By Derek Arnold 

My season preview will be a bit different than most you may read.  Instead of breaking down things as a whole, I’ll just take a glance at the schedule and give a few quick thoughts about each game, followed by a (completely unscientific) guess on what the Ravens’ chances are in that particular game.  You can rest assured that my weekly game previews will go into much deeper detail and (attempted) analysis.  I like to give the following disclaimer for this post:

Of course, all of these predictions are based on rosters, teams, etc., as they stand today. Injuries, suspensions, and whatever else could easily drastically change my feeling about any or all of the games. This is for fun more than anything else, so don’t go calling your bookie on my recommendations.

Week 1- @ New York Jets

The Jets’ first game at the New Meadowlands Stadium, in front of the big lights of Monday Night Football. Rex Ryan has been anything but shy about proclaiming his team to be Super Bowl-bound, and the Jets have taken over for the Ravens as the most swagger-ific team in the NFL. One problem – the Jets haven’t won anything since six months before Neil Armstrong was walking on the moon. I have confidence in the Ravens to come out and knock the Jets down a peg early.

Chance of Victory: 65%

Week 2 – @ Cincinnati

The Ravens’ early run of road games vs. 2009 playoff teams continues with a trip to the Jungle. They were beat handily here in 2009, much worse than the 17-7 score would indicate. Carson Palmer has a bevy of weapons to throw to, between Ochocinco, T.O., and Jermaine Gresham, but it was Cedric Benson who gave the Ravens’ defense fits last year, putting up over 100 yards in both contests. The Ravens have the offensive firepower to keep up with the Bengals, but if they don’t stop the run better this time around, I’m afraid the results will be eerily similar 

Chance of Victory: 40%

Week 3 – vs. Cleveland

With some luck (and good execution), the Ravens won’t return home to Baltimore for the first time in over a month with a winless record. It could happen though. And, even if it doesn’t, Ray and the boys will be eager to take out some frustrations on the Brownies. After back-to-back road games against what are likely to be playoff contenders, Cleveland is going to look mighty cupcake-ish. Jake Delhomme looked good this preseason, but the interception master should have no problem finding purple jerseys, regardless of the fact that #20 still won’t be on the field. Baltimore whooped up on the Browns 34-3 in this matchup last year, and I don’t see this one being much different.

Chance of Victory: 85%

Week 4 – @ Pittsburgh

Thanks to Ben Roethlisberger taking girls to his hotel/bathroom, the Ravens will again get to face Pittsburgh without their star QB, just as they did in the first meeting last year. This game presents the Ravens’ best chance to get their first win in the city of bridges since 2006 that they’re likely to see for a while. Even those who are bullish about the Steelers’ chances without Ben in the first four games concede that they will lose to the Ravens. Joe Flacco ALMOST won in Pittsburgh in his first game there in 2008. Then he nearly pulled off the upset in the 2008 AFC Championship, before throwing a late interception. In 2009, were it not for a terrible drop in the end zone by Derrick Mason, he would have likely secured his first road victory against Pittsburgh. This is the time he finally gets over the hump.

Chance of Victory: 70%

Week 5 – vs. Denver

The Ravens get Josh McDaniels’ crew at M&T Bank Stadium for the second straight season. Last year, the Broncos came to B’More 6-0. After a 30-7 beatdown courtesy of the purple and black, Denver went on to finish the season at just 8-8; new coach, same ol’ Denver collapse. What’s changed for the Broncos? Well, they lost their best player on each side of the ball – Brandon Marshall on offense and Elvis Dumervil on defense. A similar fate awaits the horseheads in Charm City this year.

Chance of Victory – 80%

Week 6 – @ Patriots

After going to Foxboro and slapping the Patriots around in the Wild-Card round of the 2009 Playoffs, the Ravens should have no reservations about winning football games in the land of chowdah and horrible, grating accents. While I don’t see the Pats falling to third in the AFC East as some are predicting, I’m not nearly as nervous about this game as I was about the 2009 version. Bill Belichick’s defense has more questions at secondary than even the Ravens do this year, and with Joe Flacco’s arsenal of weapons, its safe to say he’ll be in for a much better day statistically than he put up in January – but the result should be the same.

Chance of Victory – 60%

Week 7 – vs. Bills

The last time the Bills came to Baltimore was the 2006 season finale on New Year’s Eve, a game I personally have great memories of. In 2007, the Ravens visited Ralph Wilson Stadium and lost an ugly game under the direction of the Billick/Boller combination. This will be Buffalo’s first time seeing the John Harbaugh Ravens, and the Ravens’ first seeing the Chan Gailey Bills. Buffalo was 6-10 last season, but three of those wins came on the road. Looking at this game now in early September, it seems safe to pencil it in as a win, but with the Ravens finishing up a first tough “half” of the season and Buffalo coming off their bye week…I’ll just say this game worries me more than it probably should.

Chance of Victory – 70%

Week 9 – vs. Dolphins

The Ravens get their bye week to prepare for the Miami Dolphins, a popular pick to challenge the Jets and Patriots for the AFC East crown in 2010. John Harbaugh’s team had Miami’s number in 2008, beating them twice in their own house. The 2010 version of the Dolphins has some significant differences though, most notably a different Chad at quarterback. Henne took over for Pennington last year, starting 13 games and throwing for nearly 3000 yards. He gets a shiny new toy this year in the aforementioned Brandon Marshall, but there is a reason I chose the above picture of Ed Reed that I did. “Twenty” should definitely (fingers crossed) be back on the field for the Ravens after the bye (if not earlier), and it won’t matter which guy named Chad is putting the ball up in B’More that day – Reed will be receiving.

