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Palmer

The Sage called it last month. If Reed gets his hands on the ball in Baltimore, he takes it to the house for a touchdown. That’s how the Ravens scored one of their two touchdowns last time, a 52-yard interception touchdown return when he jumped a route headed to wide receiver Chad Ochocinco.

“It was a tendency all the way,” says Big Bird, who talked to one of the Ravens DBs. “They knew going into the game that Carson looked opposite of the side from where the pressure was coming and looked for Chad. Ed Reed lined up on the offense’s left side and ran a straight route to Chad.”

The Bengals showed their pluck by winning a game when that happens. Reed has returned a pick seven times for a touchdown and that’s the first time the Ravens have lost the game. The law of averages isn’t with them to do it again.

Benson

The Ravens figure to be draped all over Benson because of the 120 yards from him last month that snapped their streak of 39 games holding runners to less than 100 yards. And because Lewis has been chatting it up all week, telling NFL Network, “You give up two big runs to somebody just because you didn’t keep your leverage ... do you give credit to him? Hey, we’ll see this week. That’s where the credit is ... because anybody can find something once, you know? You have to come do it again.”

How did the Bengals do it? They had the Ravens on their heels with the frequent unbalanced offensive lines and they ran a lot out of their three-receiver sets to keep the Ravens guessing.

The Bird and The Sage disagree on Lewis’ impact. The Bird thinks his quickness has diminished enough that it shows up on plays like Benson’s 38-yard touchdown run through the middle. The Sage says he may not be the Ray Lewis of 10 years ago, “but he still makes a lot of plays and makes it very difficult to run the ball. And he means so much to them with the intangibles.”

No one will argue with that. Lewis is the greatest team leader of his generation, like Boomer Esiason was for the ‘80s Bengals and Michael Irvin of the ‘90s Cowboys.

“He’s still great, I just think he’s in trouble when he gambles. He can’t get it back,” Big Bird says. “He made the great play in San Diego to win the game when he came into the backfield on fourth down. He tried to do the same kind of thing on Benson and he couldn’t recover. That happens when you get into the teens, 13th, 14th year.”

Plus, Benson, or third-down back Brian Leonard, has to fend off Lewis on the blitz: “One of the things that is different about them this year from last year is that Ray blitzes more on third down and he’s doing a good job,” The Eye says.

Johnson

The Eye calls how the Ravens played the Broncos offense a tendency breaker. They showed much more blitzing on first and second down than last month and they lined up more unpredictably on third down. And it worked out. Baltimore stopped its three-game losing streak with a defensive throttling of the unbeaten Broncos, giving them just 200 yards and a touchdown, and harassing quarterback Kyle Orton right from Johnson’s opening sack.

“They were leaning a little bit more to what Rex (Ryan) did with them last year,” he says. “They were more overloaded to one side. They had been more balanced, but now they seem to really be more aggressive. And on third down, they were changed (from last month) by basically being anywhere on third down.”

But the Denver game is a hard one to predict how the Ravens will play the Bengals. The Broncos threw the ball once downfield all day and went heavily with screens with routes and protections that are completely different from what the Bengals use.

Roland

Suggs, a three-time Pro Bowler with 55 career sacks, just signed a mega deal and The Sage says he’s having a good year but not a great one. He’s got 2.5 sacks, but he’ll like the more aggressive scheme and the Ravens will, no doubt, try to get him matched on Roland on passing downs. It is classic NFL Films stuff. The Pro Bowler vs. the college free agent. But the college free agent blanked him last time, with some help on chips from the backs and double teams from the tight ends.

“Roland’s done a good job,” The Sage says. “He’s big kid (6-9) who doesn’t seem to make many mistakes.”

Ochocinco

The Ocho loves playing the Ravens so much that he averages 15.3 yards per catch against them and scrounged up an old gag when he sent the secondary, as well as Lewis and Suggs, a package of Degree deodorant. He certainly did make them sweat with 94 yards last month in a game that vaulted Ochocinco to his first back-to-back 100-yard games since early in the 2007 season. It was an effort The Sage calls “a Pro Bowl game.”

Ochocinco had his first-ever 100-yard game against the Ravens in 2002, but hasn’t had one since his 161-yarder in 2004. He came close last time. He drew two big penalties in the winning drive and while the Lewis hit got all the ink, it was the interference call on Reed that came the play before the winning 20-yard pass to Andre Caldwell.

“Reed is a great player, but they don’t seem happy with the production of their cornerbacks,” The Eye says. “And Chad is playing at an extremely high level.”

Crocker

The Ravens have been going no-huddle, 31 times against Denver in a game they scored 30 points. But The Eye says it’s not as quick as the one that Palmer and Peyton Manning fly through.

