FIRST TAKE | AFC North is worst division in NFL – Stephen A. Smith on Ravens & Steelers both lose

FIRST TAKE | AFC North is worst division in NFL – Stephen A. Smith on Ravens & Steelers both lose

The football now on first take. The AFC North has not looked like the juggernaut we expected. The Ravens remain top of the division despite their loss to the Bengals on Sunday at 6 and six on the season. The Ravens hold the best chance to win the division at 61% according to our analytics. But the Bengals are kind of coming. It looks like the Steelers are still tied with the Ravens. They’re at the top. Do you think there are any true contenders in that division in the AFC North? Damen Woody. Absolutely not. Absolutely not. I mean, listen, we talk about, let’s talk about the two teams at the at the top of the division, the Baltimore Ravens and the Pittsburgh Steelers. Anyone watch Baltimore against Cincinnati? How s the fact that first of all, Lamar Jackson’s not healthy. No, Lamar Jackson is not healthy. When Lamar Jackson doesn’t utilize his legs, that’s a critical part to the Baltimore Ravens offense. Okay. And when he’s when he’s compromised, the whole team is compromised. on top of that turn the ball over and Joe Burrow being out for nine nine straight games in his first game out and comes out and shreds Baltimore’s defense. I’m sorry. Like I can’t there’s nothing I can do with Baltimore. And yesterday with Pittsburgh, you’re playing at home. The Buffalo Bills are down two starting offensive tackles and the Buffalo Bills ran rough shot all over your defense. Aaron Rogers looks like a old man out there. doesn’t have any weapons. I don’t even know why why did you even trade for DK Metav? Like DK Mechav does nothing for Pittsburgh right now. And so when I look at both of these teams contending for what? Contending to go to Cancun cuz that’s the only thing that I’m seeing from from either one of these organizations. No, there’s nothing coming out of AFC North. Damian Dakota, you’re wrong, brother. And I’m going tell you why. It’s unfortunate that we have certain expectations and passes and oh sweeping this under the rug that we don’t have for everybody. All game changers should have the same prerequisite of expectation. Matthew Stafford doesn’t have an ideal Matthew Stafford type of game. And then what do we say? Oh man, that’s just a bad game. That was Stephen Anony’s response. Well, for me, has Lamar Jackson been healthy? Who knows? But I don’t expect that Lamar Jackson to keep playing the way this Lamar Jackson have been playing the last couple of weeks. Okay. Once he figures that out, then the Baltimore Ravens is off. Now, is it ideal? Is it something that we’re used to them playing like? No. But to say that they’re not a contender, come on now. We know who Lamar Jackson is. We know what the Baltimore Ravens are. We know who Derrick Henry is. All these, they have the pieces. It’s just about performing. And once they decide to perform in unison, playing complimentary football in all three phases, then we’ll have a very clear-cut dynamic in the AFC North. Okay. So, you think the Raven could be a contender even a Well, yeah. Yeah. I agree with Cam, but let me throw out this uh scenario. Is is there any possible way over the last five games of the season that the Bengals can sneak into the mix? Mhm. Because we know that Baltimore and the Steelers are fully capable of losing a couple of more games. Cincinnati’s only a couple of games behind them. Who knows what the hell could happen? And here’s the thing, it’s not about Cincinnati and them scoring because we know when Joe Burrow is in a lineup with Jamar Chase, they going to put up some points. They didn’t even have T. Higgins last week. But if this defense is holding people like it held Baltimore to 14 points and let’s just say they hold you to under 20 or 25 points a game, can this offense make that kind of noise? I don’t think we can summarily dismiss Cincinnati. And I’m certainly not going to sumearily dismiss Lamar Jackson in a oneandone scenario is electrifying as he is. He is not healthy. He does not look like himself. Woody is absolutely right. But that doesn’t mean that it can’t get better as the as the season continues to progress. Who knows? For the Bengals, it was the fewest points allowed in a game so far this season. And to his point, now they have Joe Burrow. Now this defense looks like it’s coming along. You’re going to rule out the Bengals. It looks like everyone’s ruled out the Steelers, but you’re going to rule out the Bengals. Who wants to play the Bengals if they’re healthy? I I’ll say this about the Pittsburgh Steelers. And everybody says