National respect for the the Ravens has not surprisingly crept up over the past 6 weeks. Baltimore's 5-1 record during that span is certainly reason to regard them as one of the hottest teams heading into the post-season. Many have credited the success to the major upswing in rushing production with the changing of the guard from Joe Flacco to Lamar Jackson. There's no question that the Jackson-led offense has allowed the Ravens to control the clock and keep their own defense and opposing offenses off the field, but one has to examine the health of the team and available personnel over the course of this season to truly understand the Ravens' highs and lows.
Too many people looked at the mid-season slump the Ravens experienced and suggested that it was the result of Joe Flacco being "finished." Closer examination of the available personnel during the Ravens' losses, however, reveals a starkly different narrative. Casual fans ignore the fact that Ravens top corner Marlon Humphrey and 3 of the Ravens 5 starting offensive linemen went down during the mid-season slump. To add to that, Jimmy Smith made his return a week after Humphrey was injured, and it took weeks for him to round into reasonable form. It's no surprise the Ravens sputtered against the Panthers without legitimate pass protection for Joe, and it's no surprise that the Ravens struggled to edge the Saints without Marlon Humphrey to cover Michael Thomas.
I am in no way suggesting that the Ravens should now put the ball back in Joe Flacco's hands--it's clear they have absolutely no intention of returning him to starter status. I am, instead, pointing to something else that will make this Ravens team incredibly dangerous going into the playoffs if they handle business on Sunday against the Browns. The Ravens are healthy. It matters not how strong or hot a team is through the first half or even the first 3 quarters of a season. As Baltimore has shown the world, it only matters that a team makes it to the playoffs and that they're healthy when they do so. I repeat: the Baltimore Ravens are healthy. They are as healthy as a professional football team could conceivably be at this point in the season, and it has allowed them to physically bully not only mediocre and bad teams but also the Chargers last weekend.
The health of a team can change in an instant, and it thus requires tremendous fortune to stay relatively healthy all the way through to the Super Bowl. It is for this reason that I don't like the idea of run-first quarterback as a long-term solution for any professional team. It's easy to become enamored with the electric playmaking ability of a guy who runs a 4.3 forty yard dash as has been seen with the likes of Michael Vick and RG3, but on a long enough timeline, running the football leads to frequent injuries. That isn't to say that a mobile quarterback can't win a Super Bowl, but Lamar Jackson's game will have to quickly evolve to mirror that of Russell Wilson if he wants to both stay healthy and find long-term success in this league.
At least for this season Ravens fans shouldn't worry about Lamar Jackson becoming injured. It's not that he is somehow impervious to bodily harm, but his backup is one of NFL history's greatest playoff quarterbacks. Joe Flacco almost certainly won't play for the Baltimore Ravens next season, but they aren't about to cut him now. If the Ravens find themselves down 10-14 points in the 4th quarter of any game going forward, they may, in fact, turn to old Joe to conserve clock and mount a comeback. In any event, this is a Ravens team that now has both the ability to run the football whilst chewing up clock AND light up opposing secondaries through the air late if need be.
I stepped back from writing for weeks to fully observe what the Ravens have in Jackson and their new look offense. It seemed foolish initially to draw major conclusions from Lamar's first few wins against struggling teams with atrocious defenses. In many cases, timely touchdowns from the defense and special teams helped to put away teams late when Lamar couldn't lead his team into the endzone. That very same scenario occurred against the Chargers last Saturday as well, but it's safe to suggest that the defense is far less exhausted and thus more prone impact plays and turnovers because time-consuming drives from Jackson and company have kept them fresh on the sidelines. Lamar even threw for 200+ yards against a fast, widely feared Chargers defense, and that gives me reason to believe that he's getting better every single week he starts.
The Baltimore Ravens may not be the best team in the NFL at this moment, but it's difficult for me to think of any team in the AFC that is significantly more well-equipped for a post-season run than a team that can run the football on virtually anyone and play defense better than literally any team in the league. Now all that's left to do is beat the Browns. How hard could that be, right? Oh. Right. They're kind of awesome now too. Welp, time to break out the defibrillator lest the people watching next to me realize I've gone down with a major cardiac event because Baker Mayfield ruined the end of my year.
