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Next Up: @ Bears

rossihunter2

rossihunter2

Staff Member
Moderator
Back to the 1pm slot. These primetime games have been killing me.

Another game where we go in with a sour taste in our mouth - teams have seen now an example of a defence we have so far not found an answer for - we'll need to demonstrate we can beat it.

On defence we get our first rookie QB of the year. Wink's defence has historically been tricky to decipher for rookies. So we shall see.
 
OURavensFan

OURavensFan

Ravens Ring of Honor
rossihunter2 said:
Back to the 1pm slot. These primetime games have been killing me.

Another game where we go in with a sour taste in our mouth - teams have seen now an example of a defence we have so far not found an answer for - we'll need to demonstrate we can beat it.

On defence we get our first rookie QB of the year. Wink's defence has historically been tricky to decipher for rookies. So we shall see.
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Well don’t get too comfortable, Browns SNF after this game. The Bears game is not a must win game by itself, but given the strength of schedule increase the next 7 after that, it pretty much is a must win if we want to win the division and make the playoffs
 
D1City55

D1City55

Pro Bowler
Defense should feast, they need to come away with a turnover or a couple. This defense is 27th in the league in turnovers. They had a ton of missed opportunities against Miami that would have made a massive difference, it feels like one is a rarity.
 
R

ravenslord

Ravens Ring of Honor
D1City55 said:
Defense should feast, they need to come away with a turnover or a couple. This defense is 27th in the league in turnovers. They had a ton of missed opportunities against Miami that would have made a massive difference, it feels like one is a rarity.
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Well Steelers didn’t do that great against the Bears and their defense is better than ours .
 
A

Adreme

Ravens Ring of Honor
rossihunter2 said:
Back to the 1pm slot. These primetime games have been killing me.

Another game where we go in with a sour taste in our mouth - teams have seen now an example of a defence we have so far not found an answer for - we'll need to demonstrate we can beat it.

On defence we get our first rookie QB of the year. Wink's defence has historically been tricky to decipher for rookies. So we shall see.
Click to expand...

If the Ravens do not win this game then I do not see how they win the division and the playoffs become tricky. The final 7 game stretch is BRUTAL where its a success story going 4-3 so some room is going to need to be made now.
 
D1City55

D1City55

Pro Bowler
ravenslord said:
Well Steelers didn’t do that great against the Bears and their defense is better than ours .
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Yeah they sure didn't but it happens, every defense is prone to laying an egg, it doesn't mean we should. I think we'll show Fields looks that he just won't be able to adjust to come game time. Tua had a tough time with some of the deceptive looks we were showing him last game, defense just couldn't capitalize with turnovers.
 
R

ravenslord

Ravens Ring of Honor
Adreme said:
If the Ravens do not win this game then I do not see how they win the division and the playoffs become tricky. The final 7 game stretch is BRUTAL where its a success story going 4-3 so some room is going to need to be made now.
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So does 10 games ,10-7 win the division? Maybe. I agree though this Bears game is huge now that we lost to Miami.
 
rmcjacket23

rmcjacket23

Ravens Ring of Honor
Adreme said:
If the Ravens do not win this game then I do not see how they win the division and the playoffs become tricky. The final 7 game stretch is BRUTAL where its a success story going 4-3 so some room is going to need to be made now.
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I mean... what would make you more confident in the other teams in the division at this point?

Browns are 5-5 and still have to play four division games (Ravens twice), the Raiders and the Packers.
Steelers are 5-3-1 and have what I would consider to be one of the tougher remaining schedules in the league, as they still have to play Chargers, Bengals, Ravens and Chiefs (all on the road), and have to play the Ravens, Titans and Browns at home.
Bengals are 5-4, and probably have the most "preferred" schedule left, which still includes three divisions games, Raiders, Chargers and Chiefs.

Like I expect to beat Chicago and will be severely disappointed if we don't, but there's nobody that can confidently say they feel any better about any of our other divisional foes being better or worse than us at this point. It's a total crapshoot through 10 weeks.

I think 10-7 is certainly getting a playoff spot in the AFC, and I think 11-6 is most likely going to win the division.

