AFC North Predictions

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Welcome to the AFC North, where three teams are jostling at the top, while the Browns just sit around being sad.
When I talk about where a team ranked last year, I will be using Football Outsiders’ DVOA (Defensive-adjusted Value Over Average). In their own words, “DVOA measures a team’s efficiency by comparing success on every single play to a league average based on situation and opponent.” It’s one of my favorite football stats. (You can read more about DVOA here.)
Let’s get to it.



Baltimore Ravens

I don’t care for the Ravens. I never have. I think I’ve cheered for them once in my life, and I felt absolutely filthy about it. Still, I can’t ignore the fact that they’re a pretty good team, even if they are led by non-elite QB Joe Flacco (for what it’s worth, Flacco rated as the 14th best quarterback in the league by Pro Football Focus, coming in just behind Ryan Fitzpatrick and just ahead of Teddy Bridgewater).

In what was supposed to be a down year for the Ravens, they held a 14 point lead over the Patriots in the AFC Divisional Round, before succumbing to Touchdown Tommy and some creative offensive playcalling, a tactic that John Harbaugh refers to as “witchcraft”. “Throw the Pats in the water to see if they float,” he screamed while being dragged off the field. (To the best of my knowledge, that did not actually happen.)

Even while ending up with a 10-6 record last year, the Ravens actually underperformed their Pythagorean win projection by almost a full win (0.9). By DVOA, they ranked 9th in offense and 6th in defense.

They lost Haloti Ngata in the offseason. Though he’s not quite the force he once was, he is still a formidable presence on the defensive line and he will be missed. The defense will take a hit, and I expect the offense to be inconsistent, but they’ll still likely end the season with 10 wins and the division.


Cincinnati Bengals

Before I get to my thoughts, let’s hear it from my good friend @TylerIAm:

Being a Bengals fan is like knowing your dad is leaving the house with a pocket full of cash on Christmas Eve ready to buy you the bike that you want, only he comes back with a pack of cigarettes. And socks. And he does it every year. And every year, you think he’s gonna come back with that bike. And every year he comes back with Marlboro Reds and no show socks.

This offseason saw Cincy really only lose some bit players. Terence Newman. Mike Pollak. Jermaine Gresham. Taylor Mays. Some decent depth, but no real needle movers there. A solid draft helped shore up the offensive line. AJ Hawk and the return of Michael Johnson should help a defense in its second year under defensive coordinator Paul Guenther. On offense, AJ Green, Gio Bernard and Tyler Eifert should all be healthy after injury marred seasons. A full season of Jeremy Hill (775 yards, 4 TDs on 5.2 YPC in 8 starts) starting should be exciting. This is Daddy-o leaving for the bike store.

But alas, Mike Brown is still the owner. Marvin Lewis is still the coach. Andy Dalton is still the quarterback. Those three things tell me how this 2015 season will end before it even starts. The Bengals will win between 8-10 games, qualify for the postseason and promptly lose in the first round. There is zero doubt in my mind that this will occur. Brown’s Bengals haven’t won a playoff game since 1990. Lewis is 0-6 in the postseason. Dalton has lost four straight playoff games to start his career. There are your cigarettes and socks.

Sounds like someone is ready for some Bengals football.

It’s like clockwork with the Bengals in Football Outsiders every year: they rank right around the middle of the pack in total DVOA (12th in 2014) and project to win somewhere between 8-9 games the following season (projected for 8.6 in 2015).

On defense, they had the fewest sacks in the league with 22. While their total pressures (sacks, hits and hurries) ranked 29th (240 for the season), I expect the number of sacks to rise this year. Last season, the league average for sack percentage by pressure was 15.2% (meaning that for every 100 combined pressures, you were expected to get a sack on 15.2 of those). Last season, the Bengals had the league’s worst percentage at 9.2%. There is a split second that separates a hit/hurry from a sack, and the Bengals were just a split second too late last season. If you want to look at an extreme example, the Jaguars ranked last in the league in total pressures (212), yet still racked up 49 sacks on their insane 23.1% average sack percentage by pressure. The Bengals low total pressures is concerning, but even if their sack percentage only rises to league average next season, that would put them in the neighborhood of 36 sacks.

They won’t be a great team this year, but I see them once again being a solid team that finds their way into the playoffs. Cigarettes and socks.


Pittsburgh Steelers

Martavis Bryant and Markus Wheaton became a bigger part of the offense in the second half of the season. That bodes well for an offense that ranked second in the league.

Still, it wasn’t the offense that let the team down last season. The defense ended the season ranked 30th in the league. That’s one of the reasons Dick LeBeau is now employed by the Titans. In his place is Keith Butler, who has been in the role of linebackers coach in Pittsburgh since 2003. The Steelers have had a number of memorable linebackers in that time, so the city of Pittsburgh is hoping he can apply some of that magic to the defense, who will be playing without the services of longtime safety Troy Polamalu. The loss of Polamalu shouldn’t really hurt them (he was getting by more on reputation than performance over the last few years), but he was still a major part of the defense since he entered the league.

If Butler can get the defense to be somewhere in the middle of the pack, I could see this team challenging for the division title. As it stands, I don’t think they’ll get there. They won’t end up 30th, but I wouldn’t be shocked to see them somewhere between 22-26. With this offense, that may be good enough to challenge for a wild card spot, but it won’t be good enough to win the division.



Cleveland Browns

Josh McCown and Johnny Manziel are currently embroiled in a heated quarterback battle, while Thad Lewis and Connor Shaw lurk in the shadows. That is quite possibly the saddest sentence I have ever written. (Since I wrote this, Manziel has had elbow soreness, so the following QBs are now talked about as future Browns: Pat Devlin, Jason Campbell, Tyler Thigpen and Josh Johnson.) The Browns seem legitimately shocked that McCown is bad and are practically begging to give the job to Manziel, but Manziel is terrible. Manziel’s entire offensive philosophy is to run around until the defense breaks down, then throw the ball up for grabs. He’s basically a much (MUCH) less effective Fran Tarkenton. Unfortunately, Mike Evans is no longer his teammate, and he’s not as elusive as he likes to think he is. So he will either wind up in a lifeless heap on the field or he’ll throw 40 interceptions. Or both. Probably both.
To be fair, Manziel is pretty accurate in the short-to-intermediate game. The problem is that he is not a quick decision-maker, which negates the accuracy. If you can’t get the ball out of your hand in rhythm, it doesn’t translate well to success in the short game. He’s young so he can improve, but I don’t have faith that he will.

Their defense was ranked 11th last season, but their offense was a woeful 24th. Even that defensive ranking is a little wonky: they were an impressive 2nd against the pass, but a terrible 31st against the run. It’s a passing league, so having a good passing defense is a good step, but being unable to stop the run certainly hurts.

But they’re wearing a darker orange now. A more threatening orange. Hide your children. The Browns are wearing darker colors.


The Browns will be terrible this year.

Thank you for reading. Dusty Evely is a staff writer for Titletown Sound Off. You can follow him on Twitter @DustyEvely. For even more Packers content, follow us on Twitter and Like us on Facebook.

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