Immovable object, meet unstoppable force.
OK, that might be overstating things a bit, but when the Jaguars visit the Steelers today in an AFC Divisional Playoff game, the NFL's second-stingiest scoring defense will face the league's eighth-highest scoring offense.
And as good as that sounds, it gets even better.
While Jacksonville allowed just 16.8 points per game this season to rank second to Minnesota in scoring defense, the Jaguars have held nine of their 17 opponents this season -- including Buffalo in last weekend's 10-3 Wild Card Playoff win -- to 10 or fewer points. The Vikings did that seven times.
Included among those nine teams are the Steelers, who were beaten, 30-9, by the Jaguars Oct. 8.
"That game for our entire group was kind of a watershed moment," Todd Haley said. "We stayed together, but there was a lot of pressure from the outside, a lot of outside factors that could have been divisive for our group, but I take my hat off to the guys. They stuck together. They pulled together tighter. We knew that wasn’t our best football and we knew it probably wasn’t as bad as it appeared. It went the most negative way it could go in that game, but looking back at it, I think it was a big game for us because of how we responded to it was very critical."
Ben Roethlisberger was intercepted a career-high five times in that game, with two of them being returned for touchdowns. Since that game, Roethlisberger has averaged 298 yards passing per game with 20 touchdown passes and just seven interceptions.
As a result, the Steelers have averaged just under 28 points per game since that loss to the Jaguars, slightly better than the 25.4 points per game they averaged overall. The 27.9 points per game they have averaged in their past 11 games would have ranked third in the league had they done it all season.
“When you look at Pittsburgh’s roster, it’s probably the most talented roster that we play, with the weapons they have,” said Jacksonville coach Doug Marrone. “They can hurt you in so many different ways. It’s going to be a great challenge, not just in the back end, but up front. They have the most Pro Bowl players and there is a reason for it. There are a lot of good football players. It’s going to be a challenge for our guys.”
The Steelers are expected to have all of their weapons available to them for this game with the return of receiver Antonio Brown. Brown missed the final two games of the regular season with a calf injury and was sent home from practice on Friday because of illness. But Mike Tomlin said he expects his star receiver to play.
He'll join the group of Roethlisberger, running back Le'Veon Bell and receivers JuJu Smith-Schuster and Martavis Bryant, among others, to form that talented roster to which Marrone referred. Bell finished second in the NFL with 1,946 yards from scrimmage, while the combination of Brown and Smith-Schuster gained more receiving yards than any other NFL duo.
But Marrone isn't without weapons of his own -- at least on defense.
The Jaguars had four defensive players named to the Pro Bowl, including defensive linemen Calais Campbell and Yannick Ngakoue, and cornerbacks Jalen Ramsey and A.J. Bouye.
"There is not one thing," Roethlisberger said when asked what makes Jacksonville's defense so good. "Pass rush, linebackers, secondary, their stats. You look at what they’ve put on paper and put on tape this year. I think they speak for themselves."
THE ESSENTIALS
• Who: Steelers (13-3) vs. Jaguars (11-6)
• When: 1:05 p.m.
• Where: Heinz Field
• Radio: 102.5 WDVE, ESPN Pittsburgh
• Satellite: SiriusXM Channel 83 (Internet 814)
• Forecast: 18, partly cloudy
• Lots open: 9 a.m.
• Will call open: 11 a.m.
• Gates open: 11 a.m.
• Boxscore: NFL Game Center
• Media notes: Steelers | Jaguars
• Odds: MyBookie.AG
THE INJURY REPORT
Steelers: WR Antonio Brown (illness, questionable)
Jaguars: LB Blair Brown (ankle, questionable), WR Jaydon Mickens (hamstring, questionable)
THE KEY VARIABLE
Weather is always a variable when you're playing a game outdoors in the northeast in January and it almost certainly will be a factor in this game.
Temperatures are expected to be in the teens for the game, a far cry from the 53-degree temperature at kickoff for the Jaguars' game last week against Buffalo.
"We've been fortunate that we have played in some cold weather this year," said Marrone. "It's all in the mindset. It's no different than when you're coming down south early in the season in the heat. People have to be able to adjust to that."
Rookie running back Leonard Fournette made his feelings known about playing in cold weather games earlier this season when the Jaguars visited Cleveland. The temperature at kickoff for that game was 38. Jacksonville won, 19-7, and Fournette rushed for 111 yards on 28 carries.
But he wasn't happy about it.
"I'm not for playing in the snow, playing in the cold," Fournette told reporters. "It's the little things, you take a little hit and it hurts. You're falling, so I hate the cold, period. I sleep in the heat, that's just how I grew up and [I'm] just mentally trying to get my mind ready."
Fournette won't be happy with this trip, then. But his counterpart, Bell, loves the cold.
In fact, according to Bell, that's the reason the Steelers drafted him in the second round in 2013.
"Coach Tomlin said he drafted me over Eddie Lacy because I was so used to carrying the ball in the cold," said Bell, an Ohio native who played collegiately at Michigan State. "That’s what the biggest thing was. It affects runners. It definitely affects guys when they’re tackling. That’s why when it’s cold outside, I take a lot of pride (in it) because I know guys don’t want to tackle."
Bell has had some of his biggest games when the weather turns colder, including rushing for 167 and 170 yards in two sub-freezing playoff wins last season over Miami and Kansas City.
What makes Bell so effective in cold weather?
"To be honest, I don’t play any different in cold weather, I play the same way in warm weather," Bell said. "It looks different because when it’s cold outside, guys play worse. I think that’s what makes me look different. I go out there and play my same game. Other people kind of downgrade their game. I think that’s what the biggest thing is.
"There’s a lot of games where guys, it’s cold and they don’t want to make the tackle, or they don’t want to fight off a block. I take pride in that because I know that coming into a game. Some guys might want to put on a front. But I know. I know."
"It’s just a part of life in Pittsburgh, Pa.," Tomlin said. "It is a part of life that we embrace."
Just in case any of the current Steelers weren't ready for a cold weather game, they got a warmup -- no pun intended -- for it in their regular season finale, a 28-24 win over Cleveland. The gametime temperature two weeks ago was 11 degrees, matching the January 2005 AFC Championship loss to the Patriots as the coldest game in Heinz Field history.
HISTORY LESSON
If the Steelers don't think history can repeat itself, they should remember that Jacksonville is the only non-divisional opponent in their history to beat them twice in the same season in Pittsburgh.
It happened before in 2007, Tomlin's first with the team.
The Steelers won the AFC North that year with a 10-6 record, with one of those losses coming to Jacksonville, 29-22, Dec. 16 of that season behind a 147-yard rushing effort by noted Steelers-killer Fred Taylor.
The rematch came just three weeks later in a Wild Card game. The Steelers limited Taylor to 48 yards on 16 rushing attempts, but the Jaguars, who entered the game as the visitors despite an 11-5 record, still found a way to win.
The Jaguars picked off Roethlisberger three times, including one that was returned for a touchdown by Rashean Mathis, and quarterback David Garrard broke off a 32-yard run late in the game to set up a Josh Scobee (remember him?) game-winning field goal with 37 seconds remaining in a 31-29 Jacksonville victory.
The temperature for both games was below freezing.
Overall, the Steelers are just 4-9 against non-divisional opponents who have beaten them in the first meeting of a season. But they are 7-5 in the second meeting with a non-divisional opponent when the second matchup is in Pittsburgh, whether they won or lost the first meeting.
THE MAIN MATCHUP
If you want to get under the skin of any of the Steelers defensive players, you need only mention Fournette's name.
The Jacksonville rookie rushed for 181 yards and two touchdowns on 28 carries in the Jaguars' 30-9 win in Pittsburgh earlier this season -- and wasn't afraid to let the Steelers know he was beating them.
"If you watch that football game, it’s not like their offense exploited us a ton," said Steelers safety Mike Mitchell. "I don’t think it was a dominant performance from that standpoint."
“Obviously, the game didn’t go the way we wanted it to,” said rookie outside linebacker T.J. Watt. “We know the reasons why. We couldn’t stop the run early on and it bled throughout the game. I think first and foremost, we have to stop the run, and that will allow us to open it up and get after the passer."
Actually, the Steelers did keep Fournette bottled up for large portions of that game. The rookie had 14 carries for 39 yards in the first half, an average of 2.8 yards per rushing attempt. He had 15 carries for 41 yards through three quarters and 91 yards on 27 carries before rambling for a 90-yard touchdown on his final carry, just after the two-minute warning on third-and-2 from the Jacksonville 10 with the Jaguars trying to milk a 23-9 lead and the Steelers trying desperately to get the ball back.
That might have been part of the problem on that particular run. In a moment of desperation, the Steelers defenders tried to do too much.
But they also allowed Fournette and the Jaguars to go on a time-consuming, 13-play, 67-yard field goal drive in the fourth quarter that was all running plays.
“They stick to the run the whole game,” Watt said. “It’s not like we’re going to shut it down for a couple plays and they’re going to pass the rest of the game. We have to stop it through all four quarters.”
