It's Wednesday and you know what that means... we have primetime football tomorrow. In tomorrow's Thursday night matchup we have the Ravens heading down to Tampa Bay to take on a struggling Buccaneers team. Before I get into this blog I just want to do my weekly rundown of my past week's predictions. I was yet again correct as the Jets built on their winning streak by going into Denver and beat a floundering Broncos team. Although winning this game, the Jets star rookie running back Breece Hall is done for this season after tearing his ACL on Sunday. This led to the Jets being very proactive and acquiring James Robinson to fill this offensive void now that they are without Breece Hall. Aside from that, the Broncos continue to lower expectations week after week and the Jets continue to flex their muscles as one of the most underrated teams in the NFL. I have now been right on my last two NFL predictions and I plan on extending this streak to three straight correct predictions so let's get into week 8.
First off, although I opened up this blog by stating that the Buccaneers were struggling, the Ravens aren't even coming close to their preseason expectations and have been just a flat out bad second half team. In all three of their loses this season, they were leading each one of these at half. Whether it be letting up 28 fourth quater points to the Dolphins, scoring 0 second half points against the Bills, or letting the Giants crawl back in the second half to take another game from the Ravens. These second half woes have been the Ravens cryptonite and can't continue if they want to not only win games but to get back to the level of football they have the capability to play that was talked about all preseason. Before I move on to break down the Bucs woes, one statistic that I want to point out is that in their first two losses the Ravens trailed for a total of 14 seconds. 14 SECONDS! Although this statistic is a complete anomaly, this just intensfies how bad the Ravens have been at being able to perform in the second half and close out games. Enough with the Ravens problems, now we're going to tackle the Buccaneers issues. Aside from Tom Brady's personal life going to shambles, the Bucs as a team have also gone to complete shambles. They are 3-4 and are on a two game losing streak losing their last two to the Steelers and Panthers. The last one really tipping the Bucs problems over the edge losing to a Christian McCaffery less Panthers 21-3. The Buccaneers are also dealing with a ton of injuries so when combining that with their lack of chemistry things have been very rocky and a lot is gonna have to change for this team to turn it around. The Ravens average around 25.9 points per game meanwhile the Bucs average a mere 17.7 points per game. The Ravens are 12th in redzone efficiency with 58.3 percent compared to the 28th place Bucaneers who sit at 47.4 percent. The Ravens also have a much better third down conversion rate, converting 42.2 percent of the time in comparison to a Buccaneer team that is converting third downs 35.1 percent of the time. The last two offensive factors I want to mention are rushing yards and yards per play becasue the Ravens are top 10 in both these categories compared to the Buccaneers who aren't even top 25 in either of these categories. Every single category I just listed the Ravens are a much better team then the Buccaneers which is why I think the Ravens are gonna get to 5-3 and extend Tom Brady's losing streak to three games in a row. This is gonna make Brady contemplate even more if playing this year and the consequences that came with it were even worth it. #Football #Week8 #NFL #PrimeTime
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