Everyone seems to think they know who is going to win this week in the National Football League. There are teams that need a victory to earn or keep their playoff hopes alive and those teams that are headed to the off-season with seemingly “nothing” to play for.
On Saturday, we get a Baltimore Ravens team that needs a win over the Cleveland Browns to clinch the NFC North Division and earn a home postseason game. With a loss, the Ravens could drop to a Wild Card playoff role and open the postseason on the road. The team right behind them in this quest for the AFC North title is the Pittsburgh Steelers, who have dropped their last three games and would need both a win over the visiting Cincinnati Bengals and a loss by the Ravens to capture the title.
Seems easy.
Ravens over the Browns.
This is where the books come in to set point spreads that cloud the obvious. The Ravens opened as a 17-point favorite, a lot of points but a number I was willing to lay. Now, the spread has grown to 20 points, and the obvious is shrouded in a bad line. Over the past 25 seasons there have been 10 games in the NFL with a team favored by 20 or more points. The favorite is 10 and 0 straight-up in those games but has a 4 and 6 point spread record.
Seventeen, okay, 20, I’ll pass.
Then there are the Steelers, who need the game to win their division only if the Ravens lose the first game played on Saturday. If Cleveland upsets the Ravens the Steelers can capture the division with a victory in the second game played on Saturday,
But, while Mike Tomlin’s team is fading like a racehorse about to get run down on the back stretch, the Cincinnati Bengals can revive what has for the most part looked like a horrible season with a win on Saturday coupled with losses by the Denver Broncos and Miami Dolphins on Sunday.
Right now, before the Ravens game, both the Bengals and Steelers have something to play for … but by the time that game starts the only team with something to play for as far as the playoffs are concerned is likely to be the Bengals.
So, take the Bengals now giving less than a field goal in a game that will probably only matter to them?
There is a problem with that too.
The Steelers are a proud group, and the last thing Tomlin wants to do is lead his Pittsburgh group into the playoffs riding a four-game losing streak. There was a time when talk about the Steelers focused on how good their defense was and how Russell Wilson has resurrected his career after a couple horrible seasons in Denver.
Now, the Steelers appear only advancing to the playoffs because of wins earlier in the season and the current state of Pittsburgh is not that of a team headed too deep into the postseason tournament.
Yet, the Bengals, who kept their flickering playoff hopes alive with an overtime win last week against the Cincinnati Bengals, have failed at every test this year when they had a chance to get back into the race and control their own destiny. Now they have one last chance, after surviving in overtime last week, in a season that Joe Burrow is considered for Most Valuable Player honors despite orchestrating one of his worst won/loss records.
Go figure.
That is just how bad the Bengals defense is, and while it looks obvious for Cincinnati to win in Pittsburgh on Saturday, don’t bet on it.