Primetime Football Articles

Harry Doyle here, and I've been asked to assess the state of the AFC North, which is a little like being asked to assess the state of a parking lot fire. Let's start with the only number that matters: nobody in this division has a winning record. Not one. Your "leader" sits at 4–4. Collectively these four proud franchises have gone 11–21 against the rest of the league, which means that for every game an AFC North team wins, it loses roughly two and apologizes for a third. They beat each other senseless and then get marched out to the woodshed by literally everyone else. It is, in the truest sense, a closed ecosystem of mediocrity... a terrarium where the only thing that thrives is disappointment.

Atop this heap, by sheer process of elimination, stand the Pittsburgh Steelers at 4–4. GM Pearce spent the offseason conducting a full-scale reboot, importing Randy Moss, James Harrison, Alan Faneca and Sam Madison while shipping Ray Lewis and half the old guard out the door: a glittering makeover that came with a $22.5 million cap penalty, which is a lot of money to spend on .500 football. They beat the Ravens by two on Monday, lost to the Bengals the week before, and have generally won the games they're supposed to win and lost the ones they're supposed to lose, which in this division qualifies as a dynasty. Enjoy the view from the top, Pittsburgh. It's a short ladder.

Then there are the Cincinnati Bengals, 3–5, and friends, this is my favorite stat of the season: they are a perfect 3–0 inside the division and a flawless 0–5 outside it. Three wins, all against their own siblings. The Bengals are the kid who only fights his brothers and loses every playground scrap that matters. They hung 45 on Cleveland and 30 on Pittsburgh, then went out into the wider world and got handed their lunch by the Jets, the Chiefs, and a 41-point afternoon courtesy of Buffalo. Carson Palmer's crew has cracked the code to beating the AFC North and absolutely nothing else, which is a bit like being undefeated against your own reflection.

And down in the cellar, holding hands in the dark, sit the 2–6 Browns and the 2–6 Ravens. Cleveland just got hosed 32–6 by Seattle, has Tim Couch on the shelf for a week and a tight end listed as questionable, and is functionally relying on a kicker who once threw 21 passes. Baltimore, meanwhile, is mid-teardown: GM Huszti traded away Ray Lewis, Peter Boulware and anyone else with a recognizable name, then handed the keys to a roster of rookies he himself described as missing its brains. The Ravens are 0–3 in the division, winless against their own kin, and at one point were held to three points by the Browns. Read that again. The Browns did that. To someone. On purpose. There's a hierarchy of sadness down here, and Baltimore is somehow renting the basement of it.

So where does this leave us? Week 10 mercifully throws all four of them back into the same cage (Browns at Steelers, Bengals at Ravens) which guarantees that at least two of these teams will experience the unfamiliar sensation of victory, whether they've earned it or not. Pittsburgh will try to hold the lead, Cincinnati will try to extend its bizarre family-only winning streak, and the Browns and Ravens will each try to prove they're not the worst team in the worst division in football. Somebody has to win these games. The rules apparently require it. I'll be in the booth for all of it, documenting the decline with the professional detachment of a man who long ago made peace with the bottle in front of him. The AFC North: where the standings are low and the expectations are lower.