Chance of Victory – 75%

Week 10 – @ Falcons

Matty “Ice” Ryan and the Falcons are looking to bounce back after missing the playoffs despite a 9-7 record in 2009. It will be a matchup of 2008 First-Round Draft Pick quarterbacks and third year head coaches. If this game were in B’More, I’d feel a lot better about it, but going down to the ATL to play inside the Georgia Dome in early November doesn’t sound appealing at all. The Ravens will have their hands full with Ryan, Michael Turner, and Roddy White, and, though Flacco is indeed a better QB than Ryan, our purple and black will likely have a tough time in this one.

Chance of Victory – 40%

Week 11 – @ Carolina

The Panthers are moving to Matt Moore at QB after jettisoning Jake Delhomme to the Cleveland Browns. Unless he is awful for the first 10 weeks, or gets injured, there is little chance rookie Jimmy Clausen will be lining up against the Ravens. Carolina also lost Julius Peppers, and their defense will likely be their undoing in 2010 as a result, considering their still-potent rushing attack of DeAngelo Williams and Jonathan Stewart. I see Flacco having a field day down in Charlotte, while the largely one-dimensional Panthers attack struggles to keep up.

Chance of Victory – 70%

Week 12 – vs. Tampa Bay

The only worry here is that the Ravens look past the Bucs to the Week 13 matchup against Pittsburgh. Tampa has always struggled mightily in cold weather, and November 28 in Baltimore has the potential to be plenty chilly. On top of that, the Bucs were just 3-13 in 2009, and didn’t do much to improve their roster this offseason. Entering the season, their top two wideouts are Ronnie Brown (9 receptions in 2009) and rookie Mike Williams. Tight end Kellan Winslow could be effective, but he just had his fifth knee surgery this offseason (not to mention he has awesome memories of playing in Baltimore). Ravens win in a laugher.

Chance of Victory: 80% (+1% for every 2 degrees under 50 F at game time)

Week 13 – vs. Pittsburgh

The Steelers will have Baby Ben back by this point – let’s remember though, Ben has still won only once in Baltimore (though it seems like a far more frequent occurence). He may have the Steelers back in the thick of contention by this time, and even if he doesn’t, this game is always tense and tightly contested. The Ravens will hopefully be looking for their first season sweep of Yinz from Donton since 2006, while Pittsburgh will be chasing just their second victory in Charm City since 2002 (the other, of course, coming in 2008). This game gets my heartbeat above baseline already, just thinking about it nearly three full months ahead of time. I need a drink…

Chance of Victory – 60%

Week 14 – @ Texans

Prognosticators are calling for big things from Houston this year – but what else is new? It seems like every year is supposed to be the year the Texans finally get into the postseason, but every year they are sitting at home watching the playoffs just like we fans are. This is a tough matchup for the Ravens. Like most teams, they don’t have anyone who can cover Andre Johnson 1-on-1, and running back Arian Foster looks primed for a big year. In 2008, the Ravens went into Houston and smacked the Texans around 41-13, but Sage “Helicopter” Rosenfels was at QB for the Texans that day, and their defense made big strides in going from 22nd overall in 2008 to 13th in 2009. This could be a key late-season matchup for both teams, who hope to be jockeying for Playoff position.

Chance of Victory – 50%

Week 15 – vs. Saints

The Ravens play the Saints for the first time since spaking them 35-22 in the Superdome in 2006. Obviously, both teams have gone through huge changes since then, but the most significant is the Lombardi Trophy that now lives in the Big Easy. If you watched the Saints play the Vikings the other night, you saw how much they like to spread out opposing defenses, and we have to hope the Ravens’ secondary is at near-full strength going into this game, or it could be a very long night. The weather could be an ally for the Ravens in this game as well, a la the 2007 Patriots game here in B’More. Mother nature could ground the Saints’ air attack more effectively than any opposing defense, should she choose to cooperate. Like Ray said, the Saints are the Champs until proven otherwise.

Chance of Victory – 40%

Week 16 – @ Browns

The Ravens had a tough time in Cleveland last year, grinding out a 16-0 victory that was far from pretty. The Browns beat Pittsburgh at home last year, in a game where the weather was again the great equalizer. Cleveland will likely again be in spoiler mode at this point, happy to be a bump in the road for the hated Ravens as they try to secure their postseason status. Late season road games are never a gimme (see Oakland 2009 Week 17), and Ravens players and fans alike would be wise to not look past Cleveland here.

Chance of Victory – 70%

Week 17 – vs. Bengals

The NFL scheduled this game with the hope that it will be a huge division-deciding type game in the AFC North. For that to materialize though, both these teams will have to live up to their lofty preseason expectations, something neither of them has been able to do with much regularity in recent memory. Lots of things have to go right for Cincy and the Ravens over the next four months for this game to live up to the billing. Let’s pretend for now that they do, though, and that this does end up being the game to crown the 2010 AFC North champs. The Ravens will have to avoid the type of late-game collapse that resulted in a Bengals win at M&T Bank Stadium in 2009, and do so in a playoff-type atmosphere. The hope here, though, is that everything goes right for the purple and black in 2010, and wrong for Cincy (and the Squealers and Brownstains), and the Ravens are resting their starters by Week 17.

Chance of victory – 70% 

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