Around AFC North: A rough week for the division

We are one Week into the season and most of the AFC North has already been handed a loss as well as a piece of humble pie. The Browns and Steelers get run off the field, but it was the Ravens who took the lead out of the gate for the division. Of course, they did it against the Dolphins.

The Baltimore Ravens defeated the Miami Dolphins: 59-10

Smart money was on the Ravens defeating the Dolphins in Week 1. Miami is pretty clearly attempting to tank for a high draft pick after trading off plenty of their talent this offseason. It was the way the Ravens beat up the Dolphins that was pretty surprising.

Quarterback Lamar Jackson threw for over 300 yards and five touchdowns while completing 17 of his 20 passing attempts. His biggest connection was with rookie wide receiver Marquise Brown who had 147 yards and two touchdowns on four catches before being pulled.

The Ravens were supposed to be this ground and pound team, and the Dolphins came in expecting to counter that. It looked like at times that they really oversold on slowing down the run game, which left defensive backs in one-on-one situations too often.

We will have to wait and see if Baltimore can keep this up next week when they host Arizona.

The Cleveland Browns were defeated by the Tennessee Titans: 13-43

It is fair to say this isn’t how Cleveland planned on starting the season. After the Browns drove down the field for an opening drive touchdown things immediately went downhill. They missed their extra point and the titans ended up building a lead going into the half.

To be fair, the Browns were still in the game until Baker Mayfield lost control in the fourth quarter where his picks ended up derailing any chance at a comeback. He was constantly under pressure most of the day as the offensive lien struggled to protect him. That task didn’t get easier when left tackle Greg Robinson got ejected for kicking a defender in the head (helmet).

Speaking of playing undisciplined, the entire Browns’ team just didn’t look prepared to play. There were constant holding calls and defensive penalties. Overall, the Browns had 18 penalties for 182 yards, which easily kept them from ever having control of the game.

The scary part is that, if you watched the first half, you could see it could’ve been so much worse if they were playing a competent offense with a decent quarterback. Marcus Mariota looked inconsistent at best. Even a mediocre quarterback probably has their team up by more than a score going into halftime.

The Brown will have a chance to bounce back against the Jets next week in New York.

The Steelers were defeated by the New England Patriots: 3-33

In case you were wondering, the Steelers are not a better team without Antonio Brown, and Bill Belichick still has partial ownership over the Steelers. Simply put, whatever the Steelers tried to do on Sunday night just didn’t work.

The one saving grace for the Steelers was their defense did stall out the Patriots offense to force them to kick four field goals, but outside of that it is hard to even gleam anything positive from the beating they took.

In JuJu Smith-Schuster’s first opportunity as the no. 1 wide receiver, he was only able to gain 78 yards on six catches. That isn’t terrible until you also hear that New England never had to double him, which really made it hard on the rest of the Steelers’ offensive weapons to get open. Ben Roethlisberger also ended up throwing the ball 47 times. That won’t win many games with the way their offense is currently constructed.

It is hard to tell if this is just the Patriots having a stranglehold on the Steelers or a sign of things to come for the rest of the season. Pittsburgh will be hosting the Seahawks next week to try and get back on track.