Football Footnotes: It’s about to get nuts in the AFC North
Share this post:
Here’s one thing we know about the AFC North heading into Sunday’s schedule for sure.
It won’t be another perfect week for the division.
After all four teams won last week, that can’t happen again this Sunday because two of the clubs — the Baltimore Ravens and Cleveland Browns — play each other at 1 p.m. Sunday in Baltimore.
So where will the Steelers be within the infrastructure of the division come Sunday evening? That’s what we examine in this week’s “Friday Football Footnotes.”
• Let’s start with the Steelers’ game against the Green Bay Packers (3-5) at 1 p.m. Sunday at Acrisure Stadium. The Steelers (5-3) come in as 3.5-point favorites, according to Caesars.
That feels spot-on. Because, let’s face it, the Steelers are never going to blow out anyone. Ever.
Every single win they’ll have between now and the end of time will be a white-knuckle, fingernail-biting, low-scoring, four-quarter grind.
And then sometimes they’ll lose 30-6.
The Steelers need this win badly to make sure they take two of these three games in a row that they’ve had at home and improve to 3-1 in this stretch of games out of the bye against non-divisional opponents.
Getting to 6-3 with two divisional road games coming up at Cleveland and Cincinnati would be huge. Having a three-game cushion between themselves and a .500 record would do wonders for their place in the standings and for their own psyche.
In Year 1 post-Aaron Rodgers, the Packers are a slightly below-average, nondescript NFC team. In Year 2 post-Ben Roethlisberger, the Steelers are a slightly above-average, nondescript AFC team.
Both clubs got their running backs going a little bit last week. The Packers’ offense is 24th in the NFL (300 yards per game). The Steelers are 28th (278.5). The Packers allow 19.9 points per game (10th in the NFL). The Steelers yield 20.4 (13th). The Steelers’ strength of schedule is .552, the third toughest in the AFC. The Packers’ strength of schedule is .457, the fourth easiest in the NFC. The Steelers are plus-8 in the turnover battle. The Packers are minus-2.
The Steelers will win 20-16. It’ll be ugly. But 6-3 in the standings will look remarkably good, all things considered.
Related
• Encouraged by debut calling plays from sideline, Steelers OC Matt Canada ready for encore
• Steelers’ Patrick Peterson, a longtime NFL cornerback, enjoyed playing safety more than he ever has
• Broderick Jones on track to start again at RT, appreciative of support from Steelers veterans
• In the Browns-Ravens showdown, Baltimore comes in scalding hot. The Ravens have won four in a row and sit atop the division at 7-2. The Browns are 5-3, in third place in the North, currently holding the sixth playoff seed in the AFC.
Baltimore won the first matchup 28-3 in Week 4 and has averaged 32.5 points per game during its four-game win streak. John Harbaugh’s team is only allowing 12.25 points per game during that time. The Ravens haven’t lost since their 17-10 defeat on Oct. 8 in Pittsburgh.
Meanwhile, the Browns have won three of their past four games, and quarterback Deshaun Watson has been a full participant in practice both days this week after playing a full game with a 107.5 passer rating en route to a 27-0 shutout win over the Arizona Cardinals last week.
Something to keep in mind: three of those Ravens wins during their recent hot streak came against NFC teams. Jackson is now 18-3 against NFC teams, who rarely have to prepare for his skillset and rarely do it well.
The AFC North teams are much more adept at that. He’s 16-9 against his own division. Pretty good. But not quite as dominant.
That said, Jackson is 7-3 against the Browns. Baltimore is a 6.5-point favorite. I bet the Browns keep it close. Give me Cleveland to cover, but the Ravens win 26-22.
• Like Baltimore, Cincinnati (5-3) is in the midst of a four-game win streak. They are also in the midst of a brutal stretch of games. The three most recent victories for the Bengals have come against the Seahawks, 49ers and Bills — all teams above .500. Cincy’s next four games are all against clubs currently .500 or better as well (Texans, Steelers, Ravens and Jaguars).
Sunday’s 1 p.m. kickoff is at home against the surprisingly adequate Houston Texans (4-4). If you thought Houston quarterback C.J. Stroud was good against the Steelers earlier this year, hopefully, you saw him last week against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. The rookie was 30 of 42 for 470 yards and five touchdowns.
Meanwhile, it looks like Bengals quarterback Joe Burrow is going to be without wide receiver Tee Higgins thanks to a hamstring injury. And fellow wide receiver Ja’Marr Chase is struggling with a bad back.
The Bengals are 6.5-point favorites in this game. My hunch is they probably win. Houston is just 1-3 on the road. But I’d jump on the points right now and take Houston to cover. If Chase can’t go on Sunday, you might even want to pick Houston in the outright upset.
But for now, I’m leaning toward Cincinnati.
So if I’m right about all that — and, clearly, I won’t be — the Ravens will be 8-2 and atop both the division and the entire conference. The Kansas City Chiefs, who are also 7-2, are idle this week.
The Steelers will be 6-3, still in position for the top wild card as they are right now. The Bengals, at 6-3, would leapfrog the Browns into third place in the division and sixth place in the conference. And the Browns, at 5-4, could still make it all four teams from the North in a playoff spot, depending on what clubs such as the Bills (5-4), Jets (4-4) and Chargers (4-4) do.
Keep in mind the Bills host the 3-5 Denver Broncos on “Monday Night Football.”
So don’t expect all four AFC North teams in the playoff bracket come Tuesday morning. And don’t expect anything but chaos moving forward after the Steelers go to Ohio over the next two weeks to visit the Browns and Bengals, with the Bengals also hosting Baltimore on Nov. 16.
That’s when things will really get nutty in the North.