The 49ers bye week more or less officially comes to an end tonight as Monday Night Football wraps up week seven. The team returns to the practice field tomorrow to start implementing their week seven game plan. The Browns are coming off a tough win and are a dangerous team. They didn't look particularly spectacular against the Seahawks, but they have some dangerous weapons.
Before we move on, I thought we might as well use tonight's Monday Night Football game to begin scouting out the Baltimore Ravens. The 49ers face the Ravens on Thanksgiving in Baltimore. The Harbaugh Bowl will likely include a significant media blitz of the brotherly battle. Heading into the season we did not have much of an idea of how the two teams would match up for the game. Seven weeks into the season we're looking at a pretty big game.
In the meantime, the Ravens travel to Florida to face the Jacksonville Jaguars tonight. The Jags are not a particularly good football team but they have hung close in several of their games this season. Baltimore could very well blow them out of the water, but I don't think we see anything close to resembling last night's beatdown in New Orleans. I think the Ravens likely win with relative ease, but not before the Jaguars keep it at least a little interesting early on.
The Ravens will likely focus much of their defensive effort on taking Maurice Jones-Drew out of the picture. If they can stop or at least contain MJD, that will put the games on the shoulders of rookie QB Blaine Gabbert. That could result in a sticky situation considering how solid the Ravens defense can be. I don't know how much we'll be able to take from tonight's game for 49ers-Ravens a month from now, but it is still worth keeping an eye on the Ravens performance.