AFC North Football Preview 2005
In the AFC North I expect to see the Pittsburgh Steelers who posted a 16-2 mark last season up and 11-7 ATS overall to win a battle near the Division Baltimore Ravens, who finished his 2004 campaign with a 9-7 up and ATS mark and over a much better team than Cincinnati Bengal ended with a 8-8 record up for the second consecutive year in 2004, the elves once again looking to lift the rear in what should be the most difficult division in the NFL in 2005. Pittsburgh has a record difficult to hoe this season, the Steelers only have five games on the list for 2005 against 2004 playoff teams but four of those cases occur in the road and that includes road games Monday Night in San Diego and Indianapolis, overall the Steelers will play 10 of their 16 games against teams that posted records of .500 or better last year, hence the reason for the projected drop off wins in the regular season.
As most Pittsburgh teams lost some talent to free agency, especially the Steelers lost a total of five men in line along their offensive and defensive fronts that could cause problems if successful fund injuries and OLE error losses add up to star WR Plaxico Burress with access to the Big Apple to play ball with Eli Manning. Baltimore has a very favorable schedule with respect to play seven games against playoff teams a year ago, however, five of the seven cases will be held in Baltimore and two of those games are against teams in the dome (Vikesa and Colts). .