The Biggest Wild Card on Every AFC North Team This Season

The world of the NFL is micromanaged. It's all about control, about preventing surprises and about limiting the impact of the inevitable unknowns that swirl around every team.

Unfortunately, having this level of control is a pipe dream—this is a game played and planned by humans, after all, and humans are fallible and unpredictable, no matter how well-crafted a game plan may be.

In the following slides, I present to you one player from each AFC North team who may prove to be a wild card this year—players so unpredictable that it's hard to tell just how much they may harm or help their respective teams.

Cleveland Browns: QB Brandon Weeden

Though no formal announcement has been made yet, it's easy to assume that the Cleveland Browns will name rookie quarterback Brandon Weeden their starter for the season.

There's no wilder of a wild card for any NFL team than a rookie quarterback, and this is doubly true for the Browns, who desperately need to improve their passing offense this year. 

How will Weeden perform under NFL-style pressure? We don't know.

How well will Weeden establish chemistry with his sparse receiving corps? We don't know.

Can he master the Browns' West Coast offense well enough to be an effective starter from Week 1? We don't know.

Right now, all we know for certain about Weeden is his name, his position, his team and the limited amount of work he's gotten so far in rookie minicamp. If that's not a wild card, then I don't know what is.

Pittsburgh Steelers: OT Mike Adams

The prevailing wisdom is that the Pittsburgh Steelers managed to solve all of their offensive line problems in the first two rounds of this year's draft, taking guard David DeCastro followed by tackle Mike Adams.

The final picture of the line appears to be shaping up, and longtime tackle Willie Colon has been moved to guard to accommodate installing Adams as the starting left tackle and moving Marcus Gilbert to the right.

Adams was a risky draft pick for the Steelers, however, and the jury's still very much out as to whether this gamble will pay off.

The Steelers completely removed Adams from their draft board after he blatantly lied to them in his interview at the scouting combine. Adams then returned to their good graces after personally asking the team for a second chance and meeting their unspecified demands. 

Adams has questions surrounding his work ethic as well as his skills as a tackle. If his issues return this year, it could mean more sacks for quarterback Ben Roethlisberger and another shakeup on an offensive line that desperately needs stability.

Baltimore Ravens: QB Joe Flacco

The Baltimore Ravens have made the playoffs each of the four seasons that Joe Flacco has been their starting quarterback, but that doesn't make him any less of a wild card.

The lone area in which the Ravens lack consistency is in their passing game, and while Flacco isn't to blame for all of the issues related to that inconsistency, he's certainly a major reason for it.

As each year of his career goes on, Flacco's appeared to plateau. This isn't necessarily a bad thing on the surface—it should seem to indicate that if anything, Flacco's predictable. But that's not the case.

Instead, Flacco's week-to-week performance varies wildly. One Sunday, he may throw for more than 300 yards. The next, he may complete only 30 percent of his passes for fewer than 150 yards.

Though the Ravens have successfully relied more heavily on the run game and defense, if either of those two components of their game struggles this season, Flacco will be under that much more pressure to perform at a consistently high level.

When your quarterback looks like an entirely different player from one week to the next, it's hard to call him anything but a wild card. 

Cincinnati Bengals: RB Bernard Scott

With Cedric Benson out the door, Cincinnati Bengals running back Bernard Scott will finally have his time to shine.

Though he'll be competing with BenJarvus Green-Ellis for carries, neither back projects to be the team's featured tailback, which means a lot more time on the field for Scott.

There are high hopes that Scott will finally explode into the better-than-Benson back he's been touted to be the whole time he sat on the depth chart as the No. 2.

In both 2009 and 2010, he averaged more than four yards per carry—but he never had more than 74 rushes per season in that time.

Last year, he had 112 carries, and his average dropped to 3.4 yards (Benson averaged 3.9 with nearly twice as many carries). It appears that the more work he gets, the less effective he is. Scott may ultimately be better when he's less involved in the offense.

The Bengals weren't the most effective team on the ground last year, and it's likely an area to receive greater attention this season. The pressure will be on Green-Ellis, yes, but even more scrutiny will be given Scott, considering the expectation that he's that much better than Benson.

The success or failure of the Bengals' running game relies more heavily on Scott's contributions, but who knows how well he will manage the increased carries? That's a lot of pressure for a player who has become such a question mark.

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