Hey all, my name is Marcus and this is my first piece for ReclinerQB.com. I am Baltimore born and raised, a man who loves his Ravens, but I never let that cloud my judgement [Editors Note: I beg to differ]. Some of my Raven Nation will not be happy with all that I say and that's perfectly fine with me. Leave me a response so we can debate it. I welcome all responses. Now, let's get to it, shall we?
Ravens vs Steelers
This is arguably the best rivalry in football! I do not care what they say in the NFC North or NFC East. The Ravens and Steelers are so much alike, it's scary. They both have great defenses, pretty good special teams, are well coached and really well run franchises. They both seem to have the same question marks and that's the offensive line and secondary. Neither team protected their quarterback very well last year or had the greatest secondary in the league. The Steelers secondary got torched by the Saints, and the Ravens secondary made the Bills offense look like the 49ers of the late 80's.
The Joe Flacco led Ravens have not beaten the Steelers with Big Ben as the starter and that's where the two teams differ. Ben has made the big play when needed to beat the Ravens whereas Flacco has not. Now there are some factors that have led to Flacco not being able to make those big plays that were not directly his fault. For instance, lets look at last years playoff game. A dropped touchdown by Anquan Boldin, a fumble by Ray Rice and a dropped 4th and 18 pass that would have given them the 1st down. So the Steelers really didn't beat the Ravens...The Ravens beat themselves.
Now this is the 2011 season and the Ravens have addressed a few key areas that really needed to be addressed with the draft and some real good undrafted free agents. The Ravens drafted Jimmy Smith in the first round to help the secondary. He's a big physical corner who reminds me of Chris Mcallister when he was younger. You have receivers Torrey Smith and Tandon Doss. Torrey Smith will help take the top off of defenses while Tandon Doss is a young Derrick Mason type. Then you have undrafted rookie LaQuan Williams; this kid is going to be something special as a returner and wide receiver, mark my words on this.
On the defense you have young rookies like Pernell McPhee, who was not projected to be a big time pass rusher, but proved that he could be a real disruptive force during the preseason, even against other teams first string offenses. We have Sergio Kindle which this is basically his rookie season after missing all of last year with a fractured skull. Kindle looked real good during the preseason as well. These young guys along with the veterans, this team will be something to see on both sides of the ball.
The Ravens also addressed issues on the troubled offensive line. They signed Bryant McKinnie; a big and I do mean big left tackle who played for the Vikings last season. That move pushed Michael Oher back to the right tackle position where he seems to be a better fit, as of this point. They also signed Andre Gurode, the Pro Bowl center from the Dallas Cowboys. I really think this move was made in case Matt Birk was not ready for the season opener. They also traded for Lee Evans, the speedster from Buffalo who will be the veteran speed guy to help Torrey Smith learn to run his speed routes while taking the top off of defenses so that they can't stack 8 in the box to try and stop Ray Rice. In my opinion, the best signing the Ravens made was bringing in Vonta Leach, this guy is a bruiser fullback who has blocked for 1,000+ yard rushers the past couple of seasons.
On paper this Ravens team is much younger and faster than the 2010 version. Gone is "The Diva" Derrick Mason, the often injured Todd Heap, the complaining LeRon McClain and a few others. Now it's time for my quarterback, Joe Flacco, to prove to the rest of the NFL what I already know.......That Joe Flacco IS an elite quarterback, who if given the protection, can do the same things that Brady and Manning do, lead his team to victory on a regular basis. I am not saying that Flacco is in the same class as Brady and Manning, because we know he's not there yet. Within the next 2 years, he can and will be in that Brady, Brees and Rodgers class.
As it stands right now Big Ben and the Steelers have had the upper hand and that's something I may not like, but it is the truth. Like I said earlier, the Steelers are a very good team, and some forget they were in the Super Bowl last year.
My thing with the Steelers is their defense is getting old and I still have not heard of them doing anything significant as far as free agency is concerned. This will be the first time that Flacco will beat Big Ben and the Steelers. Both teams will win the home games against each other. I do not give final scores, as they are way too hard for me to predict.
This will be the first year, Joe Flacco and the Ravens will have a home playoff game we will see what happens then.
Bengals vs Browns
Now for the the Bengals vs Browns game. This game should be a little more entertaining than most believe. The Browns are better than what people think and they should beat the Bengals. The Bengals are in such disarry and with a rookie quarterback I see them finishing in last place in the division.The records will break down like this:
Baltimore 12-4
Steelers 11-5
Browns 6-10
Bengals 4-12
I take it that a lot people are not big fans of Colt McCoy, but when you really watch him, the offense responds to him and he seems to be better than I thought he would be. He doesn't have that big arm like Big Ben and Flacco, but what he does have is the respect of the players around him and they will fight for him.
Will that help that team to a record better then say 8-8? Well I don't think so, but then again I am no expert, I could be wrong.
I am not even going to talk about the Bengals until they can prove to me, that they know what they are doing. The front office is a mess [Editor's Note: The Bengals front office is always a mess], the team is a mess, so why does anyone except Bengals fans expect anything good from them? Good luck with that.
Make Sure to Follow Marcus on Twitter: @MWyche2
Well, that's all for this week. Talk to you all on Tuesday.http://www.baltimorebeatdown.com/2011/7/31/2307587/ravens-sign-fb-vonta-leach
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