Baltimore at Houston - Who do you root for?

To me it's very obvious that at least one of these teams will be one of the top 2 seeds with a bye week looking pretty good,even though its only October,the only way either one of these teams doesn't obtain a bye is if they totally collapse in the winter months but their schedule doesn't make that likely.

I don't think Pittsburgh or Cincinnati are going to be a threat to the Ravens and certainly Houston is in a class by themselves in their division.

The winner of this game will have the best record in the AFC and at least a 2 game lead over every other AFC team.

The Pats have already lost to the Ravens and The Texans will be arriving at Gillette in several weeks.

Who do you root for in this game?

Assuming tht we will be gunning for one of these teams to get the bye week it makes more sense for us to want Houston to lose. However, the Ravens have ost some key players on defense, Suggs isn't back yet and I think they have more potential to lose more games down the stretch.

So heart says let houston win because we would nbeed to take care of business against them to proceed anyhow.

Mind says Ravens are lucky to be 5-1 and will probably slide towards the end of the season (oiffense really needs to carry that team. Plus, we don't like them.

I'm going with heart and wanting the ravens to lose. plus cincy/pittsburgh could smell blood and bring the teams closer to 500 as they battle it out and each team i nthe division always "brings it" for division games.

Easy. Houston. Ravens still have a tough schedule left..pats go on a run..they can challenge the #2 seed...go texans

don't care.......

Brute physicality.

Since we already lost to Baltimore (whom I don't agree is that strong a candidate for a bye with their depleted defense and Jekyll & Hyde offense), and we still have a chance to beat the Texans, got to root for the Texans, since we could still win a head-to-head tie breaker with them.

As BB would say "I root for the patriots"

Since Baltimore already has a win against the Pats, I would say Houston.

The thing is that I don't know if Houston has the defense to match up against Flacco. The last two weeks, the Texans' secondary has been Patriots secondary bad. They are lucky that one of the two QBs they faced was Mark Sanchez who couldn't exploit the wide open receivers that the Texans gave him. I think Flacco will.

The Texans' offense is all run oriented including passing (they can only pass on the play action it seems). If the Ravens can slow down the run (which they aren't great at), they can shut down the Texans' offense. If the Ravens can get a two score lead, the Texans aren't really built to come from behind either.

PatsDeb said:

Since we already lost to Baltimore (whom I don't agree is that strong a candidate for a bye with their depleted defense and Jekyll & Hyde offense), and we still have a chance to beat the Texans, got to root for the Texans, since we could still win a head-to-head tie breaker with them.

Click to expand...

Your logic could just easily point to rooting for Baltimore.

SVN said:

As BB would say "I root for the patriots"

Click to expand...

Trust me, even BB is rooting for the Texans.

But honestly, its not a bad thing if Baltimore wins. Texans are much more prone to having a better season with their putrid division helping them get to a 13, 14 win season. Baltimore is badly damaged by injury and has to rely on Rice and Flacco at this point.

I have to say it would take alot for me to root for Balt.....I F'in hate that team.....I would rather see Houston win for that reason alone....but also because we can take care of business against Houston at home in a few weeks.......GO PATS!!!!

PATRIOTSFANINPA said:

To me it's very obvious that at least one of these teams will be one of the top 2 seeds with a bye week looking pretty good,even though its only October,the only way either one of these teams doesn't obtain a bye is if they totally collapse in the winter months but their schedule doesn't make that likely.

I don't think Pittsburgh or Cincinnati are going to be a threat to the Ravens and certainly Houston is in a class by themselves in their division.

The winner of this game will have the best record in the AFC and at least a 2 game lead over every other AFC team.

The Pats have already lost to the Ravens and The Texans will be arriving at Gillette in several weeks.

Who do you root for in this game?

Click to expand...

I am going to throw out another angle for you guys, Where would you rather play in January? Hou or Balt? I think the answer is pretty clear also who is more likely to be a paper champ and one and done?


All that said I think it doesnt out weigh that we play Houston so a loss here and we can control our own path to bye (though that is real cloudy given a 7 way 3-3 tie and any of them could run the table too).

Bottom line is with HOU and BAL having a 2 game lead on 7 of us for one of the 7 to get a bye they will likely need to win out or one or both of them need to collapse.

The officials.

Even though the Ravens have the tiebreaker on the Pats, I think they're more likely to lose enough games for the Pats to jump ahead of them. If we're pretty optimistic and say that the Pats go 9-1 (12-4) from here on out, then the Ravens need go to end up at 11-5 for the Pats to jump them for the #2 seed, meaning they need to go 6-4. Not easy, but a loss to Houston would help.

Ravens, all the way.

signbabybrady said:

I am going to throw out another angle for you guys, Where would you rather play in January? Hou or Balt? I think the answer is pretty clear also who is more likely to be a paper champ and one and done?


All that said I think it doesnt out weigh that we play Houston so a loss here and we can control our own path to bye (though that is real cloudy given a 7 way 3-3 tie and any of them could run the table too).

Bottom line is with HOU and BAL having a 2 game lead on 7 of us for one of the 7 to get a bye they will likely need to win out or one or both of them need to collapse.

Click to expand...

good point on who has a greater home field advantage.

My default for the OPTIMAL SOLUTION in cases like this is Shakespeare:
.
.
.

"A POX ON BOTH YOUR HOUSES"
that is, a long drawn-out TIE that exhausts both teams and leaves both of them only a half game ahead/off instead of a whole.

But if you press me for a single choice; i think obviously I would prefer to see Houston win. Ravens are like the Jesters step-parents (they gave them sexy-rexy after all )
[although they do have going for them that they threw the ugly-duckling red-headed child away who later became a swan; .]

But I still hate Lewis for getting away with accessory to murder so all in all - any more chances to help keep him from another SB is great in my book.

Kid~Brady said:

Trust me, even BB is rooting for the Texans.

But honestly, its not a bad thing if Baltimore wins. Texans are much more prone to having a better season with their putrid division helping them get to a 13, 14 win season. Baltimore is badly damaged by injury and has to rely on Rice and Flacco at this point.

Click to expand...

Trust me, BB is only rooting for the patriots right now .

Houston, I think pats can win in houston in the playoffs. I guess they could win in baltimore too since they pretty much did a few weeks ago; had a certain call go the other way...

An earthquake.