WEEK 17 PICKS
DISCLAIMER: A sizable number of this week's games feature no playoff teams or possible playoff teams and are, therefore, without legitimate motivation for either team to win. It would, in fact, behoove any team that can't go to the playoffs to lose as it moves their draft placement up. It is for this reason that I will separate relevant from irrelevant games for this week.
IRRELEVANT GAMES
DOLPHINS AT BILLS- The Miami Dolphins were quite an enigma this season. They began the season 3-0 and then proceeded to beat both the Bears and Patriots at later points, but they fell two wins short of legitimate playoff contention going into the final week of the season. The Bills' season went even worse at 5-10, and they already lost to the Dolphins in Miami a month ago. The Dolphins' 1-6 road record, however, is both the biggest reason they will miss the playoffs and the biggest reason to believe they'll fall to the Bills in Week 17. BILLS 23-17
LIONS AT PACKERS- The Matt Patricia experiment didn't quite go as planned as the Lions have gone 5-10 thus far, but far more shocking was the fact that the Packers went 6-8-1. Aaron Rodgers' once-in-generation talent wasn't enough to will his team to a playoff berth in 2018. This only reinforces a view I've expressed to many that making even the most elite quarterback the highest paid player in the league is a recipe for disaster as the NFL salary cap is so low that doing so means not being able to pay for talent at many other vitally important positions. The Ravens did it, Falcons did it, and now the Packers did it, and not a single one of those franchises have seen the same level of success since the respective record-setting contracts were signed.
As with every game where the outcome has no bearing on the post-season, the motivation to win is questionable as it hurts draft position, but for a franchise with a new head coach, such as the Lions, an opportunity to show growth and progress by ending the season with a win is a tremendous incentive. Dome teams don't typically fare particularly well in harsh outdoor environments such as Lambeau Field in late December. The Lions have also fallen off the map from an offensive standpoint as the last time they scored 20 or more points was 6 weeks ago. The last time these two teams faced one another, the Lions won 31-23 as Detroit capitalized early on mistakes made by Green Bay. Rodgers still threw for nearly 450 yards and 3 touchdowns, and it is for that reason that I believe he won't struggle the second time around to shred Detroit's secondary and give his home crowd a reason for optimism leading into next season. This will still be a hard fought game.
PACKERS 28-21
FALCONS AT BUCCANEERS- The Falcons have, as I mentioned before, proven that throwing a mega contract at a quarterback doesn't magically improve your team--in fact it tends to ruin a team's chances at success. It is for that reason that teams need to reconsider the popular adage that "this is a pass-driven league, so you need a franchise quarterback to be successful." It isn't a horrible thing to have someone you'd consider to be your franchise quarterback, but you'll likely not experience championship-winning success with him if you've broken the bank to keep him around. The Ravens, Seahawks, and Eagles showed in the last 6 years that having a talented quarterback on an inexpensive rookie contract allows a team to have enough cap space to surround the young signal caller with enough talent to win a Super Bowl. Even the veteran quarterbacks who have won Super Bowls in the last 6 years, Tom Brady and Peyton Manning, were on relatively cap-friendly deals at the later stages in their careers to allow their respective teams to retain such players as Darrelle Revis and Von Miller.
The Buccaneers have had the misfortune of facing three likely playoff-bound teams over the past 3 weeks, while the Falcons have put together back to back wins as of late over two relatively inept teams. The fact that this game is in Tampa may be enough to tip the scales in favor of the Bucs, but something tells me the Falcons are set to ride their recent momentum into a season-ending road win in a warm road environment.
FALCONS 33-27
RELEVANT GAMES
JETS AT PATRIOTS- The Patriots have clinched their own division, but they can't afford to rest their starters as they still have a chance to lose their #2 seed status if they lose and the Texans win. The Jets have lost some painfully close games to competitive teams, but they don't match up well with the Patriots--and this game will be in Foxboro.
