BLOG: Ravens On Healthy Path To Super Bowl
The 16-game NFL regular season is a battle of attrition. Rosters are made, broken down and re-made all season long because of injuries. Football is a collision sport and its nature makes the attrition aspect of the competition inevitable.
One quarter into the 2011 season, the Ravens have lost Domonique Foxworth for the rest of the year. Chris Carr, Jimmy Smith, Ben Grubbs and Lee Evans have missed games. Despite those bumps, the Ravens are looking good with their 3-1 record, in part because some of the competition looks so bad.
The Ravens are coming off an extra week of rest with the bye in their schedule and their next opponent Houston comes limping into Baltimore Sunday without its two best players: wide receiver Andre Johnson is out with a hamstring injury and defensive end Mario Williams is done for the year with a torn pectoral muscle. Those are two Pro Bowl studs the Ravens won't have to deal with and further reason to believe that the Ravens are on the path that appears to have them headed to a Super Bowl berth. The one team that's beaten Baltimore so far-- Tennessee-- has lost its best player for the year, too. Wide receiver Kenny Britt is done with torn knee ligaments suffered after he ran all over the Ravens in Nashville. The Steelers, whom the Ravens crushed in the season opener, already appeared old and slow before their offensive line and quarterback started falling apart with injuries.
In addition to injuries, at the moment the Ravens appear to be beneficiaries of opponents laden with inexperience and ineptitude. Check out the remaining schedule: two games against Cincinnati and rookie QB Andy Dalton. Two games against Cleveland (uh, enough said). The decimated Texans, a rookie QB in Blaine Gabbert in Jacksonville, Arizona (see Cleveland), at Seattle (see Arizona and Cleveland and try not to laugh), Indianapolis (no Peyton Manning, no wins yet, no problem for the Ravens). Other than those- the game at Pittsburgh can't be considered a push-over because the Steelers have managed to be at their best against the Ravens even when Baltimore's had a better team. San Francisco in Baltimore on Thanksgiving will likely be more interesting because of the Harbaugh brothers coaching--not because the Niners are really that good. That being said- kudos to what Jim's got going on in San Fran. Finally, the only REAL challenge ahead appears to be the game at San Diego. Norv Turner's powder blue boys are notorious for folding against tougher teams (and is any defense tougher than the Ravens?). Well, see.
It's all educated guess work and projection at this point but there's little disputing that the Ravens look Super Bowl worthy so far. Of course, they need to avoid the injury bug that's going around to stay on what seems like a likely run at the Lombardi Trophy.
~posted by Mark Viviano