Flacco gets his plays wheeled in from the sideline, and so the Bengals’ challenge is going to be force Flacco to make decisions on the run without getting the help. Crocker, who handles a lot of the traffic in the secondary, is looking forward to the chess game.

“It’s tough on the defense because you can’t substitute,” Crocker said. “But we’ll be prepared. We had a good game plan the last time. We’re going to have to find a way to keep him out of his rhythm.”

The thing that scares the heck out of the Bengals is Flacco’s arm strength and ability to throw the ball deep. The Bengals have cut down lately on their penchant for giving up the big play. They came into the Chicago game giving up a league-leading 25 pass plays of at least 20 yards, but the bye week has given them a respite. They are now sixth in the league with 26.

Johnson

Rice had the big play against them last month, a 48-yard touchdown run off a checkdown pass in which he slithered out of attempted tackles by Johnson and cornerback Leon Hall.

“He’s been doing that to people all year,” Big Bird says. “You have to get him to the ground. They throw it him a lot and like they found out, he can make you miss.”

With 38 receptions, Rice is one catch away from leading all running backs in catches, and he’s a very big reason that the Ravens are third in the NFL in converting third downs.

Geathers

In the last game, Oher, the rookie, was playing left tackle but the Bengals defensive line could get only one of the two sacks. And that was before leading sacker Antwan Odom got hurt. Now Jared Gaither is healthy and back at left tackle and Oher moves over to face the veteran Geathers, looking for his first full sack of the season. Even though Oher’s a kid, that will be a tough assignment because the Ravens like to max protect on first and second down and are in the top 10 in protecting the passer.

“Oher is a good player but Elvis Dumervil was able to get into him on the inside last week,” The Eye says. “He has some trouble with counter moves and Geathers has a lot of experience.”

“They need some help from the pass rushers inside,” The Sage says. “They’re a different team with Odom out of there. I think it’s a real big question. Where are they going to get the good four-man pass rush they had been getting when Atntwan was in there? Frostee (Rucker) and Tank (Johnson) are really going to have to gear it up on the inside. If they let Flacco sit back there with no pressure, or if they have to blitz a lot more, he’s got the arm to hurt you.”

Trent

A big reason the Ravens are so successful on third down is the play of an old friend, Washington. The Bengals third-round draft pick in 2003 is now 30 and has had his career revived in Baltimore as the slot receiver on third down in a move that has allowed the Ravens to slide No. 1 receiver Derrick Mason.

So now Flacco has a whole lot of options on third down. Rice is tied for seventh in the NFL with 13 third-down catches, Washington is tied for ninth with 12 and Mason is tied for 12th with 11.

In fact, 20 of Washington's 24 catches have gone for first downs.

The 6-1, 195-poud Trent knows why. Late in the last game, the 6-3, 212-pound Washington bodied him up and got behind him on a trail play for a huge 21-yard play on third down that proved to be Baltimore’s last first down but it very nearly killed the clock for good.

“He’s big. He’s physical. He knows how to throw his body around,” Trent says.

Washington has been around, too. Even though he was playing behind Pro Bowlers in The Ocho and T.J. Houshmandzadeh, he always thought he could be contributing more but the drafting of Chris Henry in another third round two years later basically ended that, so he’ll be anxious to do well in front of the old home crowd.

Hebert

Ever since the Oct. 4 win in Cleveland, the Bengals have faced a kick returner averaging more than 30 yards per shot. Except for the rookie Webb, who was at about 27 back on Oct. 11. Well, now he’s at 30, 30.3 to be exact after returning one 95 yards for a score last Sunday.

The Bengals have more than risen to the challenge. Against the Bears, NFL leader Johnny Knox had seven tries to blow it open but the Bengals stymied him on a 21.6-yard average and gave him a long of just 28. They are 18th in the NFL covering kicks and their longest since Josh Cribbs’ 58-yarder for Cleveland is Webb’s 43-yarder.

“We looked at the stat sheet last week and the key was that almost everybody had a tackle. It just wasn’t one or two guys,” said Hebert, the special teams captain. “We’ve got schemes and all that, but really, it comes down to effort. You've got to want to do it.”

Look at how even the special teams tackling is. Brandon Johnson leads with eight, defensive end Michael Johnson has seven, and Hebert and SAM linebacker Rashad Jeanty have five each. Hebert is the point man, and he lines up all over the place on kick cover so the foes can’t get a bead on him.

Webb is a 5-10, 175-pound cornerback and Hebert says he reminds him of Knox “except he’s quick as well as fast. Not many guys are like that. He’s strong enough to get through some arm tackles, but you’ve got to be careful you don’t let him slip away in that extra gear because he can run away from you.”