Steelers bad, Ravens good? Ravens bad, Steelers good? Making sense of what’s happening in the AFC North

Steelers bad, Ravens good? Ravens bad, Steelers good? Making sense of what’s happening in the AFC North
By MJD

I know it's a bad idea to draw any definitive conclusions about the NFL season based on the results of the first two weeks, but I do have a tendency towards overly-quick conclusion-drawing. It's a constant struggle to fight that.

That said, it would have been nice if we could have, through the first two weeks of the season, gleaned some kind of information about what was going to happen at the top of the AFC North.

Come on, Ravens and Steelers. Work with me a little bit. Sure, we know some things -- for example, that the Bengals or Browns won't be winning the division. We've known that for years, and that's okay. That's not what they're here for right now.

At the top, though? Baltimore and Pittsburgh? What do we know? These first two weeks have been like episodes of "Lost." I'm pretty sure I saw Nikki and Paolo on the Pittsburgh sidelines yesterday.

In week one, Pittsburgh looked awful and Baltimore trucked them, and the narrative was, "Baltimore looks really, really good and the Pittsburgh defense is old and slow and done." Fast-forward seven days, when they both have games against teams that should be doormats. Pittsburgh wiped their feet on their doormat, and Baltimore tripped over theirs.

And now, the narrative is -- well, there isn't one, since no one knows what the hell to believe. So who's who and what's what?

My preseason prediction was that the division would be Pittsburgh's and that Baltimore would slip out of the playoffs. After the manhandling of Pittsburgh in week one, I switched up the Absurdly Premature Playoff Picture to give the division to Baltimore, and a wildcard to Pittsburgh.


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It's fun to analyze what we've seen so far. We all can agree or disagree, and it gives us something to talk about. But all we can do is analyze where teams are right now. There's no way of knowing where teams like the Ravens and Steelers will be in December and January.

Here's something to consider. In 1989, we opened with Cleveland.

Browns 51
Steelers 0

In game 2, we played Cincy.

Bengals 41
Steelers 10

Not only did we start off 0-2, but we got absolutely HAMMERED in both games. We went on to finish 9-7 and get a Wild Card. Be beat the Oilers in the Wild Card game and then almost upset the Broncos in the Divisional game, losing 24-23. Still ... not a bad year considering we fail on our faces coming out of the gate. After one game, everyone had the Ravens in the Super Bowl and us left for dead. I don't think we'll know much of anything until we play the Texans. The same week, the Ravens play the Jets. We'll know a lot more after that week.

For me, it was seeing the Steelers coming out looking much improved. Not necessarily on the scoreboard, but just looking cleaner and more aggressive. I saw that in the team on Sunday. I'm not going to say we are Super Bowl bound right now, but we definitely are headed in the right direction.

Seattle is a really bad team, and Jackson should not be a starting QB in the NFL. We should have won 42-0. Still, we have a tendency of playing down to our competition. Hell, a few years ago we lost to the Browns, Raiders, and Chiefs. So the fact that we won 24-0 and Seattle never threatened to be in the game is a good sign. I just don't think I can take much from either of our games so far. And I doubt we'll learn anything next week unless we lay an egg against the Colts. After game 4 against the Texans, we should have more of an idea where we stand.