the Aaron Rodgers situation, he’s looked old. Well, Aaron Rogers didn’t sign up for what he’s having to deal with in Pittsburgh. The offensive line, you know, in inability to create separation uh with the receiver position, like you said it, DK Metave has yet to show why he is even there. Yeah. And here we are in the fourth quarter or about to approach the fourth quarter of the season. So, for that alone, we know who Aaron Rogers is from the quarterback football 101 dynamic. He’s the let me see what the defense gives me and I’m going to make my checks. Some of those checks comes at the final second. And you have to be equipped and have that type of understanding of the game with a quarterback like that. When you don’t have that or you’re not really watching for the signs signal, so to speak, it does impact performance. So those are the type of things that Aaron Rogers is looking at. It’s like, yo, we’re not good. And on top of that, we’re not executing. That’s a double whammy. The only intriguing team in the AFC North is the Cincinnati Bengals. Why? Cuz they can score with anybody. When they when they’re healthy with Joe Burrow, they can score with anybody. And when you’re able to score points in this league, you can compete with anybody. So for me, the Cincinnati Bengals, the only team in in that division. They ran 80 offensive plays and they didn’t even have T. Higgins. Imagine if they get T. Higgins back. Okay. We’ll see what happens here going forward. The AFC North though, I you could say still two contenders, great records. No, but there’s still a lot of season left uh coming up last week. He was like, “Don’t dismiss the Cincinnati Bengals.” And I just gave you the side eye. Fast forward a week later, Baltimore looks horrible. Awful. Awful. Pittsburgh looks awful. Have you seen the Ravens schedule, by the way? Oh, I’ve brutal. Brutal. Brutal. And you know the one team in that division that can actually score? Cincinnati. Yeah. they can actually like have a like have competent quarterback play with a guy who missed nine games. It’s it’s just unreal what’s going on in the AFC North right now. It’s also unreal what’s happening with the Chicago Bears. They’re saying they’re at nine and three top that division number one seed in the NFC. They just had a big time win over the Philadelphia Eagles. But how legit are they as Super Bowl contenders? J man, it’s time for me to stop doubting the Chicago Bears because I went in there last week and I’m like, well, if we if they beat Philadelphia, we’re going to be having a different discussion about the about the Bears. And boy, did they go into Philly and put down They put belt to ass. They put belt to ass on on they BTA the original BTA. Yes, they did. And so when I look at the Bears, listen, there’ll be there are going to be people, and myself included, talk about the Bears, their defense, they give up a lot of yards. There’s no question about that. But they’ve been turning over people like crazy. And that line, that offensive line for for the Bears, I mean, they ran for almost 300 yards against the Philadelphia Eagles. Ran it up and down the field. Two rushes for over 100 yards a piece. That is the type of football that translate to the postseason. What we saw from the Chicago Bears. Damian more concerned about the play caller or the quarterback in Philly. For me, it’s the play caller. I know Jaylen Hurst is a winner. Like I’ve seen it. I’ve seen him in two Super Bowls outplay Patrick Mahomes. I’ve seen that. When I watch the Philadelphia offense, it is so elementary. They do nothing to make a defense think like the there’s no motion. There’s no intricate details that has a a defense out there trying to communicate and think and play slower. They don’t do any of that. It’s almost a arrogance what they do on offense. Like we’re just going to line up and we’re just going to beat you cuz we’re better. Well, guess what? You’re not better. You don’t have the personnel to go out there and just do the things that you do and expect to have that type of production. And so that to me, that’s coaching. That’s on the coaching staff in Philadelphia. See, what’s interesting, we’re talking with Damian Woody about what you just said is I actually thought they found something late. And I actually think that’s exactly what they should do is just line up and go and they should not huddle and they should wear the other team’s defense out and rely on the fact they have two great wide receivers and a great running back and a really smart um quarterback who’s risk averse.

FIRST TAKE | AFC North is the worst division in football – Stephen A. Smith on Ravens & Steelers both lose