2019 AFC North Preview

The AFC North has the potential to be one of the most competitive divisions in the league this year. There are three teams that have a chance to claim the division, and all three have hopes of going even farther than that. Two are young and exist in a world of fascinating possibilities, while the other is old and familiar, while still trying to figure out the path forward as they face the inevitable change of a roster turning over.

Pittsburgh Steelers

The Upside

People seem to have mostly soured on the Steelers, and with good reason. They missed the postseason a year ago, and their team inarguably got worse over the offseason with the loss of a Hall of Fame wide receiver. Their offense doesn’t have nearly the depth of skill position talent it had a couple years ago, and Ben Roethlisberger continued last year to show some signs of age.

That said, the Steelers still have enough talent on this roster to be genuine competitors in the AFC. They have a Hall of Fame quarterback, one of the best offensive lines in football, and a young pair of wide receiver and running back that, while not at the level of Antonio Brown and Le’Veon Bell, gives them plenty of ways to put up points. The key will be their defense, where they’ve added tons of young talent over the past few years that has had mixed success to this point. If they can get breakouts from players like Terrell Edmunds and Justin Hargrave, as well as immediate contribution from first round rookie Devin Bush, this defense can improve to make up for what they lost on offense.

The Downside

This is the real reason I have the Steelers ranked at the top of the division. While I think that the top three teams on this list all have the potential to win the division and even compete for the conference, the Steelers are the only ones I am confident will not completely collapse. This is a veteran team with enough talent across the board to win at least half their games even if things don’t pan out as I explored above.

Honestly I think Pittsburgh’s fortunes depend less on what they do than on the rest of the division. It would help if they could achieve a little more consistency than they’ve had over the past few years, to avoid suffering the couple of boneheaded losses against mediocre teams that they always seem to stumble into. But in the end, I think they have a fairly confined range between nine and eleven wins. If Cleveland or Baltimore falter, that could be enough to win the division, but if the other young teams figure out what they’re doing, this could mark the beginning of the end for Pittsburgh.

Player to Watch – Vance McDonald, TE

For years the Steelers have been built on a deep and versatile cast of skill position players. James Conner is good, and JuJu Smith-Schuster is a superstar in the making, but outside of that there isn’t much to get excited about. Maybe James Washington can break out after a disappointing rookie year, or maybe they can find a way to utilize the unique talents of Jaylen Samuels. But for right now their number two weapon in the passing game is McDonald, an athletic marvel of a tight end who has never really figured it out.

Granted, McDonald is coming off the best season of his career, with 50 catches for 610 yards as a tertiary option in the offense. But with a larger role coming his way in a pass heavy scheme, the Steelers are going to need a lot more. They are likely going to need at least 80 catches and 1000 yards from their tight end, a true difference maker in the passing game. Otherwise defenses will be content to double team Smith-Schuster and challenge Roethlisberger to force the throw, a mistake he has been all too willing to make the past few seasons.

Cleveland Browns

The Upside

The Browns likely have both the highest high and the lowest low among the top three teams in this division. Everyone has jumped aboard this bandwagon, and while I remain skeptical, even I have to admit that this isn’t your typical young team. They supplemented their roster with veterans like Odell Beckham, Sheldon Richardson, and Olivier Vernon, players who can help stabilize a roster otherwise built on volatile young talent. They have built up their depth as well as their top line players, and they could very easily live up to the hype.

How high can they go? Winning the AFC North is definitely a possibility. Neither Pittsburgh nor Baltimore is going to run away with this division, and if the Browns live up to their potential it won’t take much for them to claim the favorites status. Can they compete with teams like New England, Kansas City, and Los Angeles? I don’t know. It might be too much to ask for all their young players to build on the promising starts to their careers, but if all the pieces do come together, this team is built to be very good very fast.

The Downside

For as much excitement as the Browns have gathered, there are so many alarms blaring right now. They have a rookie head coach who has half a season of experience above a position coach level. They have a second year quarterback who struggled mightily early last season before getting hot late. Their top cornerback is entering his second season, and they may be looking for major contributions from a rookie at that same position.

Any one of these things could break the wrong direction and ruin this team. But I want to spend a bit more time talking about the offensive line. For years the line was the lone strength in Cleveland, holding down the fort while the rest of the roster fell to pieces. And now that they’ve built up talent elsewhere, it seems almost fitting that their line is pure garbage. Joe Bitonio is still a good player, and JC Tretter is functional, but they are starting Greg Robinson and Chris Hubbard at each tackle, almost an invitation to get your quarterback killed. It isn’t hard to imagine this unit crumbling and tearing down the offense with them, leaving Baker Mayfield scrambling for his life as Freddie Kitchens looks around desperate for answers.

Player to Watch – Damarious Randall

Like just about every defensive back drafted high by the Packers over the past decade, Randall never lived up to his billing at his first stop. In Green Bay he was constantly overmatched at cornerback, without the quickness or the skills to keep up with the receivers he found himself trying to track down. After three mediocre seasons, the Packers gave up on their first round pick, shipping him off to Cleveland in exchange for a backup quarterback.

