Cleveland Browns (0-3) at Baltimore Ravens (2-1)

Yards per play differential is my favorite single stat and right now, the Baltimore Ravens lead the league in it. However, as with any stat, you have to add a human element to it sometimes to interpret it. Baltimore’s defense, uncharacteristically, has been pretty middle of the pack this year, but an offense that ranks 1^st in yards per play is behind their high overall ranking. The defensive relative struggles are explainable. The team is missing top pass rusher Terrell Suggs, among others, and ranks just 24^th in the league in pass rush efficiency. This has lead to a pass defense that ranks 27^th in the league in YPA.

Their suddenly explosive offense is also explainable if you believe that Joe Flacco has taken that next step as a quarterback in his 5^th year in the league, thanks, in part, to Torrey Smith breaking out as the legitimate #1 receiver he’s never really had. Flacco has looked very good overall this season, completing 64.5% of his passes for an average of 8.3 YPA, 6 touchdowns, and 2 interceptions. If he keeps that up all year, those will not only be career highs across the board, but he’ll put himself in the MVP discussion.

However, it’s worth noting that he has played very well in two games against poor pass defenses, Cincinnati ranks 28^th and New England ranks 21^st, despite facing Kevin Kolb and Jake Locker in two of their games, but he also struggled against the only good pass defense he’s faced so far, going 22 of 42 for 232 yards, 1 touchdown, and 1 interception against the Eagles and their 1^st ranked pass defense. Just 3 games into the season, I’d say the jury is still out on Flacco as an elite quarterback.

Fortunately for him, he gets another easy test this week. Cleveland actually ranks 16^th in the league against the pass, but if you exclude the game that Joe Haden played, they’re allowing 8.0 YPA, which would be 22^nd in the league and that’s against Andy Dalton and Ryan Fitzpatrick. Haden is out for this one, so the Browns don’t have much chance of stopping the Ravens’ offense. Aside from Haden, their secondary is a mess. They’ve already benched two starters back there and neither of their replacements have played much better.

Meanwhile, Jabaal Sheard, their best and only pass rusher from last season, is having a major sophomore slump, with just 6 total pressures and no sacks on 112 pass rush snaps through 3 games. The Browns also have some trouble against the run, ranking 18^th in YPC allowed, clearly missing injured nose tackle Phil Taylor. This was the league’s 5^th ranked scoring defense last year, but missing key members with other key members struggling, they’re nowhere near that good this year.

On the offensive side of the ball, the Browns are also pretty bad. The Ravens, as I mentioned, do struggle against the pass, but Brandon Weeden is the worst quarterback they’ve faced so far (Andy Dalton, Michael Vick, Tom Brady). Weeden might not be terrible, but he has no help from his supporting cast. They are incredibly young offensively. Besides Joe Thomas, only the washed up Ben Watson is playing significant snaps and was drafted before 2009 and Watson might be losing his job to 2^nd year tight end Jordan Cameron. They have 5 rookies playing major roles and 2 players in their 2^nd year, 3 if you include Cameron.

Given their youth, they’re at a major disadvantage travelling on 3 days rest. The Ravens’ offense also might not perform up to their normal level on a short week, as short week’s tend to favor defenses (the under is 67-50 on Thursday Night Football since 1989), but the Ravens have an advantage being a proven, veteran, well coached team at home. Home favorites are 45-24 ATS on Thursday since 1989, including 10-3 ATS when the line is 10+. The Browns’ best offensive player is Trent Richardson, but he won’t be able to do much in this game because Baltimore is one again a top-5 run defense.

This game seems pretty cut and dry. The Ravens are one of the best teams in the league and the Browns are one of the worst. As big as this spread is, we’re actually get some line value with the home team. Baltimore’s point per play differential is 1.7 yards better than Cleveland’s and an old handicapping formula says to divide to that by .15 and add 3 either way for home field advantage to determine the “real line.” If you do that, Baltimore would be 14.5 point favorites and that’s not even taking into account how much worse the Browns are without Haden. That obviously works a little bit better a few more weeks into the season, but it’s worth noting.

The experienced, proven Ravens also have a major advantage as huge home favorites on Thursday Night. They’ll be much better prepared for this game than the young Browns, who have to travel. Two factors keep this from being a big play. One is just the size of the line. I hate making big plays on 10+ point favorites. The other is that Baltimore could conceivably be flat off of a huge win last week. Favorites coming off close win as dogs or favorites of 3 or less are 63-95 ATS since 2002, though that trend is less prevalent over the past few years (26-35 ATS since 2008). I still expect this to be a blowout and Baltimore is my survivor pick of the week. I’m also putting a unit on the under (44) because of the trend in mentioned earlier with over/unders on Thursday Night.

Public lean: Baltimore (new thing I’m adding, siding with the odds makers on bets is not a bad thing to do since they make so much money, so I’m listing this here to allow readers to “fade” the public, if they so choose, in this example, the odds makers win if Cleveland covers)

Baltimore Ravens 27 Cleveland Browns 6 Survivor Pick (HOU, NE, NO)

Pick against spread: Baltimore -12 (-105) 2 units

[switch_ad_hub]

[switch_ad_hub]

[switch_ad_hub]