The 2020 National Football League season is here. Seven months after the Kansas City Chiefs won Super Bowl LIV, we are about to go from zero to 100 in a hurry with no preseason action before Week 1. The lack of exhibition games means a lot less to work with for our 2020 forecasts. At The TSN Edge, we decided to take a closer look at the sports betting information available for all 32 teams in order to get a better idea of what those numbers indicate we can expect for this upcoming season. Here is the latest instalment of our division preview series, focusing on the AFC North. 

BALTIMORE RAVENS

AFC North Champion Odds: -200

Team Win Total: 11.5 Wins

All right, this one is going to hurt me - a lot. I love Lamar Jackson. Ask any one of the other nine managers from my 2019 fantasy football league and they’ll tell you how much I talked him up before he led me to my first ever championship that year. Sure, nobody cares that I won a trophy. The point is that I vouched for Jackson before it was cool, which is why I hate having to flip sides and fade him now. But that’s what I’m doing. Last year, Jackson   broke the all-time single-season rushing record for quarterbacks with 1,206 yards on 176 attempts. He also threw for 3,127 yards and scored a combined 43 touchdowns. That type of production will be incredibly difficult to duplicate. If you don’t believe me, take a look at Jackson’s rushing yards prop total for this season. It’s set at 935.5 rushing yards, which means he could finish with 270 fewer rushing yards than he did last season and still hit the over. It’s also important to remember how much volume played into Jackson’s record 2019 performance. Last year, Jackson averaged 6.85 yards per carry – the 16th-best mark of any quarterback in NFL history. For perspective, when Michael Vick set the prior single-season quarterback rushing record with 1,039 in 2006, he averaged a ridiculous 8.4 yards per carry. Vick had 123 rushing attempts that season. In 2019, Jackson had 176. Jackson is coming off back-to-back years in which he led all quarterbacks in rushing attempts with 147 and 176, respectively. That type of volume seems unsustainable, even if Jackson can once again stay healthy for a full 16-game season. The last quarterback to lead the NFL in rushing attempts in back-to-back years was Cam Newton in 2011-12, which also happened to be his first two years in the league. After averaging 126.5 rush attempts and 723.5 rushing yards in his first two seasons, Newton dropped to 111 attempts and 585 rushing yards in 2013. Factor in the additions of rookie second round pick running back J.K. Dobbins and rookie third round pick wide receiver Devin Duvernay, as well as the emergence of second-year wide receiver Marquise Brown, and the Ravens could be more inclined to spread the ball around and rely less on Jackson’s legs. Baltimore still has the weapons on both sides of the football to contend for an AFC North crown and more. Still, we should anticipate at least some regression from both Jackson’s rushing production as well as the league-leading 14 wins the Ravens registered last season. 

PITTSBURGH STEELERS

AFC North Champion Odds: +320

Team Win Total: 9 Wins

Ben Roethlisberger is back. After he was limited to just six quarters of action in 2019, Roethlisberger is healthy again. That’s a good thing for a Steelers team that somehow finished last season with eight wins despite some terrible quarterback play from Mason Rudolph and Devlin Hodges.  Roethlisberger enters the 2020 season as the favourite to win AP NFL Comeback Player of the Year at +350 odds. Two years ago, Roethlisberger threw for a career-high 5,129 yards and 34 touchdowns. If the 38-year-old could even come close to that level of production it could be enough to push Pittsburgh back into the playoff picture. Roethlisberger isn’t the only Steeler primed for a bounce back, either. Running back James Conner and wide receiver JuJu Smith-Schuster both missed time in 2019, and their numbers declined sharply on the heels of breakout campaigns in 2018. Now that they are healthy and Big Ben is back under center, the Pittsburgh offence could look a lot different this season. Meanwhile, a defence that kept the Steelers in Wild Card contention late last season despite all of their issues on offence returns with all of its key pieces in place. Finally, the Steelers could catch a break with a schedule that features seven teams forecasted to win fewer than eight games. That list includes two games against the Cincinnati Bengals along with games against the Jacksonville Jaguars, Washington Football Team, New York Giants, Denver Broncos and Houston Texans. With a manageable schedule, Roethlisberger in the conversation for Comeback Player of the Year and a defense projected to rank among the best in the NFL, Pittsburgh could contend for double-digit wins and force its way back into the playoffs for the first time since 2017. 

