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For most of this season, the Baltimore Ravens have been a disappointment. They started the season 1-2 with Lamar Jackson in the lineup, and then Jackson got hurt and missed each of the next four games. Baltimore lost the first three of those contests to drop to 1-5 coming out of its bye week, and then Jackson apparently wasn't ready to start last week against the Bears, so Tyler Huntley started in his place. But Huntley led the Ravens to a surprising win, and four days later, Jackson returned and helped him team annihilate the Dolphins on "Thursday Night Football." Those two wins, combined with the division-leading Pittsburgh Steelers losing last Sunday night against the Packers -- their second consecutive loss -- have the Ravens as the betting favorite to win the division despite the fact that they are two games below .500 and 1.5 games back in the division. At FanDuel, the Ravens are actually minus odds to win the AFC North, with an implied 59.2% chance of earning the division crown. TeamOddsImplied ProbabilityRavens-14559.2%Steelers+20033.3%Bengals+65013.3%Browns+35002.8% (Note that the implied probabilities add up to more than 100% because sports books like to make money.) That's pretty wild considering that the Ravens are, again, 1.5 games back of the Steelers at the moment, and that they still have multiple injury issues on defense. That defense is healthier than it was much earlier in the season, though, and it is playing much better over the last few weeks. Combined with Jackson's return, it appears that the sports books have reason to be confident that the Ravens will be a significantly better team over the rest of the year than they were early on. But let's consider why, despite their current standing, they might be favored to come out on top in the division. First, there's the fact that the Ravens have two games remaining against the Steelers. If they win both of those games, they make up the entire gap between the two teams in the standings. Vegas obviously thinks that the Ravens are a superior team to the Steelers despite their early record, and so they probably expect the Ravens to sweep those games. But even if they get a split rather than a sweep, there's another reason the sports books are banking on a Ravens comeback: the schedule. According to tankathon.com, the Ravens have the league's seventh-easiest remaining strength of schedule. They have games against the Dolphins, Browns and Jets within the next four weeks, and the remainder of the schedule other than that isn't all that difficult outside of a pair of incredibly tough games in Weeks 16 and 17. And when you take out the two games against the Steelers, the slate looks even easier. WeekOpponentRecord10at Vikings3-411at Browns2-612Jets1-713Bengals3-514Steelers4-315at Bengals3-516Patriots6-217at Packers5-1-118at Steelers4-3AllTotal31-36-1 (.463)OthersNon-Steelers23-30-1 (.435) Given the way the schedule sets up, there's a legitimate chance that the Ravens could go 3-1 or even 4-0 before that first game against Pittsburgh in Week 14. That'd make them something like 6-6 or even 7-5 heading into that first showdown. They're almost certainly going to be favored in all four games, and despite the fact that each of the next two are on the road, they should have a great chance to come away with a win in each of them. Meanwhile, here's a look at the Steelers' schedule. On the surface, it's not that much more difficult than that of the Ravens. But that's because they play the Ravens twice and the Ravens are only 3-5. But the Ravens are not an ordinary 2-5 team, and the remainder of Pittsburgh's schedule is actually considerably tougher than Baltimore's despite the fact that the Steelers also have games against the Dolphins and Browns. WeekOpponentRecord9Colts7-110at Chargers5-311Bengals3-512at Bears4-313Bills5-214at Ravens3-515Dolphins2-716at Lions5-217at Browns2-618Ravens3-5AllTotal39-39 (.500)OthersNon-Ravens33-29 (.532) Pittsburgh's immediate schedule before that first Ravens game is tough. Going 3-2 in that stretch would be wildly impressive. And they could easily do worse than that, considering that they've already lost to the Bengals and that's the only below .500 team they play during that stretch of the season. If they go 2-3 or even 1-4, there's a very good chance that the Ravens and Steelers are tied or separated by just one game in the standings when they meet on Dec. 7. What this likely comes down to is, if the Ravens sweep the Steelers in their two-game series in Weeks 14 and 18, they probably win the division, given the disparity in the remaining schedules between the two teams. If the Ravens and Steelers split those two games, things will obviously get a bit more complicated. We could be talking a lot about divisional record and record against common opponents down the stretch of the season, and these games the two teams play against opponents like the Dolphins, Jets, Patriots, Packers, Vikings and Bears will matter a lot.
