Pittsburgh Steelers
The offense will once again be based around the three B’s, Big Ben, Brown and Bell. Roethlisberger is aging but with the weapons around him and a solid offensive line he’s still a more than effective QB. Antonio Brown is arguably the best WR in the league and the list of his equals is short. Le’Veon Bell is once again locked in a contract dispute with the team and he will wait until the season starts to sign his franchise tender and he’ll miss all of training camp. It will take him a week or two to get going but he’ll be an elite back this season once again. His absence has given the Steelers the opportunity to see more of James Connor and he looks like an effective alternative to Bell. WR JuJu Smith-Schuster was very good as a rookie last year and allowed the team to trade Martavis Bryant in the off season. Smith-Schuster should excel playing opposite Brown and the team added Oklahoma St.’s James Washington in the draft to be a new deep threat. Washington is proving to be just that this preseason. The offensive line is a solid group that has proven to be highly effective. They are not a flashy group but they are good.
As always, the Steelers defense was good last year and it looks to be good again this year. They have a lot of players in their prime with a mix of still effective veterans with some solid young talent. DE Cameron Heyward is the veteran on the defensive line while Javon Hargrave and Stephon Tuitt are in their prime years. There isn’t a lot of depth there but they get the job done. At LB the team didn’t do anything to replace the injured Ryan Shazier and that could come back to haunt them. He was a playmaker and the duo of Vince Williams and Tyler Matakevich isn’t scaring anyone. OLB Bud Dupree gets one more chance to prove he’s the pass rusher the team hoped he is when they drafted him but it’s second-year man TJ Watt who looks to be the playmaker the defense needs. At CB the team pairs veteran Joe Haden with youngster Artie Burns and they make an effective duo. At some point Haden could really fall off so they need another youngster like Cameron Sutton to be ready to step in. The team signed veteran safety Morgan Burnett to fill a hole at strong safety and they are hoping Sean Davis can hold the fort at free safety. They surprisingly drafted Terrell Edmunds in the first round to be the future but he’s going to need some time to learn.
Mike Tomlin is going into his 11th season as the head coach of the Steelers, yeah, I can’t believe that either. He’s reached a point where he’s underappreciated and people are overly critical. He’s not perfect but he’s done so well that anything less than a Super Bowl is considered a failure by many. It’s a blessing and a curse. He made a change this off season jettisoning offensive coordinator Todd Haley and promoting Randy Fichtner. Fichtner has been Big Ben’s long-time QB coach and he should have a better relationship with Roethlisberger than Haley did. The offense shouldn’t miss a beat. Keith Butler has kept the defense humming right along since he took over 3 years ago and he’s done it while having to cover some holes. This season could be a challenge without a replacement for Shazier leading the way. The Steelers are still clearly the best team in their division and I don’t see anyone giving them much trouble in the AFC North.
Baltimore Ravens
The Ravens offense was pretty terrible last season and it was almost exclusively the fault of the passing game. The team overhauled their WR corps in the off season and they drafted QB Lamar Jackson in the first round to light a fire under Joe Flacco. Flacco has been pretty unspectacular since his great playoff run that resulted in the team’s last Super Bowl victory. The team has paid him a lot of money since then and the drafting of Jackson is the culmination of their frustration. The running game found its way last year when Alex Collins took over as the lead back. Collins is a tough runner but he’s not really a weapon in the passing game. Javoris Allen fills that role and if the two of them stay healthy the running game should be fine. The top three WRs are new with Michael Crabtree taking over as the top dog, John Brown brought in to be the deep speed and Willie Snead filling the slot. The only holdover so far is fourth WR Chris Moore and former first round pick Breshad Perriman is on his last chance to just make the roster, I wouldn’t bet on him. The team took two TEs in the draft, Hayden Hurst and Mark Andrews, because their current ones were simply ineffective. Nick Boyle and Maxx Williams will have to fight off Hurst and Andrews from taking their jobs. The offensive line is led by RG Marshal Yanda and LT Ronnie Stanley. The team is hoping Orlando Brown Jr., who fell in the draft, can lock down the RT position because it has been a point of weakness lately.
The Ravens defense is good but it is not great and when coupled with a terrible offense it makes things worse. The team promoted LB coach Don Martindale to defensive coordinator and they hope he can improve the unit. They did nothing of significance to improve personnel wise so it’s up the scheme and the improvement of the current players to change the outcome. It will help if the offense is more effective and puts them in better situations. The three-man defensive line is still reliant on Brandon Williams to be the playmaker, Michael Pierce and Brent Urban aren’t changing the game. ILB CJ Mosley is the best player on the defense and one of the best LBs in the league. The team is hoping to squeeze another year out of Terrell Suggs at OLB, he’s 35 but he still had 11 sacks last season. Matt Judon was solid last year opposite Suggs but the team really needs one of its youngsters, Za’Darius Smith, Tyus Bowser or Tim Williams, to step up. CBs Brandon Carr and Jimmy Smith are effective corners and the team still has high hopes for Marlon Humphrey. Eric Weddle and Tony Jefferson are veteran safeties and while Weddle still makes plays he’s 33 and the team doesn’t have much depth.
John Harbaugh is entering his 10th season as the Ravens head coach and he’s still living off the team’s Super Bowl victory in 2012. Patience is wearing thin but it’s not all his fault. As good as Ozzie Newsome once was at drafting the team has missed on some key draft picks in recent years. When you have major misses like Matt Elam and Breshad Perriman drafted in the first round and guys like Maxx Williams, Tim Jernigan and Arthur Brown in the second round it depletes your roster. They have drafted many starters and contributors over the last decade but the only real star they drafted in that time was CJ Mosley. Newsome has handed over the reigns but will that change anything. The team hopes Lamar Jackson can become a star at QB but that’s going to take some time. For now, the team is still better than the Bengals and the Browns but that’s not saying much.
Cincinnati Bengals
The Bengals offense was pretty bad last season and a lot of that was due to injuries. The offensive line was a disaster, TE Tyler Eifert only played in two games and they got literally no production out of first round WR John Ross. They are banking on some of their own guys getting healthy and even the guys they picked up in the off season for the offensive line have health questions. Love him or hate him the team is rolling with Andy Dalton for another year and there is no AJ McCarron in the wings. Matt Barkley and Jeff Driskel are the other QBs so it’s Dalton or bust this season. Joe Mixon is the man at RB and they need him to be the bell cow. AJ Green is still a monster at WR and his production only suffers because he has no help taking pressure off of him. He would benefit the most from John Ross and Tyler Eifert getting healthy. WR Tyler Boyd can be a good WR but the team needs Ross’s speed to stretch the defense and open things up. TE Tyler Kroft had a solid year last year filling in for Eifert but he doesn’t have the game breaking ability of Eifert. He’s a good 2nd TE but they need Eifert. The offensive line was a disaster and the team traded for LT Cordy Glenn from the Bills. Unfortunately, he only played in six games last season so the team needs him to get healthy and stabilize the LT spot for them. The team finally moved on from Russ Bodine at C but they drafted Billy Price to take his place. Price is really good but he got hurt during the draft process and they need him fully healthy. The team has to hope 4th year players Cedric Ogbuehi and Jake Fisher can contribute on the right side and fulfill their potential. LG Clint Boling is the only sure thing on the line.
The defense returns almost its entire starting unit which is good news against the pass and terrible news against the run. The team has a new defensive coordinator in Teryl Austin who did a pretty good job with less talent in Detroit. The defensive line is aging so they need to squeeze the last bit of production out of DEs Carlos Dunlop and Michael Johnson and hope DT Geno Atkins can be his old self. Atkins had 9 sacks from the interior last year but he’s 30 years old so it’s now or never with him. The LB corps was a problem last season and while it should be a little better this year it’s not completely stable. They signed Preston Brown from the Bills to solve their MLB spot and that should improve their run defense alone. The problem is that Vontaze Burfict has been their best LB for the past several years and of course he’s suspended for the first 4 games of the year. Nick Vigil is the other LB but he’s coming back from a back injury. The team has three solid corners in William Jackson, Dre Kirkpatrick and Darqueze Dennard but it would be good if one showed out as an elite corner. The Bengals made a bit of a surprising move during the preseason by cutting veteran safety George Iloka, he’s been a starter for them for five years. They are going with rookie Jessie Bates at free safety paired with veteran Shawn Williams at strong safety. Iloka was solid but certainly not irreplaceable, the big question is whether Bates is really ready to handle the starting job.
