The AFC North

The Big Story

November 1st. That is the day that the Federal drug trial will start for last year’s 2000 yard rusher Jamaal Lewis of the Baltimore Ravens. The Feds have been looking at Lewis for a couple of years now but have only just decided to prosecute him and bring him to trial. Lewis has been the anchor of a Baltimore running attack that has been the main thrust of the team’s offense for the past 4 years since his emergence from UT. The Ravens have a trio of backs in Chester Taylor, Alan Ricard and former University of Georgia standout (and incidentally son of a man convicted of aiding and abetting the ’93 WTC terror cell) Musa Smith. None of them will see too much time carrying the ball for the first 8 weeks because the Ravens will need Lewis to guide the ground attack. Kyle Boller isn’t ready, he won’t be ready any time soon (even with Fassel’s help) and Slash is basically done. Brian Billick will hold his breath as deeply as every single fantasy owner out there that come season’s end Jamaal won’t have missed any time. After all, they usually don’t hold trials on Sundays.

Why It Doesn’t Matter

Because of 2 other men in the division named Lewis. First off, setting aside the Madden Jinx, the best linebacker on the planet will still be wearing number 52 for Baltimore and anchoring the most dominating defense in the league. Add another year of experience for youngsters Terrell Suggs and Ed Reed and you have a defensive unit that should provide enough takeaways and disrupt enough passing games to give the Ravens a lot of chances on offense. Out West a little ways lies Marvin Lewis, head coach of the Bengals. Cincy made great strides last year. They put together a nice winning streak and in November were actually in contention for the division, something that hasn’t happened since the days of the Ickey Shuffle. While the Bengals will live and die with the play of Rudi and Chad Johnson along with Carson Palmer, their defense will still be designed to do one thing and one thing only – stop Jamaal Lewis, the primary threat in their division. Regardless of who runs the ball in Baltimore, Marvin will be ready and waiting with a scheme designed to keep the Ravens in 3rd and long all day.

Team By Team Projections

1st – The Ravens – We already touched on it a bit. Kyle Boller is not the answer for Baltimore. While he has the size and arm strength to throw with anyone in the league, he’s simply not a good decision maker or accurate passer. Decision making is something that Jim Fassel will emphasize and will try to improve. But Boller’s accuracy as a passer and his near inability to throw a touch pass will not be changing any time soon. The good news for Baltimore is that Jamaal Lewis will continue to command enough attention that Boller isn’t going to need to worry about threading in too many passes. He should see lots of one on one coverage as teams bring up 8 men to stop the Raven running attack. The Ravens won’t need to score a lot of points to be successful. As I said before, they have the best defense in the league. They have good cover corners and the most opportunist safety the league has seen in years in Ed Reed, who can also return or block punts almost at will. The only question mark for the Ravens is the health of Peter Boulware, who at the time of this article is still on the Physically Unable to Perform (PUP) list and is not attending practice. Boulware’s speed and power make him an ideal pass rusher and a pretty good run stopper, but on this team, he’s not irreplaceable. Adalius Thomas is still on the roster and Edgerton Hartwell has the speed to move to the outside and take Boulware’s place until he is healthy again. In a division where none of the other three teams have a respectable offensive line, well, there’s going to be a lot of pain.

2nd – The Bengals – Yes, the Bengals. What has gone quietly unnoticed in Cincy is the improvement in their offense. Chad Johnson is establishing himself as one of the NFL’s elite wide outs. Rudi Johnson had a fantastic run last year filling in for Corey Dillon. Peter Warrick, while never having lived up to the expectations surrounding his Heisman campaign (and free shoes campaign) at Florida St, still possess great speed and can be a weapon if left in single coverage downfield. Most importantly, Marvin Lewis has brought and expectation of winning to one of the worst franchises in any sport. He’s also brought in Deltha O’Neal and Tory James to help play the corners and bolster a suspect nickel package from last year. The Bengals defense saw instant improvement under the tutelage of Marvin Lewis. Yes they were ranked 28th overall last year, but compared to the 32nd they would have been, that’s not too bad. Surprisingly, they were top half of the NFL in both rushing and passing. Of course, the big question in camp is why NFL comeback player of the year John Kitna was summarily benched in favor of unproven rookie Carson Palmer. And this could be the Achilles heel for the Bengals. Remember, Palmer didn’t have a good Heisman season. He had a good half. Palmer put up 85% of his numbers in the last 50% of his games. He now hasn’t played in a game situation consistently for well over a year. The learning curve here will be tough to overcome. He’ll be tested with a helacious road schedule that sees Cincy travel to Tennessee and then to New England and Philly in the last month of the season. As Palmer goes so goes this team. But they’re still better than Pittsburgh or Cleveland.

3rd – The Steelers – It wasn’t a good off-season in Pittsburgh. They lost their best linebacker in Jason Gildon and their best DB in DeWayne Washington. The Steelers had a nice draft, score Ben Roethlisberger, who many feel might have actually been the best QB in the draft, and got a couple of good prospects for their lines. The problem is that the Pittsburgh ground game won’t be any better this year than last year. Duce Staley didn’t leave Philly: he was forced out by Brian Westbrook, who outplayed him in ever facet of the game last year. Jerome Bettis has the proverbial fork sticking out of his back right now. Alan Faneca, the most dependable man on their line, may start the season playing out of position again. Pittsburgh still has the luxury of a strong 1-2 punch at wideout of Plaxico Burress and Hines Ward, but it remains to be seen which Tommy Maddox, the one from 02 or the one from 03, will show up to camp, and of course, how long before Big Ben can push him aside. One the other side of the ball the Steelers will be hurting significantly. A team that was ranked 9th overall in defense will experience a significant falloff with the losses of Gildon and Washington. They’ll face two good backs in division in Lewis and Johnson but they won’t see a potentially strong passing attack until week 9. Unfortunately for Pittsburgh, they won’t be scoring a lot of points, which means that the defense will be working that much harder every play and probably see little to no return.

4th – The Browns – The Browns logically should be better. They did get Jeff Garcia. They may have a healthy and non-suspended running back this year. They got The Great God of All Tight E…I mean Kellen Winslow II into camp with a record contract. But here’s the problem with Cleveland. Their offensive line couldn’t stop anyone last year. The Ravens and Bengals are arguably better defensively than they were last year. Dallas, Philly, New England and Miami are all on the schedule out of division and all of them can find a way to get to your quarterback. For his vaunted hands, Winslow is a bad blocking Tight End, which is why several analysts actually had Ben Troupe ahead of him on their boards for teams picking tight ends. William Green is completely unproven as a feature back and there is no one on the horizon behind him to take his job. James Jackson was the only man on the team to score even 6 TDs last year. 6. Priest Holmes himself had more TDs than the Browns’ offense. On the other side of the ball the Cleveland defense is a sieve against the run. They were ranked 23rd on the ground and will again face an onslaught of feature backs that will test them on every play. A defensive line featuring a potential 6 290+ pounders including former Florida standout Gerard Warren and FSU mainstay Orpheus Roye must begin to close holes this season and Penn St legend Courtney Brown must reach the QB or the Browns will be run right off the field week in and week out.

Stay tuned to moodspins all week for Mark’s NFL Preview. Up tomorrow – The NFC North!

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