‘The big two.’ NFL pundits expecting Chiefs and Ravens to battle for supremacy in AFC
In his “Football Morning In America” column this week for NBC Sports, Peter King put together an early ranking of NFL teams.
At No. 1 is the Super Bowl-champion Chiefs, followed by the Baltimore Ravens, who had the best regular-season record in the NFL a year ago. King expects the Ravens and Chiefs to battle for supremacy in the AFC this fall.
“I think the Ravens will be neck-and-neck with the Chiefs for best record in the conference—because the AFC West will be markedly improved,” King wrote, “and because Baltimore has a favorable end of season: Dallas at home on a Thursday, at Cleveland on a Monday, Jacksonville and the Giants at home, and at Cincinnati. Five straight games to finish against teams that didn’t make the playoffs last year. Baltimore should be 13-3 or better.”
King’s thoughts on the AFC race have been echoed in one form or another over the past few weeks. There has been a lot of talk around the NFL about the Chiefs and Ravens being the AFC’s elite teams.
On the NFL Network, former Patriots linebacker Willie McGinest was asked which AFC team is the biggest threat to the Chiefs.
“I gotta go with the Baltimore Ravens,” McGinest said. “A disappointed Baltimore Ravens that they weren’t playing in the Super Bowl. ... The Baltimore Ravens are a team of attitude, a lot of guys on that team have chips on their shoulder. ...
“This team got better in the offseason. This team is feeling like they left a lot out there last year. They got disrespected and they disappointed themselves and their fans by not going to the Super Bowl and winning it, because that’s all they were talking about. So I’m going to say the Baltimore Ravens are gearing up to be that team to give the Kansas City Chiefs problems.”
Here’s another example of the Chiefs and Ravens being tied together. ESPN’s post-draft power rankings also had the Chiefs at No. 1 and the Ravens at No. 2.
Ditto for Rick Gosselin, whose rankings on Sports Illustrated have the Chiefs first and Baltimore second. He wrote in part: “The one area the Chiefs needed to improve was the running game and they did that with their first-round draft pick HB Clyde Edwards-Helaire, who rushed for 16 touchdowns and caught 55 passes at LSU last season.”
And, there’s this from NFL.com’s Gregg Rosenthal, which did an AFC roster reset last month and called the Chiefs and Ravens “the big two.” They are the only two AFC teams that are a lock to make the playoffs, Rosenthal writes.
“A substandard AFC West puts Kansas City in the driver’s seat for that all-important top seed in the new playoffs system, where only one team per conference gets a first-round bye,” Rosenthal wrote.
“The Ravens are listed second because their division is tougher and there’s an extra year of data showing that the Mahomes-era Chiefs are a top-five NFL team until proven otherwise. There are plenty of reasons to believe Baltimore can prevent a regression after its epic regular season a year ago, primarily Lamar Jackson’s maturation process and the steady leadership of general manager Eric DeCosta and coach John Harbaugh.”
Speaking of the playoffs, The Checkdown simulated the 2020 NFL season and there were good and bad outcomes for the Chiefs against Baltimore.
The Ravens-Chiefs game, scheduled for Sept. 28, went to Kansas City:
Baltimore and Kansas City entered the final week of the season’s simulation tied with a 13-2 record. The Chiefs lost the chance at the No. 1 seed because of a 31-24 loss to the Chargers, while the Ravens beat the Bengals.
It’s just a simulation, so there’s no need to get worked up about that. But the Chiefs and Ravens advanced to the AFC Championship Game and Baltimore prevailed.
Just consider it another example of how the Chiefs and Ravens are the teams to beat in the AFC.
Ravens running back Melvin Ingram already has his eye on the Chiefs. He’s looking forward to facing the Chiefs in that “Monday Night Football” game at M&T Bank Stadium in Baltimore in September.
“Just to have them coming to the Bank, Monday night, having the champs coming to the crib,” Ingram said on “First Things First.” “That’s something you definitely circle, something you definitely look forward to. In order to be the champs you have to dethrone the champ, so hopefully that’ll be our third step to becoming champions.”
Last month, Baltimore’s website ran a story with the headline, “How Ravens are better built to beat Chiefs.”
That include excerpts of a blog post from Ebony Bird’s Chris Schisler.
“It’s unrealistic to expect the Chiefs to stop the Ravens rushing attack, and containing (quarterback Lamar) Jackson is something that rarely works for NFL defenses,” Schisler wrote. “(Tight end) Mark Andrews went into last year’s battle a little banged up and wasn’t much of a factor. The fact that Nick Boyle had four receptions and averaged 14.5 yards per catch showed you Andrews could have done some damage with this match up in different circumstances.”
Speaking of Jackson, Bleacher Report had a roundtable discussion and asked which quarterback they would take: Patrick Mahomes or Jackson. Mahomes won by a 4-3 vote.
Gary Davenport, Ty Dunne, Mike Freeman, Brad Gagnon, Matt Miller, Brent Sobleski and Mike Tanier.
Brent Slobeski wrote: “As good as Mahomes is — and he’s great — it’s hard to see him improving upon the type of numbers we’ve already seen. Whereas Jackson hasn’t come close to realizing his full potential as a passer. The reigning NFL MVP will continue to refine his footwork and mechanics while becoming more adept at reading defenses.
“Plus, the 2018 MVP can’t affect the game in the same way Jackson can as a runner. Even if the Ravens offense grows stagnant, Jackson’s ability to create with his feet has never been seen at quarterback.”
Chiefs or Ravens? Mahomes or Jackson? That chatter is likely to continue over the next three months before the 2020 NFL season begins.