In what was a bit of a surprising move the Bengals brought back Marvin Lewis after yet another disappointing season. Lewis is the second longest tenured coach in the league (only Bill Belichick is ahead of him) but he’s never won a playoff game and the team seems to be going backwards. I would argue it’s not really Lewis’ fault and he has probably been the best coach in the franchise’s history but after 15 years you can make the argument a new voice is needed. The new voice will have to come form offensive coordinator Bill Lazor, who isn’t really new as he actually took over last season after week 2 when the team fired Ken Zampese and promoted Lazor from QB coach. New defensive coordinator Teryl Austin is new and he comes in from Detroit to change things up. He’s used to working with less than stellar LBs from his time there and hopefully he can turn one of their CBs into another Darius Slay. The Bengals will have their work cut out for them as they try to chase the Steelers and probably the Ravens because they are going to have to watch their heels as the Browns actually look like they will be competitive.
Cleveland Browns
The Browns finally have a GM who looks like he has a clue…almost. John Dorsey seems to finally have a plan at QB with Tyrod Taylor being the immediate solution and Baker Mayfield being the long-term solution. I may not have agreed with the Mayfield pick but the Browns have been terrible at this QB thing for awhile so it’s time for them to go with a plan. One thing Dorsey has done is surround his QBs with some actual NFL-level talent at the skill positions. RB Carlos Hyde was brought in to carry the load and Nick Chubb was drafted to give him a legitimate backup. Duke Johnson is a RB by position but he’s just a weapon overall, he catches the ball out of the backfield as well as anyone. TE David Njoku had a solid rookie debut last season and he has all the tools to be an outstanding TE. Now with a legitimate QB around he should take a step forward. At WR the team went out and got Jarvis Landry from the Dolphins. Landry isn’t a game breaker but he’s one of the best and most reliable slot receivers in the league and he makes any QB more comfortable. The team is desperately hoping Josh Gordon can walk the line and display his immense talent as their big play guy. Gordon is one of the most talented WRs in the league if he can stay sober, stay straight and stay on the field. The team drafted another headcase WR in Antonio Callaway. Callaway would have been a first-round pick but he’s got issues, he already got in trouble during training camp. The biggest issue on offense is the unsettled offensive line. Future first ballot Hall-of-Famer Joe Thomas retired and the team has no obvious solution at LT. They are trying LG Joel Bitonio there and he might be their best solution. They brought in former first-round bust Greg Robinson and they have tried Shon Coleman there too, neither is those is a great idea. Coleman can compete on the right side and they have former Steeler Chris Hubbard too. The interior of the line should be fine with C JC Tretter and RG Kevin Zeitler. It could be Bitonio back at LG or rookie Austin Corbett taking that spot, either way 4/5 of the offensive line is solid but LT is a big question mark.
The defense was good against the run and below average against the pass and that made for a unit somewhere in the middle overall. The 0-16 record belongs to the whole team but it wasn’t as much the defense’s problem as it was the offense. The defensive line is led by DE Myles Garrett who had a solid debut season after coming off an injury. He’s the foundation of the front line and they need him to be a constant pressure source. Emmanuel Ogbah plays opposite Garrett and he should benefit from Garrett drawing the offense’s attention. DT Larry Ogunjobi is solid and if Caleb Brantley could live up to his potential he could be a find. The strength of the defense is at LB. Christian Kirksey, Joe Schobert and Jamie Collins are the backbone and they even strengthened the unit by bringing in Mychal Kendricks from the Eagles. Kirksey and Collins are especially talented players that really solidify this unit. The Browns secondary was atrocious last year which is why the only holdover is SS Jabrill Peppers and even he wasn’t a full-time player last season. At CB the team drafted Denzel Ward to be their #1, then they signed EJ Gaines, Terrence Mitchell and TJ Carrie in free agency to overhaul the unit. Gaines is hurt but it could be anyone’s ballgame opposite Ward to start the year. The team even traded for Packers CB bust Damarious Randall with the intention of making him their free safety.
The reason I say John Dorsey almost has a clue is the way he handled the coaching staff. Hue Jackson is 1-31 in two years as the Browns head coach, I know it’s not all his fault, it may not even be mostly his fault. However, when Dorsey took the GM job I was surprised he didn’t start over with the coaching staff. I’m not usually one to advocate quick turnover of a staff because I believe stability is good but I’m not a huge believer in Jackson and one win in two years is reason enough to move for a fresh start. Jackson is going with a fresh start on offense with former Steelers’ offensive coordinator Todd Haley coming in but even that’s questionable. Haley hasn’t always had an easy relationship with others, including his QBs. He does bring an attitude and some fire but that might wear thin quickly. Gregg Williams took over the defense last year and they were way better than they were before even with a terrible secondary. It should be interesting what he can do with some new talent in the defensive backfield and a healthy Myles Garrett up front.
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