Chaos and Creation in the AFC North

Here in Baltimore, we all know about the Ravens, a consensus favorite in the division and a team regularly mentioned among the favorites to win Super Bowl LX. But the rest of the AFC North is as predictable as the Browns quarterback situation.

Starting with Cleveland, they are and have been a team in chaos under the personnel guidance of GM Andrew Berry who from the outside looking in is as adept of a football talent evaluator as Halle Berry and certainly less pleasing to the eye. Or maybe the problem is really owner Jimmy Haslam, who too often has his hands in the Browns decision-making cookie jar. Whatever the Browns’ problem is it delivers benefits to the rest of the AFC North. They are the North’s gift that keeps giving and there’s little reason to believe that will change in 2025. Or 2026 or 2027. Maybe it will be 2029 when the Browns new stadium is set to be completed.

But don’t count on it…

A dome in the AFC North is akin to Ben Cleveland donning an Armani suit while squirrel hunting.

You get the picture…

This new stadium will feature a field that is sunk 80 feet into the ground to mitigate any potential airspace conflicts with nearby Cleveland Hopkins International Airport. That should work. It will make it easier to bury another Browns season by mid-November.

The Cincinnati Bengals high-powered offense is always a threat to put up points featuring the league’s best pitch-and-catch tandem in Joe Burrow and Ja’Marr Chase. The Bengals also feature arguably the best No. 2 WR in the league, Tee Higgins. But the Bengals offensive line isn’t the greatest, particularly at guard and their running game ranked 30th in 2024. Making matters worse, they’ve done little to improve any of it.

First Play of Bengals Training Camp Joe Burrow throws a Pick 6 pic.twitter.com/Sg7h4vnfBL

— YBGChris (@YBGChriss) July 23, 2025

On defense the Bengals ranked 19th in the league in 2024. They now have a new coordinator in Al Golden, mostly new defensive assistants, a rookie starting WLB in the form of Demetrius Knight Jr. and a weak d-line save for the disgruntled Trey Hendrickson. It will be a work in progress early in the season for the Bengals, if not throughout the campaign.

Cincinnati’s offense will keep them in games but if they have an off day, it won’t be pretty for Who Dey – as in, who dey think dey kidding?

And that brings us to the Steelers.

Who knows how this is going to go with Aaron Rodgers leading the way on offense while the defense is boosted by the arrivals of Jalen Ramsey and Darius Slay. At 31, Ramsey commands a $19.5M cap number and at 34, Slay eats up $10M. These aren’t typical Pittsburgh Steelers moves. Their offseason has been out of character featuring splashy acquisitions.

At 42, Rodgers clearly isn’t the nimblest QB in the pocket and requires an effective running game to be at his best. Pittsburgh ranked 11th in rushing yards last season, which is certainly respectable, but they’ve lost Najee Harris who accounted for 1,043 of the team’s 2,166 yards and of course they’ve lost the 444 yards from their quarterbacks last season that Rodgers is unlikely to duplicate. Last season in 17 games Rodgers had 94 rushing yards.

Aaron Rodgers’ very first pass of Steelers training camp is…an interception

: @SteelersWRobbie

pic.twitter.com/MXzpKCx9Id

— The Sporting News (@sportingnews) July 24, 2025

Maybe the Steelers catch lightning in bottle with Rodgers. But he’s the antithesis of a Steeler and barring a fast start, it could go sideways for the 4-time MVP the way it did for Russell Wilson in 2024. And if so, Yinzers might be asking Rodgers where they can get some ayahuasca, the hallucinogenic plant-based brew that Rodgers claims has enhanced his mental health. If he’s tapped out, there’s always Iron City Light for the Pittsburgh Towel-a-ban.

Anything can happen during an NFL season. Some teams are better than we expect and some teams that we expect to be good are not. In the AFC North, there are two teams that don’t seem to have the juice to win the division. Both are in Ohio. The other? It all depends on what Aaron Rodgers shows up. But the Aaron Rodgers the Steelers need, hasn’t been around since 2021 and hasn’t won a playoff game since the 2020 season. A stat that is slightly better than his head coach’s.

The first goal for any NFL team is to win their division.

Thanks to the inadequacies of their AFC North rivals, the Ravens have a head start.

After the first goal is conquered, it’s on to the postseason where until they prove otherwise, the Lamar Jackson/John Harbaugh led Ravens are merely posers.

Sometimes the truth hurts.

But it hurts even worse for the Ravens’ AFC North rivals.

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Source: https://russellstreetreport.com/2025/07/30/lombardis-way/afc-north-2025/