Timothy T. Ludwig-USA TODAY Sports
This Sunday the Baltimore Ravens travel to Buffalo to play the Bills. The Ravens are favored by 3 points and the game will be hard fought. The game is a battle of two injured stud running backs playing through injury in Ray Rice and C.J. Spiller. As well as Super Bowl champion vs. rookie QB in Joe Flacco and EJ Manuel.
Offense
Last week against the Jets, the running backs (minus Fred Jackson’s 59-yard run) only mustered 20 rushing yards over 18 carries. That is just horrendous. The offensive line was not creating holes to run through and the stats show it. This week the Ravens run defense is not going to let the injured C.J. Spiller get going. Fred Jackson will not do much better. This is going to force EJ Manuel to throw. EJ Manuel being the scrambler he is, I predict he will have the most rushing yards on Sunday. The Ravens secondary looked good against Matt Schaub. I do not predict Manuel to have his best game against the Ravens, but he won’t have his worst. I predict 230 yards 2 TDs and an INT. The problem with the game vs. the Jets was red zone efficiency. The Bills had to settle for FGs instead of TDs. That is what lost the game last Sunday. If the Bills can convert in the red zone and if they can get the run game going, they will thrive.
Defense
The defense last week was not very good. They let a rookie QB in Geno Smith pick them apart for 331 yards. With 0 sacks, the defense did not pressure Geno enough. The reigning Super Bowl champion QB, Joe Flacco, will pick the defense even more apart if the Bills can not get pressure. With Mario Williams banged up, others will need to step up. With pressure, the Bills will force decisions from Flacco and he will make mistakes. The other side of the defense was also not stellar. The defense let Bilal Powell run all over them. That is very disappointing. If Ray Rice is healthy, and even if he is not, Bernard Pierce will run over the defense even more. Kiko Alonso and the linebacking crew have to do more to stop the run. If the defense can get pressure to Flacco, the defense will force turnovers and set up field position for the offense.
Overall
I think the Bills offense will improve their red zone efficiency. However, I think especially with Spiller banged up, the running game will do near to nothing and force Manuel to throw over 40 times again. The defense is probably not going to get pressure on Flacco and that will hurt the team. Look for a big game from the Ravens offense. I hate to say it, but simply not getting pressure will hurt the Bills big time in this game. Even with the home crowd cheering, the final score will be Ravens 38 Bills 27