NFL Picks, 2012 season, Week 11

Many observers were ready to bury the Baltimore Ravens after they lost Ray Lewis and Lardarius Webb during their Oct. 14 win over Dallas. But the Ravens have won two of three games since the defensive duo went down and, after putting up 55 points against Oakland on Sunday, the Ravens stand at 7-2 heading into next week’s division matchup with Pittsburgh.

Baltimore has remained competitive on defense, but has won by scoring points – 124 in the last four games, specifically. Derek Arnold, senior editor with the Russell Street Report, says that’s no accident.

“Despite their reputation, the Ravens are no longer a team that is carried by the defense,” he says. “They have become one of the NFL’s best red zone offenses and, as a result, are near the top of the league in points scored.”

Consistency is still an issue on offense and he’s not banking on another division title just yet.  But the offense is improving and seems to be understanding that it is going to need to score in the mid-20s many weeks to win.

“While not spectacular, Joe Flacco is an extremely capable quarterback,” Arnold says. “And when the offense runs through Ray Rice and utilizes play-action effectively, Torrey Smith can hit a home run at any time. Anquan Boldin, Dennis Pitta and Ed Dickson can keep the chains moving.”

Arnold joined Zoneblitz as its guest blogger for week 11. After pulling into a three way tie in Week 9, in Week 10 we saw Andy and myself continue in our tying ways, with a 9-4-1 record, while our collective of celebrity bloggers dropped eight games to break the three-way tie.

Week 11 picks, where Andy and I finally don’t feel obligated to pick against the Vikings, sees us agree on all of the Sunday day games, but disagreeing on the night games: