After starting 0-3 the Browns have bounced back to win three of four and have a huge offensive edge on the Ravens in this one. Cleveland is the pick against Baltimore.
Cleveland has rebounded from three losses to start the season by winning three of their last four games, and the Browns have a pretty good chance to get to .500 in this one.
Baltimore has been a better than average team through their first seven games, averaging 4.7 yppl while allowing just 4.4 yppl to an average schedule, but the Ravens haven’t been as good in pass defense since losing starting CB Samari Rolle and FS Dawan Landry. Baltimore allowed just 183 total passing yards and 2.8 yards per pass play in the first two games of the season with their great secondary intact (including a week 3 win against the Browns), but the Ravens have allowed 6.6 yppp in five games without Rolle and Landry (to quarterbacks that would average 6.2 yppp against an average team) so Browns’ Derek Anderson should have much more success throwing the ball in this game than he did in Week 2.
The Ravens are still great against the run, but my math model projects 217 net yards passing for the Browns and 288 total yards. That will probably be good enough to win this game against a bad Ravens’ attack that I rate at 0.6 yards per play worse than average. Cleveland’s defense has played decently since allowing 488 yards at 7.9 yppl in their opening loss to Dallas (they’ve allowed 17 points or less in four consecutive games) and that unit yielded just 4.5 yppl in their 10-28 loss to the Ravens) and my math model favors the Browns by 2½ points in this game.
Prediction: Cleveland-20 Baltimore-17
Free Pick: Browns -1 (-110)
© Copyright 2008. Reprinted with permission of the author.