Welcome to Ravens Reality Check, where we check out the national media’s hot takes on the Baltimore Ravens and strap them down with sandbags to keep them from floating off into space.

We’re only seven weeks into the season, but we’ve reached a stage where the hot takes about the 5-2 Ravens are largely repeats. On the heels of a 41-31 win over Tampa Bay, pundits offered variations of: Lamar Jackson is good. Derrick Henry is good. The Ravens offense is good.

I could write about how Jackson is now the MVP frontrunner, but I’d largely be repeating my own column from last week.

So for this installment, I’m going to give the headlining sports talking heads a break. To me, the interesting part is not that the Ravens are good offensively, but it’s about how good they are. Some wild numbers give this offense an impressive sense of scale.

1. The Ravens are a top 5 offense … in NFL history

We’re only seven games in, but the Ravens are in a league of their own offensively compared to their NFL peers: first in yards, points, rushing, and red zone percentage (sixth in passing). The best comparisons to this offense come from the record books.

FS1′s “Breakfast Ball” posted an eye-opening graphic that shows, through seven games, the Ravens are second in yards per rush (6.18) in the Super Bowl era, which goes back decades. They’re fourth in rush yards per game (210.9) and sixth in total yards per game (461.4). Their rushing yardage differential (plus-142.4) is the best so far in NFL history.

Honestly, just take a second to let all those figures sink in. The Ravens’ start under offensive coordinator Todd Monken puts them on pace to have one of the best offenses ever.

This was mentioned in Jonas Shaffer’s and Paul Mancano’s redeye edition of The Banner Ravens Podcast, but the Ravens are gaining 7.2 yards per play, an outrageous figure. The NFL record holder is the 2000 Rams, part of a three-year run known as “The Greatest Show on Turf,” which averaged 6.98 yards per play. The only other modern offense in the discussion is the 2018 Chiefs, which recorded 565 points in the regular season (third-highest in NFL history) on the way to a Super Bowl.

FTN’s Aaron Schatz noted that the Ravens have the fourth-highest offensive DVOA ever to this point in the season, ranking behind notably the 2007 Patriots and the 1998 Denver Broncos — pretty damn good company.

On Tuesday, there was a lot of hand-wringing over where to place the Ravens in the NFL hierarchy at the moment because they’re 5-2, they lost to the undefeated Chiefs, and the defense continues to have trouble against the pass. But as FS1′s Danny Perkins put it, what the Ravens are doing on offense is simply not comparable to anyone else at present.

“It’s not disrespectful to say that they’re better than the Chiefs or better than the Lions, because these are all-time numbers,” he said.

It gets interesting when you try to gauge how the Ravens’ upcoming competition will influence their run at the record book. Of the team’s remaining 10 games, five are against top 10 defenses in DVOA, including the Broncos (3rd), Chargers (8th), Texans (2nd) and two games against the Steelers (10th).

It is undoubtedly a tough road, and Baltimore will need to stay healthy, but the hot start already has the Ravens flying in rare air. We might need to start thinking of nicknames: The “Pick Your Poison” offense doesn’t quite have enough of a ring to it.

2. Lamar Jackson continues to carve his name among the NFL’s greatest ... passers

Tired: Lamar Jackson reminds us of Michael Vick.

Wired: Lamar Jackson reminds us of Peyton Manning.

Jackson had his fifth career game with at least five passing touchdowns and no interceptions on Monday night, which ties him with Peyton Manning, Ben Roethlisberger and Aaron Rodgers. Only Tom Brady (8) and Drew Brees (8) have more performances of that caliber. Jackson has 84 career starts. Everyone else in this paragraph has at least 200.

Jackson’s passing success (he has thrown for 15 touchdowns against just two picks this season) drew some comparisons to the Hall of Famer Manning and his mid-career Super Bowl breakthrough on ESPN’s “Get Up!”

It’s refreshing to see some commentators not go down the same path of only comparing Jackson to other Black quarterbacks and instead expand the pool to all quarterbacks, because frankly that’s the territory he’s in. He’s on pace to throw for nearly 4,400 yards and run for over 900 yards — no NFL QB has ever thrown for over 4,000 yards and run for 1,000. His passer rating is a league-high 118.0.

This also goes with Jackson’s absurd 23-1 record against NFC opponents, which was charted helpfully by stat site Dorktown.

Frankly, we are running out of credible comparisons for Jackson’s start this year. It simply hasn’t been done this way before.

3. Derrick Henry could have the best rushing season … of his career.

The theme this week is how it isn’t worth comparing the Ravens offense to its peers, only to history. Henry is first in rushing (873), first in yards from scrimmage (935), first in rush yards per attempt (6.5), first in combined rushing and receiving touchdowns (10), et cetera, et cetera. (If you haven’t checked out Jonas’ research into Henry’s stiff arms, you absolutely should.)

In this case, Henry’s production thus far is best compared to his own personal benchmarks.

Henry was the 2020 AP Offensive Player of the Year on the strength of rushing for 2,027 yards, the fifth-most rushing yards in NFL history. Henry has a chance to smash his own high-water mark, thanks in part to a 17-game schedule (his record was set in 16 games). He’s averaging 124.7 yards per contest, just a hair below his 2020 average (126.7), which would put him on pace for 2,120 yards — a new single-season rushing record.

Now we know that probably won’t happen for a variety of reasons, whether that’s Henry hitting a cold game or the coaches decreasing his reps as the playoffs approach. But it’s a heck of a tribute to Henry and this Ravens offense that he has an outside shot of pulling off a better age-30 season than the one he put together at 26.

One key: His average yards before contact is 4.2, which is easily a career-best mark (previous high 2.5). Another very interesting comparison: Henry already has 10 runs of 25 yards or more in just seven games. In 2020, he had 11 such runs through the entire season.

Baltimore has gotten the best of his home run-hitting ability, even if Henry was grumbling last night that he wasn’t able to score on his 81-yard dash.