Afc North 2007 Previews And Projections
AFC North Division:
1) Baltimore: The Ravens won’t find the sledding so easy this year after posting a regular season mark of 13-3 last year, pushing them will be the Pittsburgh Steelers who are only 2 years removed from winning a Super Bowl and whose QB is now back at full strength following last years near fatal off season motorcycle accident and emergency appendicitis surgery. The same holds true for the Cincinnati Bengals whose QB is also now back at full strength after using last season as a spring board of sorts to regain his confidence following a devastating knee injury.
The Ravens have one of the NFL’s best one-two punches at QB with Steve McNair under center and former starter Kyle Boller backing him up, but they will need to get their offensive act together quickly if they want to repeat as divisional champs with regard to having a few new faces needing to learn the offense, they have a new running back (Willis McGahee), a new fullback (Justin Green or rookie Le’Ron McClain), a couple of new offensive lineman (former starters Tony Pashos and Edwin Mulitalo are gone), and a new offensive coordinator (Rick Neuheisel was promoted).
Defensively the Ravens will once again be one of the best units in the NFL, however, they are also another year older and will have to replace Pro Bowl linebacker Adalius Thomas. Baltimore posted a mark of 6-10 just two short years ago and posted a mark of 13-3 last year which needless to say is a huge 7 win improvement from one year to the next, the thought here is that the Ravens win total will fall somewhere in the middle. Projected record: 10-6
**Look to play ON the Ravens in their home opening Sept 16th game against the visiting Jets, both teams enter this affair fresh off a divisional game and Baltimore is actually playing on a short week having just played a season opening Monday nighter at Cincy, however, don’t lose sight of the fact that the Ravens own one of the best home field advantages in the league as evidenced by winning 42 of their last 56 home games (75%) in straight up fashion. Its a very safe assumption to make that the Ravens will be favored in this game, with that in mind, a peek into the ole history book
2) Pittsburgh: A new era will start with the opening season kickoff in Steeler country as 35 year old first time HC Mike Tomlin takes over for the departed Bill Cowher who was the Black and Gold’s leader for 15 years, Pittsburgh also had to replace offensive coordinator Ken Whisenhunt and assistant HC Russ Grimm who also coached the offensive line, Whisenhunt is now the HC for the Arizona Cardinals and he took Russ Grimm with him as his assistant HC. Pittsburgh replaced Whisenhunt with Bruce Arians who had coached the Steelers WR’s for the past three years, which means that the offensive philosophy will in all likelihood remain virtually the same which is a plus when you have a change at the helm.
It will be interesting to see what happens with the defense as new HC Mike Tomlin elected to retain defensive coordinator Dick LeBeau who loves to run a zone blitz hybrid defense while HC Mike Tomlin is a Tony Dungy trained Tampa-2 defense kinda guy who is fresh off a stint as the Vikings defensive coordinator. In general terms most teams that experience a head coaching change tend to struggle in the early going of a new season, I don’t think that will happen with Pittsburgh because they essentially will have the same philosophy being coached on both sides of the ball as in previous years, add to that the fact that Pittsburgh has a solid veteran nucleus and a healthy QB and its not a stretch to expect improvement over last years mark of 8-8.
In the final analysis Pittsburgh will show improvement this season but the improvement may not be seen in the win/loss column because of the fact that they reside in a tough division that includes two games each against Baltimore and Cincinnati and also have a very tough non divisional schedule which includes games at Arizona, at Denver, at New England, and at St Louis and also includes home dates against visiting Seattle and Jacksonville. Projected record: 9-7
**Look to play AGAINST the Steelers in their season opening home game versus Buffalo on Sept. 16th, with the public in mind we should be getting exceptional line value in this affair because the Steelers will have just taken Cleveland apart in their season opener and Denver will have probably done the same to Buffalo. The Bills performed well as a doggie last year in covering 7 of 10 ATS in this role and that includes covering at New England and at Miami last year to start the season while receiving +9.5 and +6.5 respectively, its also nice to know that according to the ole history book Buffalo has covered an amazing 14 of their last 16 games ATS during week 2 of a new season.
3) Cincinnati: The Ben Gals won the AFC North divisional crown in 2005 with a regular season record of 11-5 only to have their Super Bowl dreams flushed down the proverbial toilet when QB Carson Palmer went down with a knee injury against Pittsburgh in the playoffs. Physically Palmer was able to make it back to the field of play last season but emotional scars from that injury lingered and contributed to Cincinnati posting a mark of 8-8 last season, however, not all the blame should be shouldered by Palmer and his offense because they received little in the way of help from a Ben Gal defense that ranked a shoddy 31st in the league by seasons end.
