Our series highlighting the biggest strengths and weaknesses returns with a rundown of the AFC North. One of the best divisions in football, the AFC North has had multiple playoff participants for the last two years, and even in an incredibly stacked conference, there’s a good chance that could be the case again in 2022.
The Bengals will be aiming to prove that their Super Bowl appearance in 2021 was no fluke as they have Lombardi Trophy aspirations this season. The rest of the division will be playing catch-up. The Browns and Ravens will be looking to make the postseason after both missing out last year, while the Steelers begin a new era with Kenny Pickett under center.
There’s a lot to love about all four teams, but of course, none of them are perfect.
Baltimore Ravens:
Biggest Strength: Secondary
If you thought the Ravens’ secondary was already impressive, their offseason additions might have you believe that this is now one of the best secondaries in football. The cornerback duo of Marcus Peters and Marlon Humphrey has long been one of the better combinations in the NFL. Both players excel at generating turnovers on defense with Peters’ reputation as a ballhawk and Humphrey’s knack for forcing fumbles. Both are equally adept at operating in zone and man coverage.
The Ravens completely reworked both their starting safety spots as well. They signed Marcus Williams, the top free-agent safety on the market, to a five-year $70 million contract to kick things off. Williams is one of the best deep half and deep third safeties in the league. He has the range, the instincts, the tangibles, and the intangibles. Signing Williams, who is still only 25, was an absolute win for the Ravens. But it got better.
The top safety in the 2022 NFL Draft, Kyle Hamilton, fell all the way out of the top 10 – where it seemed, for a while, he would be an absolute lock – to the Ravens at 14. Hamilton fell for a variety of reasons – positional value, supposed lack of elite speed – but his film doesn’t lie, the Ravens have an absolute gem to pair with Williams. Hamilton is explosive enough to play deep and his freaky size and power means he can excel down in the box.
There’s versatility all across this Ravens secondary, and the depth they have with guys like Chuck Clark, the recently signed Kyle Fuller, and another rookie in Jayln Armour-Davis is exciting. The Ravens defense might be undergoing a makeover after Wink Martindale left in the offseason, but this unit will be one of the best in the NFL.
Biggest Weakness: Wide Receiver
Some things never change. The Ravens struggles at wide receiver have been well-documented over the last few seasons. For all the talent the Ravens have on the offensive side of the ball, they’ve struggled to develop a true number one receiver for Lamar Jackson in his four years under center. In fact, their troubles at the position probably pre-date Jackson as well. Some teams are good at developing receivers, but not the Ravens.
As it stands, the Ravens have Rashod Bateman, Devin Duvernay and James Proche pegged to be their starting trio of receivers. Hopes are naturally high for Bateman, a former first round pick in 2021, and Duvernay is a great special teams player, but only has 53 catches in two seasons with the Ravens. Beyond those two, who both still have a lot to prove, the talent pool is limited.
The Ravens offense hasn’t exactly lived in a lot of 11 personnel in the Lamar Jackson era. They ran three wide receiver sets just 43 percent of the time in 2021, the third-lowest percentage in the NFL, per Sharp Football Analysis. Two tight end sets and a heavy emphasis on the running game has been the Ravens bread and butter with Jackson, but a change is necessary, especially as the NFL is well into the passing era.
The last three Super Bowl winners have all had elite receiver rooms. While the Ravens have Mark Andrews – one of the best tight ends in the NFL – the team’s pass catching options were thin at best and that was before they traded away Hollywood Brown. Now that Brown is gone, there’s genuine reason to be concerned.
Cincinnati Bengals:
Biggest Strength: Wide Receiver
The Bengals are on the opposite end of the spectrum of the Ravens when it comes to their talent at receiver. If the Ravens have one of the worst receiver rooms in the NFL, there aren’t many teams, or maybe any team, better at the position that Cincinnati. The Bengals offense lit up the NFL in 2021. Their 4403 passing yards were the seventh most in the league and most of those yards were contributed by their starting trio of receivers.
The trifecta of Ja’Marr Chase, Tee Higgins, and Tyler Boyd ripped apart NFL secondaries all season. Chase’s rookie season was the best season by a rookie wide receiver in NFL history: 81 catches, 1455 yards, and 13 touchdowns. Chase was a threat from all over the field – his 827 yards after the catch was the third-most in the NFL, per PFF and his 17.2 yards per reception was the fourth-most in the league. Chase immediately took a seat at the table of elite receivers.
Not far behind him were Higgins and Boyd. The former excelled as the Bengals big number two receiver, while Boyd was the maestro in the slot. All three have the positional versatility to move around the offense, and with Burrow spreading the ball around, the Bengals offense will look just as good – if not better – in 2022.
Biggest Weakness: Pass Rush
Every team has a weakness, and the Bengals weakness comes in the pass-rushing department. It’s not a terrible unit, and Trey Hendrickson finished with a career-high 14 sacks and the fourth-best pass-rush win rate among all edge rushers in the NFL in 2021, per PFF, but overall, the Bengals struggled to consistently generate pressure.
