Are the Steelers the favorites in the AFC?
Last year’s AFC title game participants, the Colts and Patriots, have the best odds in Vegas among conference teams, but plenty of ink has spilled and spittle has flown from the national media touting the Steelers this offseason. And Pittsburgh’s acquisitions of veteran DeAngelo Williams, Brandon Boykin and Josh Scobee suggest the Steelers front office is all-in, too.
It’s easy to see what many like about the Steelers. Look at every 2015 fantasy football rankings: Le’Veon Bell, Antonio Brown and Ben Roethlisberger are all near the top of the lists – the real football relevance being that Pittsburgh is expected to put up big numbers on offense this season. And they will. But don’t forget that Bell will miss the first two games of the season due to suspension and No2 receiver Martavis Bryant will now be out the first four games with his own league suspension. Even with all of its pieces in place, the Steelers are still prone to putting up inexplicably awful performances on offense, seemingly out of nowhere. Remember Roethlisberger’s back-to-back 6 TD games last fall? That was followed by a 13-point game in a loss to the Jets. THE JETS. And then in the playoffs, forced to play without Bell, the Steeler attack stalled out at home versus a mediocre Baltimore defense.
Over the course of the whole season, sure, Pittsburgh’s offense will be well above average and more than productive enough to be a Super Bowl contender. It’s the Pittsburgh defense that will be the downfall of the team, an odd thing to say about the town in which the Steel Curtain was once found, no doubt.
Longtime defensive stalwarts Troy Polamalu, Brett Keisel and Ike Taylor all retired and legendary defensive coordinator Dick LeBeau was forced out, but there isn’t exactly a ton of talent at the ready to replace them. Linebacker James Harrison is still expected to be a playmaker at age 37. That speaks both to Harrison’s insane physical shape and the lack of playmakers on the defensive side of the ball. Fools draw conclusions from preseason football, it’s true, but when the Buffalo Bills put up 43 points on you, as happened to the Steelers in their fourth preseason game, you get the sense that Pittsburgh’s 2015 defensive philosophy of “Let’s hope these younger guys suddenly become really good at football,” might not pan out for them.
If you think the Steelers are legitimate Lombardi Trophy contenders, you need to lay off whatever you got from Bell and Bryant. This team is only participation trophy-worthy, as much as that will anger Harrison.
Are the Baltimore Ravens in a rebuild?
Lost in all the exciting NFL offseason storylines that ranged from PSI all the way to Ideal Gas Law was any coverage of the Baltimore Ravens, a team that made a strong case last postseason that they were one of the top two or three teams in the entire NFL.
Despite finishing in third place last year in the AFC North at 10-6, a game behind the Steelers and a half-game behind the Bengals, the Ravens dominated the Steelers, 30-17, in Pittsburgh in the wildcard round. They then went to New England and held a 31-28 lead in the fourth quarter before falling 35-31 after Joe Flacco got intercepted deep in Patriot territory with less than two minutes to play. Had the Ravens pulled that game out, it’s likely they would have beaten the Colts in the AFC title game and earned a trip back to the Super Bowl again and who knows ... Joe Flacco’s second championship? Anything can happen in the Super Bowl, as the Seahawks can attest.
But instead of having the feel of a team that was close to the Super Bowl and is ready to break through, the 2015 Ravens look more like a team that is a tier below the top contenders. Since their close call in New England back in January, Baltimore traded longtime defensive tackle Haloti Ngata and center Gino Gradkowski, lost receiver Torrey Smith, tight end Owen Daniels, linebacker Pernell McPhee and safety Darian Stewart in free agency, cut wide receiver/kick returner Jacoby Jones, running back Bernard Pierce, defensive tackle Terrence Cody and lost safety and former No1 pick Matt Elam for the season with a torn biceps. All 10 of those players have been significant contributors to winning Baltimore teams. On the plus side, they signed ... Matt Schaub to back up Flacco? That’s it? Yeah, mostly. It could be called a disastrous offseason for the Ravens if you forget that last year’s Ray Rice-dominated offseason set the bar unattainably low for that title.
We can debate all we want whether Flacco is an “elite” quarterback – and it seems now that humanity will debate this meaningless question for all eternity – but either way, he undeniably is a capable starter who has proven he can win in the postseason. But even “elite” quarterbacks need some help. Beyond 36-year old Steve Smith, who has announced he’s retiring after this season, Flacco’s weapons this year are:
- Justin Forsett: a running back who will turn 30 next month and has started all of 21 games in his NFL career
- Crockett Gillmore: a second-year tight end with 10 career receptions
- Marlon Brown, Kamar Aiken, Michael Campanaro: three unproven wide receivers with 104 career receptions between them
- Breshad Perriman: the team’s first-round pick out of Central Florida, who has blazing speed and looks like a mix between the Predator and a 48-year old man.
