Cincinnati Bengals
Love - A New Defensive Superpower
The Seahawks and Panthers may have [deservedly] gotten all of the glory in 2013, but the Bengals' defense had a heckuva year too, finishing in the top 5 of all major yardage and points categories. They were relentless in their pass rush even after rising star Geno Atkins went down, sort of making Vontaze Burfict a household name. Hell, even Terence Newman didn't look totally helpless in radioactive orange stripes. Whether or not Cincy can keep it up now that former DC Mike Zimmer is steering the Vikings' [highly subsidized] ship remains to be seen, but they certainly can't blame any slides on personnel with most of their defensive rockstars in tact for 2014.
Rollercoasters can be thrilling, and they can also make you reach for the barf bag. Bengals fans know this well after Andy "The Red Rifle" Dalton has taken them through extreme highs and lows for the past three years. One minute he's dropping 300 yards and 5 TDs on a solid defense like the Jets, the next, he's coughing up the ball three times in a heavily favored playoff game at home. This is a contract year for Dalton, so he could go the way of Colin Kaepernicks or Josh Freeman. On the whole his body of work is better than average, but after three consecutive wild card flameouts, that superb defense we talked about might chase Dalton out of Cincinnati with pitchforks if he can't get them to one lousy divisional playoff round.
Cleveland Browns
Love - Johnny Manziel, Savior of Cleveland
Just about every year, a player emerges from the draft who is so polarizing that you can’t help but love and hate him simultaneously. Enter Johnny Manziel--maybe you’ve heard of him?--the young and bro-tastic Heisman winner from Texas A&M with some serious upside in his wild, improvisational style of quarterback play. He’s sort of like Tim Tebow with actual talent and an average BAC of 0.10, and I have every bit of confidence that Sir Football will give us some electrifying highlights to remember this season. After decades of QB woes, Browns fans have to be excited that karma may finally swing Cleveland’s way with a wild card like Manziel.
Superstition may not be your thing, but it’s a little unsettling that Johnny Manziel was picked 22nd in the draft in a trade just like his Cleveland predecessors Brandon Weeden, Colt McCoy and Brady Quinn. Needless to say things didn’t work out so well for those guys. Regardless of Cleveland’s cosmic order of failure, Manziel isn’t exactly walking into Shangri-La with this roster. WR Josh Gordon is facing the possibility of a year-long suspension and the Browns haven’t found a legitimate replacement for RB Trent Richardson, inefficient as he was. That means carrying quite a bit of offensive weight on one rookie’s shoulders who’s used to playing backyard hero ball and who may not survive a year against the likes of Terrell Suggs, Geno Atkins and Lawrence Timmons if he cannot effectively spread the ball around. But there's also Brian Hoyer, I guess.
Baltimore Ravens
Love - Steve Smith's Revenge
I’m not always a football prophet, but when I am, I’m predicting a post-Super Bowl victory decline for the rebuilding Ravens. With a fairly low-key offseason anchored by the curse of Joe Flacco's contract, this may be another dreaded restart year for Baltimore. But who doesn't like the idea of Steve Smith exacting some revenge on the Panthers who've forsaken him in Week 4? Smith's time as a pro is surely limited, but he fills a definite need for Flacco whose production plummeted after deep threat Anquan Boldin went to San Francisco last season. Silver bullet he is not, but Steve Smith gives the Ravens some spark in the huddle they've missed since that mass exodus in 2013.
There's no real way to talk about this elegantly, so I'll just put it out there - how in the world can you cheer for Ray Rice these days as a Ravens fan or otherwise? There's a special place in hell for someone who beats his partner unconscious and then somehow allows for a situation where said wife is offering a public apology at a press conference. From my blogger pulpit, I can't pretend to know the circumstances that led to the assault, but it's an assault, plain and simple, that Ray Rice ultimately is responsible for. And he should stop relying on PR advice from Dick Cheney's hunting buddy.
Pittsburgh Steelers
Love - Greener Pastures in the Run Game
The Steelers' bad luck at the line of scrimmage in recent years is well-documented here and elsewhere. And though they've proven they can win plenty of games without a wildly prolific offense, they haven't had a star running back in nearly a decade. All that could change in a big way this year with the one-two punch of the emerging Le'Veon Bell and bruising style of veteran LaGarrette Blount. Anchored by a healthy David Decastro and Markice Pouncey, Pittsburgh could be near-indestructable on the ground in 2014 and reclaim a division with a lot more question marks elsewhere.
Hate - The Age Gap
As continues to be the narrative for the Steelers since their last Super Bowl appearance, they're still rounding the corner on rebuilding the roster. On the one hand, Pittsburgh's core of franchise vets is still more solid than most when you consider the fact that Troy Polamalu, Ben Roethlisberger and Heath Miller are all returning with six rings between them and over a decade of experience. (Insert your own Yinzer "Count thaaaaa riiiiinngs" eye roll here) On the other hand, the Steelers are tasked with knitting together a lot of young and newly assembled personnel groups that could have growing pains ahead, most notably wide receivers and the secondary. Considering the likelihood of miscommunication and blown assignments in the early going, it could take just one Big Ben-Todd Haley sideline blowup for everyone else to shuffle off from the huddle, heads hung low like Charlie Brown, praying to Kanye that mom and dad will stop fighting just this once. And while totally unrelated, can we just stop with the bumblebee/business casual unis? I can't even:
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