AFC North: Hard Part Here for Ravens

Football Betting Lines

11/12/2008 - (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - The Baltimore Ravens won't get the same credit as the Atlanta Falcons or Miami Dolphins for their abrupt turnaround.

The Ravens were 5-11 in their final year under Brian Billick a year ago, but they were a playoff team in 2006 and didn't experience the same kind of extended lows that their southerly brethren did.

Thankfully, the Baltimore organization and its fans didn't have to suffer through Michael Vick, Bobby Petrino, Dave Wannstedt, or the pre-rehabilitated Ricky Williams.

And even when times have been hard in Charm City, there has always been enough talent to avoid consistent embarrassment...the Ray Lewises, Ed Reeds, Todd Heaps, and (previously) Jonathan Ogdens made sure of that.

Still, let's not pretend the Ravens didn't have a mountain to climb to get to 6-3 as Week 11 of the 2008 season is set to begin.

Prior to September, how many people were willing to say out loud that they believed this team could compete in a division that the Steelers and Browns were supposed to rule?

When, after Kyle Boller's season-ending injury and Troy Smith's mysterious illness during the preseason left the Ravens with de facto emergency quarterback Joe Flacco as their starter, how many had Baltimore plumbing the depths of 2-14?

My hand is raised.

And now, how many are trying to write a revisionist history of their preseason prognostications, offering up a lame, "Yeah, well, they always had defensive talent, and...errr...we knew the Flacco kid had the arm...but, uh, didn't think they'd mature quite this...etc., etc., blather, blather, blather..."

Well, whatever. No matter what the pundits are saying now, their (our?) preseason forecast for the Ravens was almost universally off the mark.

John Harbaugh and company indeed moved to 6-3 with Sunday's 41-13 outclassing of the Houston Texans, once again combining stifling defense and increasingly electric play from Flacco and the offense to win its fourth consecutive game.

Later, the Ravens caught a break when the Steelers dropped a home contest to the Colts, moving Baltimore into a tie in the AFC North and launching expectations into the stratosphere for a team that is no longer rebuilding, if it ever was.

But now, things get tricky.

Of the seven remaining games, at least five will come against teams likely to be harboring serious playoff aspirations at the time of their meeting with the Ravens.

All four members of the contentious NFC East are still on the schedule, with trips to the Giants (11/6) and Cowboys (12/20) and home games with the Eagles (11/23) and Redskins (12/7) figuring to be tough.

The home date with the Steelers (12/14) isn't likely to be a picnic either, and while the remaining tilts at the Bengals (11/30) and at home with the Jaguars (12/28) should have Baltimore favored, the Ravens won't be rolling their helmet out on the field and winning those either.

If this Baltimore team is a legitimate contender, it will prove it over the upcoming seven-game stretch.

First test: the defending Super Bowl champion Giants (8-1), whose defense is guided by Harbaugh's friend and former co-worker with the Eagles, Steve Spagnuolo.

"It's going to be a huge challenge, not just for our offense, because we are going to play some of the top defenses in the league starting with the Giants this week," said Harbaugh. "They're one of the best coached defenses in the league. Steve Spagnuolo does a tremendous job with those guys. I'm pretty familiar with his style. It's going to be a challenge for all three phases, and we're looking forward to it."

STEELERS: There's no way to sugarcoat this one, and Ben Roethlisberger knows it. Though in a game where 45 players are active it is difficult to pin a loss on one person, Sunday's 24-20 home defeat at the hands of the Indianapolis Colts is on Big Ben.

Listed as questionable all week, Roethlisberger gutted out a shoulder injury suffered against the Redskins six days earlier to suit up and start versus Indianapolis.

The Steelers and their fans appreciated the gutty display, though all are wondering if things would have been different if Byron Leftwich, who played well in closing out the victory in Washington, had replaced Roethlisberger for this particular week.

On two occasions, the Pro Bowler set the Colts up with lay-up touchdowns thanks to particularly ill-timed interceptions.

The first came with less than two minutes to play in the first half and Pittsburgh firmly in control, 17-7. Instead of playing it safe on a 3rd-and-2 play from the Steelers 16, Roethlisberger overthrew a pass deep to Santonio Holmes, Keiwan Ratliff intercepted it and brought it to the Pittsburgh 30, and seven plays later Indy had cut the lead to a manageable 17-14 at the break.

The second came with fewer than five minutes to play in the fourth quarter, with the Steelers nursing a 20-17 lead and faced with a 3rd-and-4 play from their own 34. Again, Roethlisberger threw errantly to Holmes, Tim Jennings intercepted, and the Colts took all of four plays to post the game-winning score on a 17-yard wheel route to Dominic Rhodes with 3:10 to play.

