Season-changing win? Ravens now improbable favorites in AFC North after win over Bears

Eight weeks into the season, the Baltimore Ravens have been one of the biggest surprises in the league -- and not in a good way. The Ravens started the season 1-2, and they lost Lamar Jackson to a hamstring injury during their third game of the season. They went 0-3 in his absence before taking their Week 7 bye, so they were just 1-5 heading into Sunday's game against the Bears.

Despite the fact that Jackson sat out again and Tyler Huntley started in his place, the Ravens managed to capture a victory and improve to 2-5 on the season. And after the division-leading Pittsburgh Steelers lost on Sunday night against the Packers -- their second consecutive loss -- the Ravens are now the betting favorite to win the division despite the fact that they are three games below .500 and two games back in the division. 

At FanDuel, the Ravens are actually minus odds to win the AFC North, with an implied 51.2% chance of earning the division crown. 

(Note that the implied probabilities add up to more than 100% because sports books like to make money.)

That's pretty wild considering that the Ravens are, again, two full games back of the Steelers at the moment, and that they still don't have their starting quarterback back in the lineup after he was downgraded to out for Week 8's win over the Bears. It remains to be seen whether he will play in Thursday's Week 9 game against the Miami Dolphins, but he did seem close to playing against Chicago. If he's back, the Ravens are a much different team, and there's reason to be confident that they'll win more games than they'll lose.

But let's consider why, despite their current standing, they might be favored to come out on top in the division.

First, there's the fact that the Ravens have two games remaining against the Steelers. If they win both of those games, they make up the entire gap between the two teams in the standings. Vegas obviously thinks that the Ravens are a superior team to the Steelers despite their early record, and so they probably expect the Ravens to sweep those games. But even if they get a split rather than a sweep, there's another reason the sports books are banking on a Ravens comeback: the schedule. 

According to tankathon.com, the Ravens have the league's fifth-easiest remaining strength of schedule. They have games against the Dolphins, Browns and Jets within the next four weeks, and the remainder of the schedule other than that isn't all that difficult outside of a pair of incredibly tough games in Weeks 16 and 17. And when you take out the two games against the Steelers, the slate looks even easier.

Given the way the schedule sets up, there's a legitimate chance that the Ravens could go 4-1 or even 5-0 before that first game against Pittsburgh in Week 14. (Assuming that Jackson returns to the lineup on Thursday against Miami, that is.) That'd make them something like 6-6 or even 7-5 heading into that first showdown. They're almost certainly going to be favored in all five games, and despite the fact that each of the next three are on the road, they should have a great chance to come away with a win in each of them. 

Meanwhile, here's a look at the Steelers' schedule. On the surface, it's not that much more difficult than that of the Ravens. But that's because they play the Ravens twice and the Ravens are only 2-5. But the Ravens are not an ordinary 2-5 team, and the remainder of Pittsburgh's schedule is actually considerably tougher than Baltimore's despite the fact that the Steelers also have games against the Dolphins and Browns.

Pittsburgh's immediate schedule before that first Ravens game is tough. Going 3-2 in that stretch would be wildly impressive. And they could easily do worse than that, considering that they've already lost to the Bengals and that's the only below .500 team they play during that stretch of the season. If they go 2-3 or even 1-4, there's a very good chance that the Ravens and Steelers are tied or separated by just one game in the standings when they meet on Dec. 7.

What this likely comes down to is, if the Ravens sweep the Steelers in their two-game series in Weeks 14 and 18, they probably win the division, given the disparity in the remaining schedules between the two teams. If the Ravens and Steelers split those two games, things will obviously get a bit more complicated. We could be talking a lot about divisional record and record against common opponents down the stretch of the season, and these games the two teams play against opponents like the Dolphins, Jets, Patriots, Packers, Vikings and Bears will matter a lot.