NFL Week 3 – Ravens vs. Rams

BALTIMORE RAVENS (1-1) vs. ST. LOUIS RAMS (0-2)

Date/Time: Sunday, September 25, 4:05 PM ET
Venue: Edward Jones Dome, St. Louis, Missouri
Broadcast: CBS
Ravens vs. Rams Betting Lines from betonline.com
Spread: Ravens -3 ½
Moneyline: Ravens -195: Rams +170
Over/Under: 41.5 points

Both the Baltimore Ravens and the St. Louis Rams will be looking to rebound from underwhelming performances in losses last week when they square off on Sunday in St. Louis. While the Rams loss wasn’t entirely unexpected, the Ravens loss at Tennessee was shocking to say the least. With redemption on their minds, Baltimore has to be licking their chops at the prospect of facing a Rams team that has been decimated by injuries and has frankly been underwhelming in both of their contests this year.

Baltimore had a bad game last week in Tennessee. The offense gained a total of just 229 yards while committing three turnovers while the defense gave up a staggering 432 yards – 358 through the air. We’ll give them an early season mulligan knowing that Joe Flacco, Ray Rice and the Ravens defense will be fired up to take the field and erase the memories of the huge letdown of last week.

The St. Louis Rams are in familiar territory. They have started 0-2 the last five seasons and judging by their play thus far and the injuries that the team has sustained, there is a realistic chance that the team goes 0-3. Both Steven Jackson and Cadillac Williams are highly questionable for Sunday’s game leaving Jerious Norwood and Quinn Porter as the only healthy running backs in the organization – ugh!. Danny Amendola is still out and his replacement Greg Salas doesn’t quite look ready for prime time. Sam Bradford is a Stud, make no mistake about it. But without tools to work with, his talents are being wasted. [soliloquy id=”82219″]

Injuries will affect the Rams again this week on offense but there is one area in which they can improve. They can stay away from penalties for which they have 17 of this season – 8 for a huge 85 yards last week.

Defensively, the Rams looked OK last week, or maybe it was an out of sync Eli Manning that made them look that way. St. Louis will be without its two starting corners once again this week making for a patchwork group on defense to match that of the offense.

Betting Prediction: The Baltimore Ravens have been incredible in responding to a loss. They have won eight straight games following a defeat. The St. Louis Rams are 4-1 SU at home versus the Ravens and 4-2 ATS in their last six overall versus Baltimore. However the Rams are a miserable 5-17 SU in their last 22 games at home and are just 1-5 ATS in their last six on home turf.

To beat a motivated and pissed off Baltimore Ravens squad, a team has to be at full strength and playing at a very high level. The Rams are neither of those. Baltimore’s defense will be strong as ever on Sunday and Ray Rice could potentially have his best game of the year against an undermanned Rams team. This one won’t be close folks! The Rams are in serious trouble.

Pick: Baltimore Ravens -3 ½