If I were handicapping the North right now, I think it'll come down to us and the Bengals most likely. Perhaps bias on my part, but I still don't take Pittsburgh seriously as a threat. I really haven't seen them be impressive pretty much the whole season. Even week one beating Buffalo I thought they were pretty terrible offensively.
Cleveland I actually think, when playing well, may be the best of the other three in the division, but they just can't seem to beat any good teams at all. They're now 1-5 against teams with a winning record, and 4-0 against the rest. They'll need to play very well against very good teams quickly to get back in the hunt in my eyes.

It sounds weird, but I kind of ignore the "bad losses" to a certain extent. If you look around the AFC and frankly around most of the NFL, pretty much everybody has a "bad loss" on their resume. Buffalo lost to Jacksonville. New England lost to Miami. Ravens lost to Miami. Pittsburgh technically doesn't have a bad loss, but has a tie against Detroit. Cincinnati lost to Chicago and the Jets. Cleveland doesn't have a bad loss but doesn't have much in the way of good wins either. Tennessee lost to the Jets.
In the NFC, Dallas lost to Denver. Green Bay lost to the Saints. Tampa's now lost back to back to the Saints and Redskins. Arizona loses big to Carolina.
 
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A

Adreme

Ravens Ring of Honor
rmcjacket23 said:
I mean... what would make you more confident in the other teams in the division at this point?

Browns are 5-5 and still have to play four division games (Ravens twice), the Raiders and the Packers.
Steelers are 5-3-1 and have what I would consider to be one of the tougher remaining schedules in the league, as they still have to play Chargers, Bengals, Ravens and Chiefs (all on the road), and have to play the Ravens, Titans and Browns at home.
Bengals are 5-4, and probably have the most "preferred" schedule left, which still includes three divisions games, Raiders, Chargers and Chiefs.

Like I expect to beat Chicago and will be severely disappointed if we don't, but there's nobody that can confidently say they feel any better about any of our other divisional foes being better or worse than us at this point. It's a total crapshoot through 10 weeks.

I think 10-7 is certainly getting a playoff spot in the AFC, and I think 11-6 is most likely going to win the division.

If I were handicapping the North right now, I think it'll come down to us and the Bengals most likely. Perhaps bias on my part, but I still don't take Pittsburgh seriously as a threat. I really haven't seen them be impressive pretty much the whole season. Even week one beating Buffalo I thought they were pretty terrible offensively.
Cleveland I actually think, when playing well, may be the best of the other three in the division, but they just can't seem to beat any good teams at all. They're now 1-5 against teams with a winning record, and 4-0 against the rest. They'll need to play very well against very good teams quickly to get back in the hunt in my eyes.

It sounds weird, but I kind of ignore the "bad losses" to a certain extent. If you look around the AFC and frankly around most of the NFL, pretty much everybody has a "bad loss" on their resume. Buffalo lost to Jacksonville. New England lost to Miami. Ravens lost to Miami. Pittsburgh technically doesn't have a bad loss, but has a tie against Detroit. Cincinnati lost to Chicago and the Jets. Cleveland doesn't have a bad loss but doesn't have much in the way of good wins either. Tennessee lost to the Jets.
In the NFC, Dallas lost to Denver. Green Bay lost to the Saints. Tampa's now lost back to back to the Saints and Redskins. Arizona loses big to Carolina.
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If you look at the Bengals 5 remaining non division games you have: Raiders, Chargers, 49ers, Broncos, and Chiefs. Chiefs is the only game I would not for sure pick the Bengals in and that is only because I have no idea what the Chiefs are this season, but as it is 2 weeks before the end of the season its very possible they are not contention for the 1 seed and have already locked up the division by then so that might also factor into that game. Suffice to say going 4-1 in those games would be meeting expectations (they also have one matchup against each of the divisional opponents so expecting them to go 6-2 down the stretch, or at worst 5-3, is not a bold prediction).