Their pass-rush win rate as a team was the seventh-lowest in the NFL and outside of Hendrickson, only Sam Hubbard and Larry Ogunjobi had more than six sacks. Hubbard is okay as a secondary pass-rusher, but his value is more geared towards run defense on the edge, highlighted by his mediocre pass-rush win rate of 12.8 percent – 66th out of all edge defenders. Hubbard is still with the team, but Ogunjobi is a free agent and no longer a Bengal.
B.J. Hill, who had 5.5 sacks in 16 games and 2 starts last season will likely step up and provide pressure inside the tackles, but he played less than half of the Bengals defensive snaps last season. How he’ll adjust to a full workload remains to be seen.
Hendrickson will lead the Bengals pass rush, and they’ll have enough in the secondary to help them negate a lack of a push upfront, but it could also hurt them.
Cleveland Browns:
Biggest Strength: The Run Game
Kevin Stefanski’s hire after the 2019 NFL season was a turning point for the Cleveland Browns offense. The front office leaned into building a stout offensive front based around the offensive line – coached by the great Bill Callahan – and a strong running game led by Nick Chubb and Kareem Hunt.
For the past two years, the Browns ground game has run amok in the NFL. They’ve averaged over 140 rushing yards per game at just under five yards per attempt, only the Ravens and Tennessee Titans have averaged more yards per game in that span. The best results came in 2020, when the Browns running game perfectly meshed with Baker Mayfield’s ability to work in the play-action bootleg game. The Browns won 11 games for the first time since 1995 and made the playoffs for the first time since 2002 on the back of Chubb, Hunt, and the offensive line.
The 2021 season was marred by injuries to the starting tackles, Mayfield, and both Chubb and Hunt. But when healthy, the Browns carried on running through defenses. The loss of J.C. Tretter at center hurts, but Nick Harris has shown enough to be a competent replacement. If the rest of the offense is healthy, the Browns might have to lean on the power of the run once more.
Biggest Weakness: Depth at Wide Receiver
This shouldnt, and doesn’t, fall into the same bracket of worry that we have with the Ravens. The Browns traded for Amari Cooper in the offseason for something that looked like a lot less than a king’s ransom. Cooper, despite his down season in Dallas last year, is a bonafide number one receiver. He’ll need to prove that this season, but he won’t be short on motivation to prove his doubters wrong.
The concern appears beyond Cooper. Donovan Peoples-Jones had a nice season as a deep threat receiver and led the team in receiving with 597 yards – though that could also be more reflective of how poor the Browns passing game was. Peoples-Jones had one of the worst drop rates in the NFL and how that will translate to an increased workload could be a concern.
Having a wide receiver like Cooper on the outside will help, but the Browns just lack the depth at receiver that other contending AFC teams have. We’ve seen how important elite wide receivers are to NFL offenses in recent seasons, so the Browns may have to hope that Cooper hits the ground running.
Pittsburgh Steelers:
Biggest Strength: Wide Receiver Development
The Pittsburgh Steelers are the wide receiver factory. Over the last decade or so, they’ve had a revolving door of great wide receiver talent at their disposal. Whether it’s a sixth round pick like Antonio Brown, a mid-round pick like Emmanuel Sanders, or an early gem like the developing Chase Claypool, the Steelers know how to get the best out of their weapons out wide.
Despite losing Juju Smith-Schuster and James Washington in free agency, the Steelers have landed on their feet once again. The front office drafted George Pickens in the 2nd round of the 2022 NFL Draft and, though he has his detractors for a variety of legitimate reasons, he’s an uber talented receiver who could excel in the right scenario. Pittsburgh’s history of developing receivers points to the fact that Pickens will have every opportunity to shine.
Along with Pickens, the Steelers still have their two best receivers from 2021. Diontae Johnson has slowly morphed into one of the most reliable receivers in the NFL, catching 107 of his 169 targets for 1161 yards and 8 touchdowns. A lot of his production comes in the short and intermediate game, but Johnson is an ever-improving star. As is Chase Claypool, the Steelers’ second receiver.
Claypool is heading into just his third NFL season and has back-to-back 800 receiving yard seasons. Impressive given the context of how bad the Steelers offense was the last two years. A fresh situation at quarterback could help the former second round pick continue to grow. A scary thought.
Biggest Weakness: Offensive Line
If the Steelers want to develop their wide receivers, they’ll need production from their new quarterback – be it Mitchell Trubisky or Kenny Pickett. But they’ll also need consistent pass protection from the offensive line. And that might be a problem.
The Steelers offensive line has definitely improved from a year ago. They’ve signed James Daniels and Mason Cole in free agency and both additions should help strengthen the Steelers interior. But overall, it’s still a weak offensive line by NFL standards. They ranked 31st in pass-block win rate and 30th in run-block win rate in 2021, which is just about as bad as it gets.
The struggles upfront, coupled with the rapidly declining Ben Roethlisberger, really limited what the Steelers could do on offense in 2021. They couldn’t run the ball efficiently, and Roethlisberger didn’t have the time to sit back in the pocket and let longer plays develop. Even when he did have time, his arm strength prevented the team from running a more vertical offense, meaning most of the passing concepts were based around the short passing game. As such, the Steelers ranked 23rd in EPA per play, per RBSDM, and that feels generous.
A change under center will certainly help revitalise the offense, but the offensive line just hasn’t improved enough to instil confidence, and could hold the team back in 2022.
-Thomas Valentine
Twitter: @ThomasValenfine