Baltimore Ravens: So the ravens were a bit of a surprise last season going 11-5, though of course footballoutsiders touts them as proving how Ravens D hopes to dominate this year. amazing they are. Personally I think there was quite a lot of luck involved in the Ravens’ 2008 season. Not just flukey luck though, players gelled and Flacco was randomly better than expected and that sort of thing. First off, their offensive line is really young and pretty inexperienced. Last year LeRon McClain and Ray Rice (well, and McGahee) came on late and they were able to really pound the football, allowing flacco to do little more than throw outs to Mason (who had an incredible season last year – best in the NFL on third down conversions) or bombs or screens. Not too many 20 yard crossing routes being thrown. And it worked, they had the 28th passing attack in the NFL but still won 11 games last season. This season their offensive line is still really young, Michael Oher should be starting sometime soon, and again it’s hard to predict exactly how well it will play but the addition of probowl center Matt Birk should probably help. I mean, I think there’s actually good reason to think their O-line will be really good, that the run game will be as good or better than last season, and that Flacco will again not have to make too many difficult throws. I don’t think Flacco is amazing yet, I think he LOOKS like a qb and has the tools but still stares down receivers way too often to be considered “good.†In this kind of offense he can be successful but against a good defense he is worrying, and that’s what happened last year with games against the steelers (who won three close games over the ravens) or Giants or other good defenses. Defensively they’ve been aging for something like 9 years now, but they DO draft well and their secondary is really enviable. Ed Reed, Tom Zbikowski, and Dawan Landry are all better safeties than the Bears’ best, and Dominique Foxworth was a great FA pickup in the offseason to complement Rolle and Washington. I don’t think this is the best LB corps in the NFL but Suggs and Lewis are perfectly acceptable when you’ve got that kind of secondary and a D-line with Ngata, Gregg, and Pryce all excellent (and big) D-linemen. The secondary is still probably the position with the most depth, if their d-linemen start going down (and Gregg is already injured) then this team may well start to suffer. But the experience at LB and the sheer ridiculousness of their secondary and Ed Reed should mean that this defense is never really too horrible. Offensively I think they’ll be similar to last season, and I rate them relatively low last season. I think they’re a top 10 running team and a top 32 passing team, similar to how they are every year. If they get injuries on their D-line then they’ll be in BIG trouble this season, but if not they’re probably a playoff team. I think somewhere in the middle is most likely, some injuries will hurt or nag as the season wears on, I don’t expect Flacco to emerge as an amazing qb, and I’d guess a dropoff is possible, though they may be the best team in the division either way. Fantasy Potential: Ray Rice will be catching a ton of screens this year as well as rushing the football, leron mcclain will get the short-yardage carries, and Derrick Mason will be again their only WR. Defensively they’re good. Outlook: I’ll say 10-6 though something worse wouldn’t shock me. Being able to play defense and run the football is usually a pretty decent recipe for success though. Cincinnati Bengals: So I admit that I haven’t even watched the 4th episode of Hard Knocks before writing this, but it’ll have to do. The first Bengals might not have a lot to celebrate this year. fun fact about this team is that their current starting RT is listed as A. Collins, who cbssports.com doesn’t even have listed as player in the NFL (he’s there because of A. Smith’s injury. Holding out is a great idea always, but way to go to the Bengals for lowballing him the whole offseason and then bringing him in out of shape so that he’d immediately get injured. I might think Marvin Lewis is even a good head coach and that the badness of this organization is not his fault). CBSsports also lists their starting WR as a player named C. Johnson. I don’t know who that is, but the starting WR on hardknocks is pretty hilarious. Child please, kiss the baby! I’m white and he’s black so it’s funny! Either way, their offense was arguably dead last in the NFL last season (wow, did you know that? I didn’t realize they were THAT bad) and their defense was not much better. They were decimated by injuries, 3rd most injured in the NFL, and that plays a role but still. They decided to cut basically their entire offensive line, returning a total of one starter (LG Bobbie Williams). Losing your starting RT probably won’t help things, but luckily Palmer is pretty resilient so he should be around most of the season. (ugh) Defensively they opted to straight up cut Mike Doss and Dexter Jackson, replacing them with Roy Williams and Chris Crocker (Ndukwe being injured. I think I spelt that right). I’m pretty sure that’s a downgrade. They have two pretty decent corners in first rounders Joseph and Hall, Joseph’s injury really hurting them last year. However, two corners is about two fewer than I’d like on my team – their pass defense may not be stellar this season. Their defensive line could be worse with Tank Johnson (hilarious), Antwan Odom, Robert Geathers, and someone named Domanto Peko. They’ve spent a lot of time drafting for LBs in Rivers and Maluaga and Dhani Jones is still the MLB. I think safety and DLine would have suited them better. I don’t love this team. Fantasy Potential: I’d be tempted to take Chris Henry first of their WRs, I think he’ll be placed in the Houshmandz role in this offense. I think all their RBs are actually pretty good except for their starter. Footballoutsiders praised Benson as a mediocre runner who rarely fumbles and I wanted to throw my computer through the window. I, personally, would argue that he has fumbled once or twice in his career. Outlook: Umm… bad? 5-11? Worst team in the division again? Presumably Marvin Lewis is getting canned, I’m pretty sure I’d love for him to come over to Chicago and be d-coordinator for us. BM
