John Harbaugh sees silver linings in the 1-5 Ravens.

He sees a team that outrushed its competition, that played strong possessions on defense, that might be an MVP quarterback away from ending a four-game skid to become the contender most thought the Ravens would be. Even though Baltimore never challenged the Rams in the second half of a 17-3 loss, Harbaugh tried to strike a positive tone.

“Within all that, there’s a lot of good things that tell me we can be the kind of football team we want to be for the rest of the season,” Harbaugh said Sunday afternoon.

But what lies within the silver linings is what Harbaugh and his cohorts need to worry about. DeAndre Hopkins nailed it when looking at Baltimore’s season: “Bad football will get you 1-5.”

Six weeks into the season, the Ravens have been a bad team. They probably need saving from their front office, via bold roster moves, during the bye week that they hope will reset everything about this franchise.

Given what we’ve seen, the Ravens don’t deserve to be saved.

General manager Eric DeCosta will feel the pinch of a responsibility to swoop in and make moves to shore up the roster. But historically the Ravens are loath to part with draft capital, and honestly it would make sense to be conservative here. Trying to make swaps to help this team would be chasing bad money with bad money, attempting to prop open a 2025 window that is nearly shut.

This group is probably a loss or two from a sell-off before the Nov. 4 deadline. They’ve nearly crossed the Rubicon where it makes more sense to move the team’s free agents and get salary-cap relief for 2026.

Although it’s easy to look at the weak AFC North, the relatively easy schedule from here on and the players the Ravens should get back from injury and talk yourself into a late-season surge, there is little evidence that this roster is capable of becoming the fifth NFL team to make the playoffs after a 1-5 start.

On offense, the Ravens are playing without conviction. As much as the team can point to Lamar Jackson’s absence as a compelling reason the offense has been bad, that doesn’t account for how weak the run game has been, how poor execution has been in the red zone and how often stars such as Derrick Henry and Zay Flowers have fumbled. An offense with this much talent should be better.

On defense, they have injuries in the trenches that will make a full recovery impossible. Adding to Nnamdi Madubuike’s season-ending injury, edge Tavius Robinson broke his foot Sunday. The Ravens traded Odafe Oweh, leaving them paper-thin at outside linebacker for an already underwhelming pass rush. There was more success this week with three safeties on the field, as there were in 2023’s defense, but you couldn’t say that this group is even close to resembling that one.

You can’t fix the problems the Ravens have easily, even if you throw a bunch of trade options or draft picks around. A prime pass rusher or a steady offensive lineman always comes at a premium in season.

Given the shrinking margins of the salary cap, there’s no wisdom in selling future seasons down the river when this one feels so close to cooked. Baltimore’s front office is better served to let this group sink or swim.

Right now, the Ravens seem determined to sink. A locker room already struggling with questions of leadership and accountability continues to lack both. Flowers left before the media entered Sunday, choosing not to speak about the two fumbles he was involved with that were recovered by the Rams.

The coaching staff also gave far too long a leash to backup quarterback Cooper Rush, who threw an early interception and never fared much better afterward. Rushing for 179 yards this week was a huge improvement, but there’s not much to celebrate if all that running doesn’t get you into the end zone. The Ravens were stonewalled three consecutive downs from the 1-yard line.

“They wanted it more than us,” center Tyler Linderbaum said, in what felt like a kind of confession.

Do the Ravens really want this? The play on the field leaves that question up for debate.

No one thought they’d be good with all their injuries in the last two weeks, but they found a way to shoot below expectations. Baltimore has wilted in the face of adversity — which perfectly dovetails with its reputation as choke artists.

We see clear flaws in the team’s two main phases, and the cost of addressing them probably greatly outweighs any potential reward. It would be easier to believe the team can be saved by dynamic personnel moves if it looked like these guys believed in themselves, too.

The confidence of the fan base has withered along with everything else. The seats at M&T Bank Stadium were patchy at the opening kickoff (despite tickets going for less than $30 on the secondary market). By midway through the fourth quarter, they looked all but empty. The threat of the nor’easter may have kept a few fans home, but the Ravens’ ugly performance sent the ones who braved the elements heading for the exits early.

“Obviously getting a little tired of getting up here and having this conversation,” Harbaugh said before digging into the loss.

Everybody is. There’s no need to pretend anymore that the Ravens are any better than the bad team they’ve been through six weeks. Silver linings won’t help anyone in position to fix this team make the right business decisions.

Before anyone in the front office acts to save this team, we should see more signs that it is willing to save itself first.