Throughout the NFL season I will generally keep these VERSUS articles related to offensive players.  However, the Monday Night Football match-up between the New York Jets and Baltimore Ravens is one match-up in which both defenses will be the focal point.  After all, it has been said that defense wins championships and offense sells tickets even though at times the defense can turn into a team’s best offense.  This particular match-up is going to be hyped up plenty by the networks, especially after Ravens linebacker Ray Lewis and Jets head coach Rex Ryan got into some back and forth smack talk.

Each team brings a top ranked defense from a year ago into this contest.  I expect each defense to attack the opposing quarterback early and often, specifically the Ravens who have a better chance of disrupting the game of Mark Sanchez.  The Jets too will go after Ravens quarterback Joe Flacco, but I just feel that Flacco has a better pocket presence and will be less inclined to make costly mistakes.

To get a better understanding of what each of these two teams brings into this contest in regards to defense I put together a grid of featuring each team’s defensive statistics.  There is a column which shows the number related to the category on the left hand side and also a column dedicated to the overall rank of said category.  For example, the Jets allowed on average 98.6 rushing yards per game in 2009 and that accomplishment was good for 8^th best in the NFL.  Also, any rank number followed by a T signifies there was a tie in this category ranking.

As the stats above suggest each of these teams will be ready to attempt to stop the opposing team’s offense.  Expect some big hits and some big plays from each team as this game could get very heated.  This is a home game for the Jets so they get a boost from the home crowd, which is always pumped up.  Both squads are going to game plan to stop the others most valuable offensive feature, which is the running game.  Both the Ravens and the Jets have big play running backs at their disposal and stopping these featured backs could mean the difference between a win or a loss.  However, I feel in the end the Ravens have a more challenging passing attack and will be able to open up more holes for their running backs.  Look for each team to make a decent contribution to any fantasy team, but for the Ravens to come out on top in this contest both on the games scoreboard and on fantasy scoreboards

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