Meanwhile you have the Ravens schedule. The three non divisional games are: Bears, Rams, Packers with the only solace being Rams and Packers are at home. However I would honestly only favor the Ravens against the Bears. You then have a situation where there are 2 games against the Steelers, 2 against the Browns and one against the Bengals. I would expect to sweep the Steelers and due to what can only be described as the most sadistic scheduling I have ever seen split against the Browns (go look at the Browns schedule to see what I mean because that is just nonsense to give them the advantage the league did) and the Bengals are clearly a rough matchup. That means over the last 8 you are looking at 4-5 wins with possibly stealing one against Packers/Rams. However, if they lose to Chicago and are tied with the Bengals going into the last 7 games, I do not see how the Ravens can outpace the Bengals who have more winnable games on their schedule.
 
rmcjacket23

rmcjacket23

Ravens Ring of Honor
Adreme said:
If you look at the Bengals 5 remaining non division games you have: Raiders, Chargers, 49ers, Broncos, and Chiefs. Chiefs is the only game I would not for sure pick the Bengals in and that is only because I have no idea what the Chiefs are this season, but as it is 2 weeks before the end of the season its very possible they are not contention for the 1 seed and have already locked up the division by then so that might also factor into that game. Suffice to say going 4-1 in those games would be meeting expectations (they also have one matchup against each of the divisional opponents so expecting them to go 6-2 down the stretch, or at worst 5-3, is not a bold prediction).

Meanwhile you have the Ravens schedule. The three non divisional games are: Bears, Rams, Packers with the only solace being Rams and Packers are at home. However I would honestly only favor the Ravens against the Bears. You then have a situation where there are 2 games against the Steelers, 2 against the Browns and one against the Bengals. I would expect to sweep the Steelers and due to what can only be described as the most sadistic scheduling I have ever seen split against the Browns (go look at the Browns schedule to see what I mean because that is just nonsense to give them the advantage the league did) and the Bengals are clearly a rough matchup. That means over the last 8 you are looking at 4-5 wins with possibly stealing one against Packers/Rams. However, if they lose to Chicago and are tied with the Bengals going into the last 7 games, I do not see how the Ravens can outpace the Bengals who have more winnable games on their schedule.
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Right but I guess that's my point... it's purely on paper. The Bengals being favored or expecting to win most of those games doesn't come close to translating into them actually doing it. I would not have expected them to lose to the Bears or the Jets, but they did. I also wouldn't have expected them to get trucked by the Browns at home in a game that was never competitive. If they lost this week in Vegas, it won't surprise me. If they lose to the Chargers, it won't surprise me. Quite frankly, I don't see a game on their schedule left that, if they lost, I'd be like "wow, that one really surprised me". If they were a team that simply played to the "paper", they'd likely be a 6 or 7 win team right now, but they're not. Because they don't.

So like I'm agreeing that they have a more favorable schedule than us, but they've also had a weaker SOS and SOV than us already, and they still are a game behind us in the standings.

Most of this is going to get washed out in divisional play, since pretty much everybody has at least half their division games still remaining. But I think a lot of people doubting us at this point are paying tribute to recent bias, which is the last thing you saw the Ravens do was play poorly against Miami. And people can do that if they want, but I just point to the fact that the last things you saw Cincy do was lose to the Jets and get trucked at home by, what looks like, a very average Browns team. And the last thing I saw Cleveland do was get obliterated by the Patriots yesterday in a non-competitive game, and the last thing I saw Pittsburgh do was tie the Lions at home (among playing several pretty poor games before that).

So I pretty much circle back to my original premise, which is that, in this division, absolutely nobody looks great, and absolutely nobody should be giving paper wins to anybody against any team. Nobody has earned that right yet.

So how do we outpace them with a loss? Well, we'll just have to win a game we "weren't supposed to win". Like we did against the Chiefs. Like we did against the Chargers.
 
JAAM

JAAM

Hall of Famer
rossihunter2 said:


not surprising but still frustrating
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We just gotta accept our defense for what it is at this point and hope the offensive line can keep Lamar up enough to score 30+
 
JAAM

JAAM

Hall of Famer
Wasn’t Wolfe crying wolf subliminally when he wasn’t getting the money he wanted in the off-season
 
JAAM

JAAM

Hall of Famer
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