CLEVELAND BROWNS

AFC North Champion Odds: +500

Team Win Total: 8.5 Wins

The arrow is once again pointing up for the Cleveland Browns. On the heels of a disastrous 6-10 season, Cleveland’s season win total is set at 8.5. There are a few reasons for optimism. Kevin Stefanski was hired as head coach after the Freddie Kitchens experiment failed. Stefanski, who enters the year with the fourth-shortest odds to win NFL Coach of the Year at +2000, spent the offseason addressing some key personnel issues along with General Manager and new Executive Vice President of Football Operations Andrew Berry. Berry and Stefanski upgraded the offensive line when they brought in free agent tackle Jack Conklin and then drafted Jedrick Wills Jr. with the 10th overall pick in the 2020 NFL Draft. They also added tight end Austin Hooper and extended running back Kareem Hunt. Odell Beckham Jr. appears to be healthy after off-season surgery to address lower body injuries that limited him for most of last season. Beckham managed to play in all 16 games in his Browns debut but finished the year with 74 targets – three fewer than he registered in just 12 games with the New York Giants the previous season. Despite the decrease in volume, OBJ still went for 1,035 yards and four touchdowns. He’s currently +3000 to lead the NFL in receiving yards – 15th-longest odds on the board. Still, considering he’s topped 1,000 yards receiving in every season in which he’s played at least 12 games, Beckham should have a good chance to beat last year’s receiving yards total if he can stay healthy in 2020. Cleveland is projected to be the favourite in nine of its 16 games, with the odds for its Week 12 matchup against the Jacksonville Jaguars currently unavailable. As is the case with OBJ’s receiving yards total, the Browns season win total could be on the rise this season.       

CINCINNATI BENGALS

AFC North Champion Odds: +2500

Team Win Total: 5.5 Wins

The Joe Burrow era has is underway in Cincinnati. After taking the NCAA by storm with a single-season FBS record for touchdown passes while leading LSU to a national championship last year, the first-overall pick from the 2020 NFL Draft is ready to go to work for the Bengals. Burrow will look to follow in the footsteps of last year’s No. 1 pick Kyler Murray, who entered last season as the consensus favourite to win AP Offensive Rookie of the Year and went on to earn that award. Burrow, 23, is the favourite to take home ROY this year at +240 odds. His supporting cast will play a big role in whether he succeeds. Running back Joe Mixon and wide receiver Tyler Boyd are back. A.J. Green, who did not suit up in a game last season and is +1600 to win Comeback Player of the Year – seventh-shortest odds - returns healthy. Rookie second round pick Tee Higgins was also added to help give Burrow the firepower he will need to rack up the passing yards and touchdowns in his NFL debut. Burrow’s passing yard total prop for his rookie year has been set at 3,750.5 – 28.5 passing yards more than Murray finished with last season. Since 2010, five rookies have won Offensive Rookie of the Year - Murray, Dak Prescott, Robert Griffin III, Cam Newton and Sam Bradford each earned that recognition. Let’s face it, the Cincinnati defence likely won’t be very good. They ranked 25th in points allowed and 29th in yards against in 2019. If that happens again, Burrow will have ample opportunity to air it out as he tries to keep the Bengals in most games. Cincinnati might not win many games, but watching Burrow and his weapons week in and week out will be a lot more entertaining for Bengals’ fans than what they were forced to endure last season.

*All sports betting information appears as listed by Bet MGM at 11:00 AM ET on Wednesday September 9th, 2020.