Initial Thoughts On The Ravens 2015 Schedule
My initial reflex here is that I’m not thrilled with this schedule. It’s not awful, but let’s just say the Ravens weren’t done any favors. That’s fine. Some years you get a good slate and sometimes you don’t. Complaining about it does nothing. The NFL isn’t a league where you can coast through 16 weeks of football anyway. No matter who you’re playing, you’ve gotta show up. The good thing is that the Ravens are a good enough team to beat every single team on that schedule. I’m not shaking in my boots looking at anyone in the league. Some more thoughts on what should be a challenging, but entertaining schedule:
– First thing any Ravens fan is going to do when the schedule comes out is seek out the 2 games against the black and gold. The past few years, the NFL has made a habit of putting both games in a fairly tight window. I hate that. No man should have to face the physical toll those games take twice in the same month. I’m bruised up just thinking about it. This year that’s fixed. Week 4 and Week 16 is nearly perfect. One game fairly early one for us to get a real good taste of what real football looks like… and then one in the home stretch. At home I might add. Besides having to play the Thursday game on 4 days after playing Cincy the Sunday before, this is the perfect set-up.
– Biggest challenge is the early going. 5 out of 7 on the road, with 4 of them out west. Now that I think of it, having the schedule rotation fall on BOTH the AFC and NFC West is a once every 12 years occurrence. A perfect scheduling storm for an east coast team. Between those 8 rotational inter-division games, you gotta go on the road 4 times. Having all 4 of those trips before November makes little sense to me, but they gotta deal with it. Opening against Denver on the road should be a great game, and so should MNF against Arizona. I don’t see any reason why they can’t get through that stretch at least 5-2.
– Here’s your bright side. Backside of the schedule is heavy on home games. On 2 separate occasions, the Ravens can post up at home for 3 straight games. That’s where we exert our dominance. One of the best home teams in NFL history. Look it up.
– I love the Week 9 bye. Right in the middle, split it up into two 8-game seasons. Last year the Ravens were real banged up as they stumbled into the Week 11 bye. This is better. Get to the bye in good shape and they’ll dominate the back half of the schedule.
– 5 primetime games after only 3 last year. That’s nice to see. Both of the Pittsburgh games under the lights, as they should be. Arizona and Seattle should both be FANTASTIC football games. So juiced for that Seattle game. I don’t really understand the Cleveland one, but if the NFL wants America to watch a murder (LOL) in real time, they’ll get one.
– For whatever reason, the Ravens have gone to Cincinnati in Week 17 in 4 out of 5 seasons. Not a complaint, it’s just strange. This could be a monster game, but I honestly think that the Ravens will win the division the week before against Pittsburgh. Even if that’s not the case, this will have huge implications for at least one of these two teams. We’ll see.
Should-win games (10): @Oak, CIN, CLE, SD, JAC, STL, @Cle, @Mia, KC, PIT
Coin-flip games (6): @Cin, @Sf, SEA, @Pit, @Ari, @Den
The way I see it, the Ravens will split with either Cincy or Pittsburgh, and sweep the other.Might be optimistic, but I’m thinking 5-1 in the division. They’ll probably find a way to lose 1 “should-win” to somebody like San Diego or KC. But the difference between this year and last is that there’s no game where I say to myself “oh shit, we gotta play out of our minds to win that one”. Closest thing I see to it is the Seattle game, but they’re playing in Baltimore. Arizona, Denver, and San Francisco all have situations where we have no idea what version of their QB is going to show up for 2015. Such a treat to have stability at the QB position. Anyway, there’s no reason to think the Ravens won’t go 10-6 at the very minimum. 14-2 is even in the realm of possibilities. If I were a betting man though (I dabble), I’d lock in that 12-4 campaign.