Roethlisberger threw for 284 yards on 30-of-42 passing and was sacked just twice after being a human punching bag for most of the season to date, but the picks overshadowed any good the quarterback may have done.

"If this was an individual sport and I lost a game I wouldn't feel so bad," said Roethlisberger. "Letting the guys down; letting your teammates down. It hurts because, you never hear me say 'I' anything, but I lost this game and it hurts."

"The first [interception] was [from a] three-step [drop] and I couldn't find it and then once I found it, it was too late and I shouldn't have thrown it," said Roethlisberger. "The second one, I thought [Holmes] was coming under, and I made the mistake and threw it to him quick, and his route was a return route. I made a mistake. It was just a mistake on my part. I thought he was going to keep coming and he did what he was supposed to do. He was supposed to stop and go back out, and I tried to get it to him quick and I forgot he was going back out."

"It's frustrating because you feel like you played well and the turnover at the end of the half, and the turnover at the end, it's frustrating," said Roethlisberger. "When you feel like it is your fault, it really hurts. I take it on myself, I let the guys down, offense and defense, but the good thing is that it is not the end of the season, we'll come back."

BENGALS: Though it seems highly unlikely that he'll play again in what has become a lost season for the Bengals, Cincinnati has yet to rule starting quarterback Carson Palmer out for the year.

Palmer has missed five starts, including the last four in a row, with an injury to his throwing elbow, and will not start this week when the Bengals return from their bye with a home date against the Eagles. But the former Pro Bowler has yet to be placed on season-ending injured reserve, and neither Palmer nor head coach Marvin Lewis has definitively stated that he won't appear over the team's concluding six-game stretch.

That said, no one with the Bengals has expressed anything in proximity to optimism in regard to his possibility of playing, either.

Palmer may not want to officially hang it up in order to refute the perception that he's jumping off a sinking ship, though for pragmatic purposes, the notion of a quarterback in the prime of his career risking greater injury while playing behind one of the least effective offensive lines in the NFL seems foolhardy.

Meanwhile, head coach Marvin Lewis may be loath to push for Palmer to be shut down because Lewis might not have a future with the team beyond 2008, so it's not high on his list of priorities to officially sideline one of the Bengals' best players.

"There's been no indication that he needs surgery other than that would be a drastic measure," said Lewis of the injury. "The doctors agreed the best thing is to rest it."

"The biggest thing is he would like to play, so they're going to go through the timetable they set for him and stick to it."

Wideout T.J. Houshmandzadeh is among those talking more sensibly.

"It's never dawned on me that Carson would come back and play," said Houshmandzadeh. "Just rest and get ready for next year. The way this season has gone, there's no reason to put him out there and jeopardize next year or the rest of his career."

BROWNS: Did the Browns quit in their 34-30 loss to the Broncos on Thursday night?

Noting how the team blew leads of 23-10 and 30-27 and allowed Jay Cutler (447 yards) to do anything he wanted on a night when Denver otherwise had nothing going for it, several members of the Browns called out their teammates, albeit not by name.

That said, the fact that the players who spoke up were on the offensive end of the football speaks volumes.

"Some people need to check their egos at the door and find some heart to come out here and play hard," said Jamal Lewis in comments published by the News-Herald. "This is a man's game. The way we went out and played two weeks in a row, finishing the same kind of way, it's just not there. Some men around here need to check themselves. Straight up. That's it."

Lewis continued, "It looked to me like some people called it quits when we were up," You can't do that. You have to finish. Denver's back was to the wall just like ours is to the wall. But they came out and played good football. They were down. They kept their heads up, stayed poised and finished.

"This is as frustrated as I've been in however many years I've been playing. I've never seen anything like it. I'm not cut from this kind of cloth. I play physical football. I come out here and give it my all. I give it my all, all week. This is the NFL. You can't call it quits until the game is over."

Days later, in comments to ESPN.com, return man Joshua Cribbs echoed Lewis' sentiments.

"When you have a team like that that comes into our house and we're capable of beating them, that's the first thing that comes to mind," Cribbs said. "We can't figure out what man, but that's what it looked like - some guys quit...We know if everybody didn't quit, we would have won that ballgame."

"He goes out there and busts his tail every day, every game, and I do the same," said Cribbs of Lewis. "It hurts when people don't do the same and don't show the same will and don't show the same fire and desire for winning.

"It's a shame sometimes, but we just have to pull together as a team and weed out those guys and play the rest of the season out."

Even head coach Romeo Crennel got on board with the "we quit" sentiment, saying after the game, "We have to look at everybody and see who's not carrying their load and who's not holding up their end of it," said Crennel. "We have to see if we have other people available to try to motivate them."

The Browns' first chance to prove they have a heart in their collective chest will come in yet another primetime game, as Cleveland travels to meet desperate Buffalo in a Monday night tilt.