Welcome to Ravens Reality Check, where we look at the national media’s hot takes about the Baltimore Ravens, usher them into a corner and tell them to sit quietly for 10 minutes until cooler heads prevail.

One of the challenges of trying to come up with interesting weekly takes about the Ravens is waiting for them to occur. By all rights, you’d think that Baltimore torching what was the NFL’s third-best defense for 41 points would be an interesting headline for the Monday morning pundits.

But you’d be a fool. Because what the sports talk industry has determined to be the most interesting subject in football is how bad the Dallas Cowboys are. So this week, let’s address something that irritates the hell out of me as a viewer: time slots.

1. The Ravens are … boring?

Anyone who watched Baltimore romp against the Broncos right after losing to the Browns knows that this team is many things, but boring ain’t one of ‘em (for better and for worse). And yet, whether it’s market size, the humdrum nature of their Sunday rout or just a general neglect, it feels like some of the biggest players — especially ESPN’s sports talk lineup — really don’t care to say that much about them.

It took Get Up! until 45 minutes into the first hour to get to the Ravens. It took FS1′s The Facility 55 minutes to get to them. First Take and Breakfast Ball didn’t tackle the Ravens until the second hour of their shows. ESPN’s daily podcast didn’t recap the Ravens game at all.

Some of this is slightly warped because there was significant Monday morning NFL news: The Saints fired coach Dennis Allen after the team’s seventh straight loss, so understandably there was commentary on that dismissal (and Michael Thomas’ eyebrow-raising Twitter rant).

But the biggest topic, leading off basically every hour of every sports show, was the 3-5 Cowboys, a team so particularly mediocre and disorganized that my eyes are beginning to involuntarily roll back into my head as I type this sentence. I’m so tired of the Cowboys. By virtue of watching these shows, I watch so much discourse about Jerry Jones, Dak Prescott and Mike McCarthy every week, and I look forward to it the way a kindergartener looks forward to steamed broccoli.

Here’s the story on the 3-5 Cowboys: They stink, and no matter what happens at the trade deadline, they are not going to matter in January.

The Ravens, on the other hand, probably will matter. They are a team that is doing historic things on offense with a quarterback who is in position for a possible third MVP, joining just six other players in NFL history with at least three. They’re imperfect, and probably need help at the trade deadline. It’s a worthwhile discussion on how they can get better, and what their chances of pursuing the Chiefs are come the playoffs.

Maybe a 31-point blowout is just not interesting television to a lot of these shows. But, as I’m about to get into, a closer examination of the Ravens might provoke more nuanced and interesting discussions from pundits who largely repeat the same talking points each week and struggle to come up with anything more creative than: “Lamar Jackson good, defense bad.”

And with that rant done, let’s get into a list of pundits who think Jackson is good! I know, very original!

2. Lamar Jackson is the MVP frontrunner!

I’ve come to view the national media apparatus as a kind of bell curve of punditry. One end of that curve is former players. The other end of that curve is analytics geeks and film junkies.

They agree on something: Lamar Jackson is playing out of his mind, and it’s driving the Ravens offense to historic heights.

Some of the most animated discussion was on The Facility, where the unanimous opinion was Jackson is playing even better than last season, when he won MVP for the second time. Said James Jones: “Lamar Jackson looks like he’s on a different planet. It looks unfair to everyone else.” Former QB Chase Daniel cut up clips to show Jackson’s best throws from Sunday over the Denver pass coverage, illustrating his growth as a passer.

Pat McAfee — who did get to the Ravens just 20 minutes into the show — was effusive about Jackson, Henry and the offense, pointing out the different weapons (and giving love to Patrick Ricard’s touchdown reception). Said McAfee of the offense: “This team has built themselves to do a long run in the playoffs.”

On the other end of the spectrum, the Ringer NFL Show dedicated a good chunk of its opening segment to the Ravens’ offense, citing the team’s top ratings in metrics, including yards per play, EPA and success rate in different formations and personnel groups. They had predicted last week, based upon the Browns game, that the Broncos’ defense was going to create some difficult situations for Baltimore. It never happened.

“They can do everything, and they can do it on early downs and they can do it on late downs,” Steven Ruiz said. “They’re top-five in basically every offensive split you can come up with. And when a team can operate like that on the offensive side of the ball, I just don’t know how you slow it down.”

Diante Lee added that Jackson’s pocket management has been perhaps the best of his career, adding to the troubles opposing defenses face when they try to pressure him.

“That means now that the entire field is basically open from the beginning of the snap until he lets go of the ball because it’s so difficult to cause him any discomfort or to throw a look at him that he’s not prepared to find the answer to,” he said. “And I think that second quarter to third quarter of them just peppering the middle of the field over and over and over again was a great encapsulation of why Baltimore is such a machine offensively.”

It just goes to show there’s more than one way to know ball.

3. Lamar Jackson … isn’t the MVP frontrunner?

Did you know Stephen A. Smith is a gymnast? Or at least he was bending over backward on Monday to figure out ways to talk about quarterbacks other than Lamar Jackson.

It’s not so crazy that Smith would announce Jared Goff as his pick as MVP candidate. After all, the Detroit Lions are 7-1 and Goff has been a huge part of that success (even if we’re ignoring that Jackson has more passing yards and touchdowns, a higher QB rating and fewer interceptions than Goff this season).

“If the MVP were today,” Smith shouted, “Jared Goff has to get MVP.” OK, not the craziest take, especially if you feel that a rain-soaked division win over the Packers was a better victory than the Ravens at home against Denver.

A much wilder take, however, took place in the second First Take hour, when Smith picked the Bills as the top threat to knock the Chiefs from the AFC throne because of Josh Allen’s season so far. He then tut-tutted the Ravens “who have won six of their last seven games” for losing to the Raiders and Browns (fair), saying the Ravens have a reputation for playing down to the competition.

OK, Stephen A. But do you remember the Bills were one of those teams Baltimore beat?

Let’s start with the fact that Jackson bests Allen in just about every statistical category so far. And here’s a benefit Allen got that Jackson never did: He got to play against Baltimore’s abysmal pass defense.

The results of that game were not flattering to Smith’s pick for the top AFC contender behind Kansas City. Allen had 180 yards on 16 for 29 passing. He’s actually the only quarterback to face the Ravens with less than 200 passing yards this year. Even Bo Nix had more air yards against the Ravens than Smith’s supposed favored QB.

It’s not disqualifying for an MVP to have a bad game against a bad passing defense. But if you actually watched (and remember) the two teams going head to head, it’s simply counterfactual to say Buffalo is a better team than Baltimore, especially after the Bills barely escaped with a win over moribund Miami this Sunday.

To be fair, more than an hour into airtime, you never know what crazy take you might run with.