PATRIOTS 31-17
PANTHERS AT SAINTS- Without Cam Newton the Panthers can't find a way to win. SAINTS 24-13
COWBOYS AT GIANTS- The Giants have been as bad at home as the Cowboys have been on the road this season, but a win or loss this week will not change the Cowboys' playoff seeding. Jason Garrett says that healthy players will play, but I have a feeling that the Cowboys won't force the issue if they find themselves down. Tough to imagine Cowboys players being anxious to play their hearts out in a totally meaningless game. Let the Giants have their fun this week.
GIANTS 23-21
JAGUARS AT TEXANS- The Texans dominated the Jaguars 20-7 earlier this season in Jacksonville, so it's difficult to imagine a tremendously different outcome in Houston. The Jags have fallen the hardest of any team considered elite last season, and it's not entirely clear why that happened. The Texans overcame an incredibly rough 0-3 start to the season to find themselves winners of 9 of their last 11 games, but their two losses during that stretch have come within the last 3 weeks. The rcent loss of Demaryius Thomas doesn't render the Texans totally useless, but it certainly takes them down a notch as a Super Bowl contender. The Texans will smack around the Jaguars again because they have to win to ensure they lock up their own division, but I don't see them advancing to the AFC Championship this post-season.
TEXANS 27-17
CHARGERS AT BRONCOS- The Chargers have the misfortune of being in the same division as the Chiefs. The Chargers, in fact, BEAT the Chiefs two weeks ago, but still lose out through tie breakers to Kansas City. It's highly unlikely that the Chiefs will drop a game to the Raiders at home this week, but maybe the chance that they could is enough to give the Chargers motivation to take care of business against the Broncos in order to possibly leapfrog the Chiefs for the #1 overall seed in the AFC.
On the other hand, if the Chargers are TRULY smart, they'll scrap the idea of desperately playing for something they likely won't get and will sit their starters because doing so will serve as a functional bye week. They also have been so good on the road this season that home-field advantage is less of a factor as it would be for many other teams. I fully expect, however, that the Chargers will play to win this game, while the Broncos are better off losing. It must be noted that the Broncos narrowly upset the Chargers in L.A. earlier this season.
CHARGERS 23-20
RAIDERS AT CHIEFS- The Chiefs only beat the Raiders by a touchdown in L.A. a month ago, but something tells me it won't be quite as close in Kansas City this time around. The Chiefs can't lose this game or they risk not only losing the #1 seed but also falling to wildcard team status. The loss of Kareem Hunt and lackluster defense doesn't give me confidence that the Chiefs will make a deep run in the post-season, but they'll handle business this week with a solid win over a team they already beat on the road.
CHIEFS 34-21
49ERS AT RAMS- The 49ers have won 2 of their last 3 to build a surprising amount of late-season momentum despite no shot at the playoffs. They beat the Broncos and surging Seahawks despite losing Jimmy Garoppolo early in the season. Despite their recent success, the 49ers do not match up well with the Rams who beat the 49ers in San Francisco earlier this season 39-10.
RAMS 30-16
BEARS AT VIKINGS- This is one of the few games this week that feature two teams vying for playoff position. The Bears have already clinched their division, but they have the opportunity to knock out a division rival if the Eagles also manage to win this week. The Vikings are 8-6-1 at the moment, but they risk going 8-7-1 and missing the playoffs entirely. The Bears also have an outside chance at leapfrogging the Rams in playoff seeding, so they'll have more than one motivation to win this game. The last game in Chicago between these two teams was a fairly close 25-20 win for the Bears, and Chicago hasn't produced much offensively as of late The Bears suffered 3 out of their 4 losses on the road, while the Vikings are 5-2 at home. Homefield advantage and a greater need to win should be enough to propel the Vikings to a narrow victory this week, but they're not good enough to make much of a run in the playoffs as a wildcard team.
