Week 3 Quick Thoughts: Bad timing for London Game
I’m all for expanding the NFL brand and giving fans overseas a chance to see a legendary defense go to work. This Sunday at 9:30 AM eastern time the Ravens face off against the Jacksonville Jaguars in London. But what I don’t like about this game is the timing. The following week, the Ravens come back home to face the Pittsburgh Steelers in an important division game.
Just like previous years, our playoff fate likely won’t be decided until week 16 or 17, so every game (especially division games) counts. That much traveling, along with the time zone change leaves the Ravens at a clear disadvantage in this game. When playing against a potent offense like the Steelers, we can’t afford to be fatigued or a step slow.
The schedule makers should have prevented this by either giving us a inter-conference opponent or a bye week. Even though I would rather save our bye for after our week 8 Thursday night game when we play 2 games in 4 days.
This will be a test for Coach Harbaugh to make sure we are mentally prepared not only for the game this Sunday in London, but to also make sure after the game we turn our focus to recovering and getting mentally prepared for the week 4 game against Pittsburgh.
