I don't pretend to know what will happen Sunday when the Ravens play the St. Louis Rams in that soul-less caldron of noise that is the Edward Jones Dome.
Sure, I picked the Ravens to win. I sat down at the keyboard, and some kind of sharp pain seized my forehead, like one of those brain freezes you get from pounding ice cream too fast.
The next thing I knew, my fat little fingers were typing Ravens 31, Rams 7. But I wouldn't bet the house on that. Because the Ravens are a team still searching for an identity, especially on offense. And right now, their offensive identity seems to be: Uh, we'll have to get back to you on that.
So you wonder what Cam Cameron's game plan will be against the Rams.
Ground and pound, with Vonta Leach gashing holes for Ray Rice and Ricky Williams?
Lean heavily on Anquan Boldin with Lee Evans out and stretch the offense with shots downfield to rookie wide receivers Torrey Smith, Tandon Doss and LaQuan Williams?
Or will the offensive line fall apart the way it did against the Tennessee Titans last week, forcing Joe Flacco to settle for dump-off passes to Rice, the entertainment equivalent of death by paper cuts?
Me, I'm betting the Ravens go ground and pound. For one thing, the Rams have problems stopping the run. For another, see the above sentence about the rookie wide-outs.
Yes, you can't overstate the lack of experience among the three. One (Smith) hasn't caught a pass in a real game yet. Another (Doss) hasn't suited up in a real game. And the third (Williams) has exactly one offensive play on his resume.
Can you say, "Rice up the middle on three"?
"No. 1, we always want to be able to run the football," Cameron, the offensive coordinator, said the other day. "We have a great fullback. We have great running backs. I think our offensive line is still a work in progress. That's something I always want to do.
"I'm not scared off the running game easily. But at the same time, the objective is to win the game. You really don't want to come out of a game with less than 20 rushes. But you have to find a way to win when you have to do that."
Let me go out on a limb here. If the Ravens don't have at least 20 rushes, it'll be a long, quiet flight home. And the beverage cart will be on lockdown.
Defensively, there might be less for the Ravens to worry about. Sure, they're banged up at cornerback. And Sam Bradford, the Rams' promising young quarterback, threw for 331 yards in the Rams' 28-16 loss to the New York Giants last week.
But Bradford also threw 49 times and was harassed by the Giants' pass rush a good deal of the time. I see him feeling even more pressure Sunday when Terrell Suggs, Ray Lewis and the $61 million man himself, defensive tackle Haloti Ngata, get after him.
Speaking of Ngata, did you hear what John Harbaugh did Tuesday right after Ngata signed his huge contract?
The Ravens coach walked into the defense meeting looking like his house just burned down. The other coaches glanced up and thought: "Uh-oh, now what?"
"We signed a D-tackle," Harbaugh announced in a flat voice.
But let defensive coordinator Chuck Pagano tell the rest.
"And we're all looking around like, 'I wonder who we cut … '" Pagano recalled. "And then big Haloti walked in. Obviously, we all went crazy."
One thing the Ravens say they won't do Sunday is fake injuries to slow the game. Which I'm sure the Rams will appreciate, even though they don't exactly think of the Ravens as Boy Scouts.
But you'll recall the Giants were accused of faking injuries when they beat St. Louis on Monday night.
If you didn't see it, late in the game, with the Rams driving and their no-huddle offense pinning New York on its heels, Giants defenders Deon Grant and Jacquian Williams fell to the ground.
With, ahem, cramps.
Which got the Giants an injury timeout, instead of having to burn a real one.
It was an Oscar-winning performance by both players. OK, not really. Actually, both toppled over like fifth-graders in a school play. It looked so fake, I almost cramped up watching them.
The Giants insisted after the game that they hadn't tried any funny business. But the NFL quickly released a memo warning that if any other teams were found to be faking injuries, it would be subjected to "appropriate disciplinary action for conduct detrimental to the game."
I wonder if it goes on their permanent record, too?
Listen to Kevin Cowherd at 7:20 a.m. Tuesdays on 105.7 The Fan's "Norris and Davis Show."