How about that? A little love from the Pittsburgh paper. Earlier this week Grantland’s Bill Barnwell listed the Ravens among his “teams who will fail to meet expectations” this season. In his worst case scenario, Barnwell said that the Ravens could slip behind the Browns in the AFC North. The Browns? Really Barnwell?
Not even the Pittsburgh papers are buying what Barnwell is selling on Grantland. Ralph N. Paulk of the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review is calling the Ravens “a cause for concern” for the Steelers in week one. Despite Pittsburgh’s dominance over the Ravens the past three seasons, Paulk cited a few quotes from Steelers head coach Mike Tomlin that hinted that he may be a bit more worried this go around than in years past.
“I’m probably a little more uneasy as usual when we play these guys because they’ve got so many new guys that we have to account for,” Tomlin said. “At this juncture in this series, they probably know more about us than we know about them.”
Paulk lists the Ravens acquisitions of Lee Evans, Vonta Leach, Ricky Williams and Andre Gurode as improvements that the team made this offseason. He says that John Harbaugh “is retooling the Ravens” to match the Steelers physically using defensive tackle Terrence Cody and rookie cornerback Jimmy Smith as examples.
“The root of the matter is we have two good football teams with the same intentions —that’s to dominate the AFC North to put them in position to chase the Lombardi [Trophy], and it’s why we’ll always have issues with these guys,” Tomlin said.