Flacco could be the most elite of all the elites and the players around him are not enough to win a Super Bowl, assuming the 2015 Ravens defense is not on par with the 2000 edition. (Yeah, it’s not.) Expect the Ravens to struggle some this season, which will likely result in some epic Steve Smith tantrums. He shouldn’t go out any other way.
Are the Bengals really handing their fate over to Andy Dalton again?
Yep, they sure are. After another atrocious performance in the wildcard round of the playoffs, the fourth consecutive such performance of Andy Dalton’s career, the Bengals went out and ... re-signed Andy Dalton. The guy who is 0-4 in the playoffs for his career, with one touchdown, six interceptions and a 57.8 passer rating, got a six-year, $115m contract. What a motivational tale for all the underachievers out there!
The Bengals only made $17m of that contract guaranteed, suggesting their front office isn’t led entirely by madmen, but the odder decision is that Cincinnati again didn’t go out and get a backup quarterback with some upside who could push Dalton, or at least give the team a viable option if/when Dalton falters again. Former Alabama quarterback AJ McCarron remains the backup with Keith Wenning slated for third-string – although he was moved to the practice squad on Sunday. (Go ahead. Feel free to Google Keith Wenning to see if I made up a random name to further illustrate the point that the Bengals have no one at the quarterback position. I’ll wait.)
Are we back? OK. Yeah, Keith Wenning is a real player. Crazy, right? The sad fact is that Cincinnati has a solid team around Dalton. Wide receiver AJ Green is one of the best in the league. In fact, Dalton should give him about half his contract in gratitude. Running back Jeremy Hill ran for 1,124 yards at 5.1 per carry as a rookie, and the defense was top 12 in points allowed ... a ranking that would improve if Dalton wasn’t such a pick-six enthusiast. You have to feel for the Bengals players. They have the talent to do some damage in the postseason. The team just has that one glaring redhead ... I mean, flag ... year after year.
Why do the Browns insist on being the Browns?
Who knows. It’s baffling. The Browns would give anything for a quarterback of Andy Dalton’s abilities. If only this were a joke.
Not to minimize the difficulty in identifying and acquiring a top-tier passer – if it was easy, everyone would have one of those fancy ELITE quarterbacks, right? – but only the Browns* go out of their way to make the obviously wrong choice time and time again. Drafting middle aged Brandon Weeden in the first-round, for example. Letting a homeless man select Johnny Manziel for another. Or the latest: signing 36-year old career afterthought Josh McCown to a three-year deal in February before the offseason barely got going. Did the Browns convince themselves they had to act quickly before someone else snatched up this guy?
How is McCown a better option than Brian Hoyer? There are zero possible outcomes that don’t end up with McCown’s name being added to this jersey and soon. He’s Cleveland Jake Delhomme 2.0, but a player with none of Delhomme’s accomplishments. Why, Cleveland? Why?
At this point, a traditional, you could even say responsible and professional, team preview would now address the Browns beyond the quarterback position. But until the Browns stop getting more Browns quarterbacks, there’s really no point. The team remains doomed.
*OK, the New York Jets do this, too.
Is anyone going to get fired?
Probably. And if it comes to pass, the coach who gets canned will almost certainly be in the state of Ohio. The Steelers and Ravens are two of the most steady organizations in sports. Mike Tomlin’s contract was extended in July through 2018 and Harbaugh, who is just three years removed from a Super Bowl title, isn’t going anywhere outside of maybe joining Donald Trump’s ticket or traveling to Texas to build a wall.
That leaves Marvin Lewis of the Bengals and Mike Pettine of the Browns. Lewis is both the most winning coach in Bengals history, by a large margin, and a disappointment, which says must about the history of the Bengals. If his team fails to win a playoff game, again, can Cincinnati management still tell themselves again: “Well, looking awful in the playoffs is still a lot better than winning four games all season. These are the glory days!” At some point the Bengals have to want more.
In Pettine, the Browns seem to have a coach who knows what he’s doing. In his first season on the job last year, he took a franchise turmoil and led them to a 7-4 record before collapsing. He’s building a solid defense and is fully aware that he must overcome his team’s less-than-ideal situation at quarterback to have real success in Cleveland. The The Browns may have a real keeper in Pettine. Which is why they’ll probably mess it up and can him.
Predicted final standings
Steelers 10-6
Bengals 9-7
Ravens 9-7
Browns 7-9