VIKINGS 24-21
BENGALS AT STEELERS- Ravens fans know all too well how much the Bengals relish the opportunity to play spoiler to a division rival. With Andy Dalton in injured reserve, Vontaze Burfict doubtful to play, Tyler Boyd out, and A.J. Green not healthy, it's difficult to imagine that THIS Bengals team has remotely enough clout to get the job at the end of this season. The irony is that the Steelers can play their hearts out and absolutely dismantle the Bengals--and a Ravens win over the Browns will mean it will have been all for naught.
STEELERS 38-17
CARDINALS AT SEAHAWKS- This isn't an entirely meaningless game for the Seahawks as a loss coupled with a Vikings win would drop them from the 5th to the 6th seed in the NFC playoff bracket, but whether they win or lose, the Seahawks will be a wildcard playoff team. In light of that, it would greatly behoove them to sit their starters at least for the second half of this game. A functional bye week is dramatically more important than having the 5th as opposed to the 6th seed. Pete Carroll, however, disagrees. He believes that momentum is more important than having starters rested, so he insists he's going to play his starters.
SEAHAWKS 24-10
EAGLES AT REDSKINS- The Redskins were blown out by the Eagles a month ago and there's little reason they'd be able to beat a team desperately holding on for a chance to make the playoffs. Washington has some good pieces for next season, but there's simply not enough there to play spoiler this week.
EAGLES 28-17
BROWNS AT RAVENS- The Browns are 2-5 on the road this season, but both of their road wins have come during the last 6 weeks during which they've won 5 of their games. The problem is that literally all of the teams the Browns beat during that time are totally inept because of major injury issues. Two out of those 5 wins came against the Bengals who are missing most of their big name starters, one win came by a single point over a horrible Broncos team, one win came over the Panthers who haven't won in months, and another came against a Falcons team that has proved incredibly disappointing this season. When going up against a playoff team, the Texans, the Browns were soundly trounced 29-13. The Ravens may still struggle to produce offensively considering the propensity for Lamar Jackson's offense to score only a single touchdown per game, but the Ravens defense held the Browns to 12 points in Cleveland the first time these two teams met this season. Now the Ravens are limiting opposing teams possible possessions by chewing up game clock, and at the very least, they should be good for 16-20 points. This will be a slugfest of epic proportions, but the Ravens have stifled much better quarterbacks than Baker Mayfield this season; they're likely not going to let a rookie get the best of them in Baltimore. Oh, and if the Ravens find themselves down late with little time left...there is a guy they can turn to who knows how to run a two minute drill.
RAVENS 20-13
COLTS AT TITANS- This may be the most hotly contested game of the week as the winner will make the playoffs and the loser will not. Both teams sit at 9-6, but the Colts easily defeated the Titans when these two teams last met earlier this season. The Titans have won their last 4 games, but all of those wins came against non-playoff teams. The last two games the Titans played against playoff teams happened to be against Colts and Texans, and both Indy and Houston absolutely brutalized the Titans. The Colts have been red-hot as of late and were even able to beat the Texans in Houston several weeks ago. It's tough to imagine a Colts team that so easily dismantled the Titans a month ago suddenly falling to them just because they're playing on the road. It's fitting that this final showdown will be the Sunday night game, and hopefully it proves closer and more exciting than I anticipate.
COLTS 31-23
This week could prove a defining moment in the career of John Harbaugh. For the first phase his career, many people remarked that his team truly belonged to Ed Reed and Ray Lewis. It was suggested that Harbaugh simply walked into a fortunate situation, but he didn't offer any sort of offensive or defensive system of his own to put his stamp on the franchise. It's true that John isn't a guru of anything other than special teams, but he has done a great job of motivating his players and maintaining a sense of brotherhood and unity that many veteran players have stated they never felt in other organizations. All the Ravens have to do is win this week to lock up the division and secure a home playoff game the following weekend.
If, however, the Ravens fall in heartbreaking fashion to a Browns team with nothing left to play for other than pride and to play spoiler to a potential playoff team, John's legacy as a head coach will take a major hit. This is where we see what his organization is able to do when everything is on the line. Battling back into contention only to fall short in the end again simply won't do. They NEED to win right now.
NOW AND FOREVER
GO RAVENS!!!
No comments:
Post a Comment