The Skeptic's NFL Training Camp Guide: AFC North

Too Deep Zone's eight-part training camp preview continues with the AFC North!

Baltimore Ravens

Did you ever dump a romantic partner, then realize a few weeks later that they were the ones keeping you financially solvent, emotionally regulated and socially presentable? That’s what the Ravens are going through right now.

Leadership Structure

Generic-label defensive coordinator Jesse Minter is now sleeping on Daddy’s side of the bed. A Ravens assistant in the late 2010s, he arrives from the Chargers and University of Michigan with serious Fake Harbaugh energy. 

Offensive coordinator Declan Doyle is a former Sean Payton acolyte, not a Gaelic football coach who got blown from Galway Bay to the Inner Harbor by a freak squall. 

GM Eric DeCosta took on a more front-facing role after John Harbaugh left and promptly turned the Maxx Crosby/Trey Hendrickson saga and Lamar Jackson’s contract extension into daytime soap operas. 

Quarterback

Lamar Jackson may be secretly injured, or mad about his contract, or eager to leave Baltimore, or cannily using his $84 million 2027 cap figure as negotiating leverage. Or maybe he uses his cellphone about as well as my mom uses her Jitterbug. (Hello, Nurse’s desk? Is Mrs. Tanier OK? She’s not answering her phone. Oh, she’s in the cafeteria kitchen complaining that the coffee is too hot? Thank heavens she’s fine. No, please don’t put her on. DON’T … Hiiiii Mom!)

Offense

Speaking of old people: Derrick Henry, Mark Andrews and Ronnie Stanley are all back. So are shifty screens-and-bombs guy Zay Flowers and eternal prospect Rashod Bateman. With Tyler Linderbaum gone, however, the entire interior offensive line has been rebuilt, probably not for the better. 

Defense

The most important new arrival, of course, is Maxx Cr … oops! Trey Hendrickson. Otherwise, many familiar faces are back, including soon-to-be 40 year old Calais Campbell. Terrell Suggs must not be answering his Jitterbug, either.

Special Teams

Harbaugh brought punter Jordan Stout with him to the Giants, so DeCosta drafted Ryan Eckley to replace him. Does the Ravens braintrust look out-of-its-depth to you yet?

Camp Stuff

The Ravens signed Ethan Pocic last week. Pocic, who turns 31 in August and tore his Achilles tendon in December, is the likely replacement for Linderbaum at center.

Former Colts backup center Danny Pinter and obscure Falcons castoff Jovaughn Gwyn battled for the starting center job through OTAs. Lamar Jackson chimed in on the competition during minicamp. "Those guys are competing well. They're doing a pretty good job to me," he said. "I'm liking our choices, for sure." Jackson answers every question as if he’s our current president answering a question about a country he has never heard of, like Finland. 

Rookies Elijah Sarratt (tough RPO/possession type) and Ja’Kobi Lane (skinny jump-ball guy) are ostensibly competing for the WR3 role, but that’s assuming Bateman finally claims the WR2 role after 37 seasons with the franchise. I couldn’t find a quote from Jackson about the competition, but he probably said something like: "Those guys are competing well. They're doing a pretty good job to me. I'm liking our choices, for sure."

Early Thoughts

A rookie coach helming a team full of aging veterans. A splashy defensive addition which was originally splashier, but lots of significant departures. A tricky negotiation with someone who doesn’t seem to realize that he’s supposed to be negotiating. The Ravens look like they’re having a bit of a midlife crisis and aren’t sure which direction to lunge in next.

We’ll spend the summer getting to know Minter, wondering who the starting center will be and trying to interpret Jackson’s polite mutters and shrugs about his contract. We’ll rubberneck at Diego Pavia in preseason fourth quarters. But we won’t learn much. The Ravens could go anywhere from 4-13 to 13-4 based on which of their veteran leaders are healthy, with-the-program or cooked. 

Cincinnati Bengals

If their defense comes together, they’ll be Super Bowl sleepers in 2023! 

(Editing note: make sure to change the date on that cut ‘n’ pasted intro from the 2023 Skeptic’s Guide before publication.)

Leadership Structure

Owners Mike Brown and Katie Blackburn will inevitably replace their GM and coaches with generative AI to save money. Until then, they will keep rolling with nepo suit-filler GM Duke Tobin and the human embodiment of diminishing returns known as Zac Taylor.

Quarterback

You can’t blame Joe Burrow for the Bengals' predicament. Seriously, you can’t. People will make fun of you on social media and un-subscribe to your newsletter if you do. 

Offense

Ja’Marr Chase, Tee Higgins and a bunch of guys that you assume are still Tyler Boyd, Joe Mixon and a star-studded offensive line, even though most of the Bengals’ second-tier offensive stars have been gone for a while now.

Defense

Dexter Lawrence headlines a rebuilt defense. Nothing presages a defensive turnaround quite like trading for an eighth-year interior defender from a perennial doormat who was unabashedly angling for his last big payday.

Special Teams

Evan McPherson is a consistent kicker. Charlie Jones is a solid return man. The Bengals special teams units are strangely normal.

Camp Stuff

Edge rushers Myles Murphy, Shemar Stewart, Boye Mafe and rookie Cashius Howell may all make the final roster, but all will be playing for starting roles, playing time and the ultimate prize: a double-digit sack season, which will force a contract dispute, which will force a trade to a franchise which is not run like a lemonade stand. 

Murphy, who looked like a first-round bust for 2.5 years, played well down the stretch last year. Stewart, who lost his rookie season to a Bengalstastic contract dispute and injuries, showed real promise against the Cardinals and Browns in Weeks 17-18. Mafe is an ornery hobgoblin with a Super Bowl ring and a big-for-the-Bengals contract, but he’s not super-toolsy. Howell is a rubber band man who should probably only play about 30 snaps per game early in his career. 

Factor in Lawrence and others on the interior line, and the Bengals could have a pretty fearsome line rotation if everyone develops and stays both healthy and with the program. Which, as we all know, ain’t gonna happen.

Early Thoughts

We’re all a little tired of the Bengals’ Best 3-on-3 touch football team in the NFL routine. Lawrence and the other newcomers probably won’t make the Bengals defense “average” so Burrow/Chase/Higgins don’t need to produce six touchdowns per week to win games; they will only make the defense more Bengals.

But look at the Bengals schedule. They face the NFC and AFC South, plus the Dolphins and Commanders. According to the FTN Almanac, it’s the softest schedule in the NFL. So yeah, let’s run it back with all the usual Bengals storylines. Because when facing foes like Panthers, Saints, Colts, Titans, Browns, etc., a three-man team could really come out on top. 

Cleveland Browns

Myles Garrett is gone. Who does that even leave that anyone has heard of? [Checks roster] Oh no. Oh fuck.

Leadership Structure

Todd Monken has finally gotten his first high-profile coaching opportunity at age 60. Our nation is cruel to its senior citizens. 

Longtime defensive coordinator Jim Schwartz quit when the Browns passed him over in favor of Monken, and he probably lit a very expensive cigar when he heard about the Garrett trade. A Robert Saleh lieutenant named Mike Rutenberg replaced Schwartz. I believe a rutenberg is similar to a turnip. 

Andrew Berry did a fine job kit-bashing an offensive roster together without Paul DePodesta playing the theremin and burning incense in the background. Jimmy Haslam decided that this simply wouldn’t do, so former Colts enabler Ryan Grigson was added to the personnel department. 

Quarterback

Deshaun Watson is Satan without the work ethic.