Needless to say CIncy HC Marvin Lewis has his work cut out for him with regard to his defense, however, the high powered Cincinnati offense returns basically intact, though the team needs to find a third receiver to replace the suspended Chris Henry, and must also sort out a running back depth chart where rookie Kenny Irons (Auburn), former Michigan first-round pick Chris Perry, and Kenny Watson will all be fighting for touches behind starting RB Rudi Johnson.
Cincinnati had a pretty good draft and they have a fairly easy to navigate non divisional schedule with regard to getting to face New England, the Jets, Arizona, and St Louis all at home in Bengal land, outside of the AFC North the toughest road game for Cincinnati will be their week three trip to Seattle, but the good news is that they will have an extra day of rest following their trip home to Cincinnati from Seattle as they will be facing the Pats at home on MNF the following week. Projected record: 8-8
**Look to play On these Ben Gals when they visit Kansas City on Oct 14th, Cincy will be fresh from a week of rest and will have refocused after opening their season up by playing three of their first four games against playoff bound competition. The Ben Gals opened last season with a 23-10 win at KC as 2 point road doggies but may be the slight favorite in this affair and if that is the case its nice to know that Cincy was now covered 7 or their past 8 games ATS versus the AFC West and according to the ole history book Cincy is in their best role when installed as a road favorite as evidenced by covering 7 of 8 times ATS over the past three seasons in this situation!
4) Cleveland: HC Romeo Crennel and his coaching staff have their work cut out for them this season as they must improve an offense that ranked 31st and a defense that ranked 27th last year if they want to retain their jobs next year. In truth the Brownies had an excellent draft highlighted by snagging OT Joe Thomas and QB Brady Quinn in the first round and CB Eric Wright in the second round. In an attempt to bolster the offensive line Cleveland also brought in free agent and former Bengal OG Eric Steinbach to pair up with LeCharles Bentley who missed the entire 2006 season after blowing out his knee during the first practice of last years training camp. Cleveland also brought in former Raven RB Jamal Lewis, who has a lot to prove this year, to run behind what should be a pretty good line should they remain healthy and gel as a unit.
Defensively Cleveland struggled to stop the run last year as evidenced by ranking 27th out of 32 teams in this category, as a means of taking care of this problem the Brownies brought in Robaire Smith from the Titans and Shaun Smith from the Bengals to hopefully raise the overall level of play. In the big picture Cleveland has the tough task of residing in the AFC North which has three playoff caliber teams in Baltimore, Pittsburgh, and instate rival Cincinnati which means that the Brownies will once again be in the basement waiting on next years elevator. Projected record: 5-11
** Look to play AGAINST these Brownies when they visit Oakland on Sept 23rd, Cleveland will have had played their first two games of the season at home against Pittsburgh and Cincinnati which are two of their biggest rivals and they have a home game against Baltimore on deck following this contest, which means that Cleveland is in a “sandwich” game when they visit the Raiders. This contest is a revenger for Oakland who lost at home to Cleveland last year by the final of 21-24 as 2.5 point home doggies, the Raiders had a top 10 defense last year and they should be able to exact some revenge against a Cleveland team that is fresh off two hard hitting divisional games.
Jim Campbell runs www.footballforecastor.com which has been an internet based sports handicapping service since 1997, you will be hard pressed to find another handicapper that has had the kind of success Jim has had, over the past eight years he has maintained one of the very best winning percentages of any sports handicapping service.
Jim Campbell runs http://www.FootballForecastor.com which has been an internet based sports handicapping service since 1997, you will be hard pressed to find another handicapper that has had the kind of success Jim has had, over the past eight years he has maintained one of the very best winning percentages of any sports handicapping service.
Jim Campbell finished the final four weeks of the 2005 NFL regular season with a mark of 14-5-2 ATS coming down the stretch for a winning rate of 73.68% and for the season in the NFL he finished with an overall mark of 48-33-4 ATS for a winning rate of 59.26% and that includes a perfect mark of 7-0 ATS in the NFL Playoffs, Jim has posted a mark of 6-2 ATS over the past EIGHT years with his Super Bowl selection.
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