{"id":18833,"date":"2021-09-06T18:11:38","date_gmt":"2021-09-06T18:11:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.betonline.ag\/news-room\/?p=18833"},"modified":"2021-09-06T18:11:40","modified_gmt":"2021-09-06T18:11:40","slug":"afc-north-2021-predictions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.betonline.ag\/news-room\/nfl\/afc-north-2021-predictions\/","title":{"rendered":"AFC NORTH 2021 PREDICTIONS"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/TheFirstMan\">BY ADAM GREENE<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Everyone\u2019s ready for a true changing of the guard in the AFC North. The problem is, most years the Pittsburgh Steelers simply do not cooperate. You\u2019ll get a Baltimore Ravens every now and then and, even half a decade ago, you could sneak a Cincinnati Bengals into a title. The next year, it\u2019s back to the black and gold all over again.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>So how do I think it\u2019ll pan out in 2021? Just about as boring as it can, minus a Baltimore shocker.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>PITTSBURGH<\/strong><strong> STEELERS: 12-5<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>That\u2019s right. I\u2019ve decided the team that\u2019s won the AFC North five times since 2010 has a good chance to repeat as champions. The Steelers, unlike their counterparts in Green Bay, made the odd choice to embrace their aging star quarterback and continue to build around him, crafting one of the best defenses in the league, a stout offensive line and continually cycling through one star offensive position player after another. It\u2019s an odd way to do business, but Pittsburgh is making it work somehow.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"A Special Message From Floyd Mayweather | BetOnline&#039;s  $500,000 NFL MegaContest!\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/KPusOCyBcl8?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Sure, it might be all over when Roethlisberger retires (likely at the end of the season), but for now he\u2019s got a great offensive line, the best running back he\u2019s had since Le\u2019Veon Bell was in his prime and the best receiving corpse since Antonio Brown first learned how to use Instagram live.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>CLEVELAND<\/strong><strong> BROWNS: 11-6<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Cleveland remains the hot pick to usurp the Steelers for good reason. If you just look at the roster and nothing else, the Browns probably have the fourth or fifth best in the league. The issue is, that\u2019s no always enough.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I do think knocking off Pittsburgh in the playoffs last season will have lasting effects. That this year, like last, will be part of the story in what Cleveland is building in this new era. I do think they\u2019re probably one of the six or seven best teams in the NFL. I just need to see it all happen again.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>BALTIMORE<\/strong><strong> RAVENS: 9-8<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Here is where my road seriously diverges with my fellow punditry. When I say that the Steelers have won the AFC North five times since 2010, it\u2019s true. It\u2019s also true that the Baltimore Ravens have won it four times in that span.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>So why the drop? It\u2019s all about their offense and, more specifically, offensive coordinator Greg Roman. Roman can\u2019t maximize Lamar Jackson and instead treats him how we all treated Randall Cunningham on the old Tecmo Bowl video game. What\u2019s worse is, Roman also uses all those same old Tecmo Bowl plays.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Two years ago, Lamar Jackson got the Ravens to 14-2. A year later with Roman\u2019s offense figured out, they made it to 11-5, a three game drop. I\u2019m just dropping them two here, but honestly, a sub .500 record would not surprise me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Now, ironically, the last time the Ravens went to and won a Super Bowl is the year they fired their offensive coordinator in the middle and replaced him with Jim Caldwell. They went on to knock off the San Francisco 49ers in Super Bowl &nbsp;XLVII and their offensive coordinator\u2026 some guy named Greg Roman.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>CINCINNATI<\/strong><strong> BENGALS: 8-9<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>If you think that\u2019s too high a win total for the Cincinnati, you have nothing on actual Bengals fans. Those that I know, predicting eight wins seems like pure insanity. The only thing nuttier is selecting a Bengals position player in your fantasy draft and, I will tell you, I have done both.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>At the end of the year, with Joe Burrow 100 percent (he\u2019s probably still not), they might be in the playoff hunt and I\u2019ll either look like a genius, or one of many \u201chaters\u201d who didn\u2019t believe they could make the jump. I\u2019ll take either moniker.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The NFL season begins on Thursday, Sep. 9 and the Week 1 Schedule is up and <a href=\"https:\/\/beta.betonline.ag\/sportsbook\/football\/nfl\">taking bets at BetOnline.AG<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Follow our BetOnline <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/betonline_ag\">Twitter accoun<\/a>t for the latest sports news and betting odds, and stay tuned on the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/betonline_ag\/\">Instagram feed<\/a> for more good information too.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>BY ADAM GREENE Everyone\u2019s ready for a true changing of the guard in the AFC North. The problem is, most&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":14074,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[129],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18833","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-nfl"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.betonline.ag\/news-room\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18833","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.betonline.ag\/news-room\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.betonline.ag\/news-room\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.betonline.ag\/news-room\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.betonline.ag\/news-room\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18833"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.betonline.ag\/news-room\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18833\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18847,"href":"https:\/\/www.betonline.ag\/news-room\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18833\/revisions\/18847"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.betonline.ag\/news-room\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14074"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.betonline.ag\/news-room\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18833"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.betonline.ag\/news-room\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18833"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.betonline.ag\/news-room\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18833"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}