Talented but disappointing players often benefit from a change in scenery, but for Randall it wasn’t just the scenery that changed. In Cleveland he moved to a new position, sliding away from cornerback into a safety role. Freed from having to chase receivers in man coverage, he became a quality starter for this defense, freeing the Browns to ship out their own failed first round pick Jabrill Peppers. Still only 26 years old, Randall has the potential to develop further as he grows more accustomed to his new position, giving the Browns another talented young piece to work with in their secondary.

Baltimore Ravens

The Upside

I have no idea what their offense with Lamar Jackson is going to look like. A year ago they managed to make the playoffs with the heaviest run-first offense the NFL has seen in years, a scheme cobbled together in the middle of the season once Jackson took over at quarterback. But that scheme was suffocated by the Chargers in the playoffs, and now they’ve had an entire offseason to plot what they are going to do next.

This offense isn’t going to look like anything else in the NFL, and it could explode into something truly dynamic. They added more skill position talent to their offense with Mark Ingram at running back and Marquise Brown as a vertical threat wide receiver. Jackson is still extremely unpolished as a passer, and he is going to leave some plays on the field. But if they trust him enough to let him attack this year, he can do enough with his powerful arm and his dynamic rushing attack to make this team a nightmare to defend.

The Downside

Passing is far more efficient than running, and right now we don’t have much evidence that the Ravens actually can pass the football. They were forced to open things up after falling behind the Chargers in their playoff defeat a year ago, and they actually had some success, staging a comeback that was just too little and too late. But they need to prove that they can sustain that for more than a quarter of football. Teams are going to challenge Jackson to beat them through the air like the Chargers did, and if they can’t find at least a functional passing attack, their offense is going to become stale and stagnant very fast.

I haven’t mentioned the defensive side of the ball yet, mostly because there are no real questions there. They lost some pieces in the offseason—notably three quarters of their linebacker unit and safety Eric Weddle. But as far as replacements go, if Earl Thomas stays healthy they won’t miss a stride on the back end, which is the strength of their defense. Passing against the Ravens will be a nightmare for anyone that faces them, and even if their offense is dead on arrival their defense will give them a chance to compete in almost every game.

Player to Watch – Mark Andrews, TE

This group of wide receivers is arguably the worst in the league. Their big addition was first round pick Marquise Brown, an undersized burner who has missed most of the offseason due to injury. He likely won’t be ready to contribute right away, and the combination of Seth Roberts and Willie Snead at the top of the depth chart isn’t doing their passing attack any favors.

Fortunately, they may have the deepest group of tight ends in the NFL. The nominal starter is Nick Boyle, and a year ago they used their first round pick on Hayden Hurst (actually before they took Jackson), but the best receiving threat among the group actually joined them in the third round out of Oklahoma. Andrews’s role grew as the year went along, and he finished with 34 receptions for 552 yards. The Ravens will run a lot more two and three tight end sets this year, exploiting their versatility to contribute both as blockers and receivers, and giving their inaccurate quarterback big targets to hit.

Cincinnati Bengals

The Upside

This division is a three team race, and the Bengals are the fourth team. A new era has finally begun in Cincinnati after sixteen years under Marvin Lewis, but for the time being it’s going to look a lot like the old era. They still have Andy Dalton at quarterback, and he’s still behind an offensive line they’ve been floundering to rebuild since their brief dalliance with the playoffs a few years ago. Their defense is dotted with veteran players who would be solid middle of the pack starters on most teams but are out of place as stars in Cincinnati.

In a division loaded with teams either at the height of their game or prepared to make the leap, there really isn’t any reason to be optimistic about the Bengals this year. This feels like a bit of a gap year, a season for new head coach Zac Taylor to dip his toes into the new role and figure out what he might have going forward. This is likely the last year of Dalton, and possibly the last of AJ Green (a free agent at season’s end). So now is the time to figure out if players like Joe Mixon and William Jackson are pieces they can build around, or if this is going to require a total teardown in 2020.

The Downside

As grim as the previous section was, this one could get worse. The Bengals have more talent than some of the other bottom feeders in the league (Geno Atkins and Carlos Dunlap continue to be forces on the defensive line, and Green is of course still one of the best receivers in the league). But they also have an unproven head coach, an offensive line that could go either way, and a defense that is mostly unchanged after quietly being one of the worst in the league a season ago.

It’s easy to imagine this team starting the season slow and then totally falling apart. Green is already banged up, and has been the subject of trade rumors the entire offseason. The best players on their defense are aging, while the high picks they’ve invested in the offensive line over the past two seasons haven’t even made it into the starting lineup. The Bengals are definitely a contender to be the worst team in the league, though at least this would give them a chance to start from scratch, their choice of top rookie quarterbacks once they understand it truly is time to move on from Dalton.

Player to Watch – Jessie Bates, S

One of the few bright spots of Cincinnati’s roster is the young talent in their secondary. I mentioned Jackson above, a former first round pick who has been up and down through his first four years but has flashed superstar potential at times. And joining him last year in the secondary was their second round pick out of Wake Forest, the long and versatile safety Bates.

Bates is effective both filling up against the run and flowing over the top against the pass. He finished last year with three interceptions, and if he can keep up the ball hawking tendency while developing better instincts for the game, he could be a true game changer on the back end. A player like Bates is a dream come true for a cornerback like Jackson, who boasts impressive ball skills himself and is now freed to play more aggressively on the outside.