NFL Week 8 Picks: Ravens Will Take out Frustration on Hopeless Cardinals

A hint for those who watched in horror as the Baltimore Ravens produced the worst offensive performance in the last million years on Monday Night Football: You should have switched over to the World Series.

Oh, well. I guess that's an argument for another day.

The point for the time being, at least as it pertains to football, is that the Ravens have some serious bouncing back to do this Sunday against the Arizona Cardinals. If they don't find a way to save face, they may find themselves closer to the bottom of the AFC North than the top.

The good news is the oddsmakers like the Ravens' chances, as the spread (per Sportsbook) has the Ravens favored by 13 points. The way things are looking right now, it's a good bet to take.

Now, I should admit I was little skeptical of this spread when I first saw it. Indeed, I even went on the record saying that picking the Ravens to cover was a bad idea.

I don't like to do this, but I'm flip-flopping to the other side on this one.

Part of the reason I now like the Ravens to cover is that I was under the impression before that Cardinals leading rusher Beanie Wells was going to be limited against the Ravens. However, based on a report from Kent Somers of the Arizona Republic, it sounds like Wells is not going to be able to play at all. If he cannot, the Cardinals will have to use a running back-by-committee approach, and the committee will not be strong.

Needless to say, this is going to put a lot of pressure on Kevin Kolb, and that's something to be skeptical about. Kolb has been a big disappointment this season, and he's essentially the main reason the Cardinals have failed to establish any sense of consistency on offense. And because they're not a good defensive team, the Cardinals have been largely hopeless as a result.

It would be one thing if the Cardinals were going up against a run-of-the-mill defensive team, but they're going up against the best defensive team in the league. The Ravens are tops in the NFL in points and yards allowed per game, and they rank in the top five against both the run and the pass.

The big question for the Ravens will be whether or not that can get anything done on offense. That will start with getting the ball to Ray Rice, which is something they didn't do on Monday night against the Jacksonville Jaguars. No doubt you heard about it while watching ESPN this week.

If the Ravens do get the ball to Rice and he is successful, they're not going to have to trust Joe Flacco to generate all their offense. This is something they pretty much never want to do, and they got burned by it against the Jaguars.

If the Ravens can limit Flacco's throws (say, 30 or so), they're going to have themselves a good day.

In the end, this one boils down to the a really good team playing a really bad team. The pressure is on the Ravens to actually look like a really good team, and this is something I think they can do.

Ravens 28, Cardinals 10