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The Cleveland Browns and the Baltimore Ravens square off on Sunday in a Week 4 matchup between AFC North rivals.
While the Browns are 1-2 to start off the year, the Ravens are 2-1. However, Both teams are coming off a loss.
The Ravens are the home team and favorites. These are two good teams facing off in a divisional matchup, though. Anything can happen.
With that in mind, here are three bold predictions for a key Week 4 matchup between AFC rivals, the Browns and the Ravens.
Odell Beckham Jr. Goes For Over 100 Yards
Odell Beckham Jr. has been good so far this season, but has only dominated in a single game against the New York Jets.
In that game, Beckham Jr. had six receptions for 161 yards and a touchdown. Meanwhile, in the other two games combined he has 13 receptions for just 127 yards and no touchdowns.
This will be the game that Beckham Jr. proves himself. No, he might not get up to 161 yards, but he will reach 100. And he'll do it against the Ravens, a much better team than the Jets.
Beckham Jr. has shown a good connection with quarterback Baker Mayfield so far. He's caught at least six passes and had at least nine targets in each game. Mayfield's going to rely on him heavily in this bout and it will result in big numbers for the superstar receiver.
Mark Ingram Runs Wild
Lamar Jackson has been awesome this year. That being said, Jackson isn't going to keep up the ridiculous production, that's just obvious.
The stats will even out. That was shown last week. After throwing for 324 yards and five touchdowns in Week 1, he threw for 272 yards and two touchdowns in Week 2. Then he threw for 267 yards and no touchdowns in Week 3.
More importantly, the completion percentage has taken a major hit. Jackson went from 85% to 64.9% to 51.2%. And he made some truly questionable throws in Week 3.
Due to that, the Ravens might want to rely on the run a little bit and let Jackson calm himself down. Good news for them, they have a fantastic running back.
To this point, Ingram looks elite. He has 257 yards and five touchdowns on 43 carries. That's six yards per carry.
The Cleveland defense has been solid so far. Their passing defense has been elite though, and their rushing defense has been good, not great. Baltimore will realize that pretty early on and let Ingram loose, and he will run wild.
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Browns Win
The Browns are underdogs in this game. Baltimore has a better record (2-1) and they are the home team.
That being said, they've shown a few weaknesses recently. They lost to the Kansas City Chiefs but that's not really a problem, most teams will.
The bigger issue was the battle they had with the Arizona Cardinals, a team they probably should've handled easily.
In the last two games, Jackson has come back down to earth. The defense has looked good, but perhaps not as dominant. They also don't really have a number one receiver.
Meanwhile, the Browns dominated the Jets in Week 2, then barely lost to the Los Angeles Rams in Week 3.
Now for them you could argue that the Rams haven't been as dominant as the Chiefs this year. You could also say that Mayfield hasn't looked good at quarterback.
Cleveland has multiple elite targets for him though and a great running back in Nick Chubb. Jackson only has the running back to match, not the targets.
While the Ravens defense is a better overall unit, the Browns aren't that far behind. For one thing they have superstar Myles Garrett. He'll lead the way with a few big plays.
In the end, Cleveland has a slightly more complete team. They look like they're getting their act together too. If a few more things fall into place, they could go on a big run.
That will start in Week 4. Those things will start falling into place (like Mayfield figuring it out a little bit). It will be a close one, but they'll pick up a surprise victory against the Ravens in Baltimore, establishing themselves as a serious threat in 2019.
