offense. Now the Ravens would fill the air with footballs every Sunday.
Now Flacco had all these weapons, all these proven receivers to throw to — tall, speedy veterans who could stretch the field and make those sideline come-back routes to Derrick Mason look like something from pro football's horse-and-buggy days.
And look how that turned out.
Sure, 13 wins, five losses and a win in the wild-card round of the playoffs — that's something to be proud of. Not a bad season for the Ravens. Not bad at all.
Except it's not the ending they wanted, not the ending they envisioned when all the talk was about hoisting the Lombardi Trophy in Dallas next month.
So now, as the first order of business this offseason, Ravens fans are clamoring for offensive coordinator Cam Cameron to be fired.
This, of course, is nothing new. They've been calling for Cameron's head for weeks, way before this latest disaster at Heinz Field.
Now they just might get it.
There's no way Bisciotti — who doesn't speak to the media during the season — could have been happy with the play-calling this season. And the big guy had to be going thermo-nuclear as he watched the offense look so inept in the third quarter Saturday.
Harbaugh can't be happy with the play-calling, either. Harbaugh is loyal to a fault when it comes to his coaches. It's one of his traits I admire most.
Still, he knows this offense under-performed all season. No, he won't throw Cameron under the bus publicly. That's not his style.
But if I'm Cameron, I'd be a little nervous answering the phone in the next few weeks, especially if caller ID says it's coming from The Castle.
I like Cameron, like him a lot. But if he gets canned, it won't be anything personal on the part of the Ravens.
With this team failing to reach the Super Bowl, it'll be strictly business.
Listen to Kevin Cowherd Tuesdays from 4 p.m. to 6 p.m. with Jerry Coleman on Fox 1370 AM Sports.