AFC North Not as Clear Cut as it Seems

Conventional wisdom suggests the AFC North will once again come down to the Ravens and the Steelers, considering they were the top two teams in the conference last season and both appear well-equipped to make runs in 2009. But conventional wisdom doesn’t always have a place in the NFL. One-year turnarounds have become commonplace in the league, as both Baltimore and Pittsburgh can attest. They may have played each other in the AFC Championship game last season, but the Cincinnati Bengals and Cleveland Browns have each taken significant steps to improve and contend with last year’s champion and conference runner-up. For a team like Baltimore, which has taken measures itself in the offseason to hopefully elevate themselves into the elite, the pitfalls associated with overlooking a divisional opponent could be costly. This is why head coach John Harbaugh made preparing for the divisional foes a priority during the last few weeks of Organized Team Activities (OTAs). “We have to ... (link)