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| The Bengals look to avenge their Week 1 loss while the Ravens hope to move up in the AFC playoff seeding. Photo credit to WhoDeyFans. |
The AFC playoffs are set as far as who is in and who is out.
The Bengals are in. The Ravens are in. The Bengals are locked into the 6th
seed and the Ravens are very unlikely to move up from their #4 seed.
After a four-game win streak after their bye week, Baltimore
lost three straight – to Pittsburgh, Washington and Denver – and then handily
beat the New York Giants at home last Sunday, 34-17.
Looking at the teams they’ve played this season, a big thing
stands out to me. They have struggled against teams with solid rushing attacks.
They’ve beaten a few of them, but not without trouble. Though Ray Lewis has
been taken off IR, he will not play this week and so they’ll be another week
before I trust them to stop a back like BenJarvus Green-Ellis.
Cincinnati has come a long way since that Week 1 Monday
night loss to Baltimore in which I jumped the gun and said Joe Flacco was a
top-tier quarterback with the way he ran the hurry-up offense. The 44-13 final
score is no doubt something that will drive the Bengals through practices this
week.
Even though they aren’t playing for playoff positioning,
they are playing for pride, and Marvin Lewis made it clear this week that he
wants Cincinnati to be mentioned in the same breath with Baltimore and
Pittsburgh when we look at AFC North teams. He knows the way to do that is to
back up last week’s win over the Steelers with a win this week against the
Ravens.
If you listened to The All-Sports Crew on WMUC Sports last night, or if you checked my predictions
post I put up yesterday evening, you know I picked the Bengals to win this
game. I think Cincinnati is a more complete team right now.
Andy Dalton has struggled at times, but he has really
stepped up in crunch time this season. He has a running back in BenJarvus
Green-Ellis who only had one particularly good year in four with New England
but has found a home, and his mojo, in Cincinnati. Perhaps only slightly more
importantly, Dalton has a terrific receiver in A.J. Green who is young,
incredibly athletic and talented, and is already drawing comparisons to Calvin
Johnson, which I tend to have trouble arguing against.
On defense, Cincinnati is 8th in points allowed
per game (slightly better than Baltimore) and 6th in yards allowed
per game (much better than Baltimore’s ranking of 20th).
Additionally, Cincinnati is one of the least penalized teams on defense in the
NFL. Geno Atkins has been terrific all year, and his efforts have been rewarded
with a Pro Bowl bid. Leon Hall and Terrence Newman have been great on the
corners, and they have a great linebacker corps.
To top that all off, Cincinnati is at home. If Baltimore is
going to win this game, Joe Flacco is going to need to kill his ego and let
them center the game plan on Ray Rice.
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