Tap's Thursday Night Pick: Ravens at Broncos

Thursday night picks will be a couple of the college games and the NFL game. Usually, we just do ranked teams, but for Thursday night, we will add some unranked games just for the hell of it. Ed. Note: No games worth talking about in college football so it's all the big boys tonight.  

Baltimore at Denver 7:30 NBC - For some Milwaukee and surrounding Milwaukee area residents, the National Football League will not get off to a rosy start for them. Time Warner Cable and WTMJ, the NBC affiliate have been at cable war since late July and neither side is showing signs of letting up. This means both NBC games cannot been seen unless someone buys an antenna for the cool price of 25 dollars or finds some bunny ears lying around the house. My best recommendation is pick up the antenna or head to a bar. I would do the latter, it's Thursday, it is a great excuse to get drunk to celebrate football returning for another season.  As for the game itself....

Both teams come in with some questions even though they have established players all over the field. For the Ravens, this will be their first game without Ray Lewis or Ed Reed even being on the sidelines. While I think the Ravens will be better as a unit, it is still going to take time. The Broncos have similar concerns on defense as Von Miller and Champ Bailey will be missing from action. Miller provided a majority of the pass rush for the Broncos so someone will need to set up in that category. As for Bailey, he cannot get exposed again by Torrey Smith and that's a shame.

With the questions on defense, Joe Flacco and Peyton Manning should both have field days out there. With Flacco's new contract and the way he played to finish out the year, it will be interesting to see how much of the team belongs to him versus Ray Rice still getting some love. Manning will have a new weapon with Wes Welker and I assume he uses it very well.

I do think we get a high scoring game to start the year and even though, the Ravens are on the road, it is tough to bet against history as the defending Super Bowl champions have never lost this Thursday night. I am taking the Ravens in an extremely tight one coming down to a field goal. Baltimore 31-28