Put those back up on the 16th Street Mall! Go closet hunting for your old Elvis Dumervil jersey! And Denver high school English teachers, dedicate this week to teaching Edgar Allan Poe!
We’re all Ravens fans now!
In order for the Broncos to avoid the Pittsburgh Steelers, the team they shouldn’t want to play, in the divisional round, “your” Ravens will have to knock them off this coming weekend. If Pittsburgh loses to beloved Baltimore, the Broncos will face the winner of the Bengals-Colts game.
No way the Bengals, after slapping around the Broncos on Monday night a week ago, come into Denver and win.
No way Peyton Manning loses to the Colts, even if his “Star Wars” numbers of late have become more “Battlestar Galactica” numbers.
The Steelers are the team that scares me the most, whether Le’Veon Bell two weekends from now. (Dr. Benjamin Hochman believes the hyperextended knee will keep him out of the Ravens-Steelers game Saturday night, but he will return to face the Broncos.)
“They have a dynamic offense, and their defense is pretty good,” Broncos receiver Emmanuel Sanders, who played for Pittsburgh a season ago, said of the Steelers. “They have guys in the secondary that not too many people know about, but they’re playing well as a unit. …
“But regardless of who we have to face, we still have to roll over who’s in front of us in order to win the Super Bowl, and what better team than them?”
The Steelers are 11-5, just one more loss than Denver, and won their final four games and eight of their past 10. The two losses wedged in there? A close one against the Saints and Pittsburgh’s version of the Broncos’ “Rams loss” — an inexplicable letdown against the Jets.
Ben Roethlisberger, the only NFL player whose last name doesn’t rhyme with anything, is slinging it around like the old days of, well, any year except the past two years. He threw for 4,952 yards, tied for the most in the league, and had two six-touchdown games. And consider this a stat you’ve never heard of, but should know — Pass EPA. Observing down, distance, score and other intangibles, this stat is used to measure how each passing play affects the scoreboard, understanding that, , “not all yards are created equal. … EPA is the granular, play-by-play version of what wins the game.”
No one might know what it truly means, but Big Ben finished second only to Green Bay’s Aaron Rodgers in this category, which seems about right.
Asked what he had seen from the Steelers this season, Denver defensive tackle Terrance Knighton said, “I saw them a little bit, because Antonio Brown was on my fantasy team.”
Drafting Brown was one of the better moves by the second-best GM roaming Dove Valley. Brown led the NFL with 1,698 receiving yards, maximizing Roethlisberger’s Pass EPAing. Brown and Bell, the running back, graded out as the best players at their respective positions this season, according to Pro Football Focus.
But if the ravenous Ravens — No. 6 in the AFC, No. 2 in your heart — defeat the Steelers, then the Broncos will cruise into the AFC championship game.
And, wishful thinking for sure, but the Ravens have historically played well at New England.
Man, we’re worried about the AFC title game at Foxborough, Mass? What if, instead, the Broncos get to host the AFC title game, against the Ravens? Well, at that point, they’d be your Ravens nevermore.
Benjamin Hochman: bhochman@denverpost.com or