To that point, the Jaguars led the NFL in rushing offense this season. And it's more than just Fournette, as evidenced by Jacksonville's win over Buffalo last week. With Fournette held to 57 yards on 21 carries, quarterback Blake Bortles ran 10 times for 88 yards.
Because Bortles was struggling throwing the ball -- he was 12 of 23 for 87 yards -- many of those were designed runs.
The Steelers allowed an average of 62.6 rushing yards per game in the six games after the loss to the Jaguars. But that rose to 127.4 yards per game after the team lost inside linebacker Ryan Shazier to a season-ending and possible career-ending spinal injury. The Steelers also allowed just one quarterback to run for more than 20 yards against them this season, that coming in the regular season finale when DeShone Kizer had six carries for 61 yards.
Defensive coordinator Keith Butler feels his team can slow Jacksonville's rushing attack.
"You would hope that you were able to contain them a little bit because that’s what they do," Butler said. "When you play different teams, you try and take away what they do best. Sometimes, part of your game will suffer because of it. For instance, when we are playing Houston, we try and take away DeAndre [Hopkins] and then of course the run defense isn’t as good as you would want it to be. When we play Cleveland, we play to take away [Josh] Gordon. So, we will do the same thing with Jacksonville. We will try and make them beat us left-handed if we can. That’s what we’ve always tried to do, and that’s what we will try and do in this game."
Fournette, who rushed for 1,040 yards this season, also seemed to wear down a bit as the season wore on. After rushing for 181 yards against the Steelers and 130 on 21 attempts the following week in a loss to the Rams, he averaged just 3.2 yards per rushing attempt the rest of the season.
"I think Blake Bortles uses his legs a little bit more, but it still comes back to that run," said defensive end Cameron Heyward. "They have a good running game. They are consistent with it, and it will be a good challenge for us."
THE QUOTES
"It'll probably never stop. There's people that think LeBron James sucks, so if that happens, I'm sure there will be a lot of people that always think I suck." -- Blake Bortles
"I think everybody is the x-factor. Since A.B. is back, he’s going to be hungry and see a lot of balls. With Martavis and Eli [Rogers] here, we have a lot of packages. Plus, with Le’Veon, running the ball will be huge. -- JuJu Smith-Schuster
"I’m trying to win a super bowl...I can care less about what happens after this season...my biggest thing I’m focused on is this team I’m on right now, playing for/with my brothers, & bringing back a 7th ring! what happens next year is irrelevant to my goals." -- Le'Veon Bell on Twitter after telling ESPN he would consider holding out or retiring if the Steelers place the franchise tag on him again in 2018
THE TEN DATA POINTS
• Roethlisberger is 13-7 in his 20 postseason starts. With a win, he would tie Terry Bradshaw, John Elway and Peyton Manning for third place on the all-time postseason wins list behind Tom Brady, who enters the weekend with 25, and Joe Montana (16).
• Though the Steelers have won three of the past four meetings between the two teams, Jacksonville leads the all-time series, 13-11.
• Roethlisberger has thrown two or more touchdown passes in each of his past seven games, the longest such streak in Steelers history.
• Brown has 100 receiving yards in four of his past five playoff games.
• While Campbell gets most of the publicity for Jacksonville's defensive line, second-year defensive lineman Ngakoue and the Rams' Aaron Donald were the only players in the league this season who had at least 12 sacks and five forced fumbles.
• The Steelers are 16-9 in their history in Divisional Playoff games, including 12-2 at home.
• The Steelers have appeared in 60 playoff games. Today's game will tie Dallas (61) for the most in NFL history. The Steelers are 36-24 in the postseason. Dallas is 33-28.
• Chris Boswell has made his first 15 postseason field goals, an NFL playoff record. He needs two field goals to pass Jeff Reed for the most postseason field goals in Steelers history.
• Bortles is just 6-24 in career road starts. He's 1-1 against the Steelers but has thrown for just 286 yards with no touchdowns and three interceptions in those games.
• In three career playoff games, Bryant has 19 catches for 244 yards and two touchdowns to go with four rushing attempts for 90 yards.
THE SNEAKY FANTASY PLAY
This isn't the first time I've used Vance McDonald in this space, and I'll go back to that well again. But Jacksonville's pass defense was one of the best in the league this season against opposing tight ends, allowing the 10th-fewest points to the position in fantasy football. But if you watched the playoff game last week against Buffalo, Nick O'Leary was open -- a lot. Tyrod Taylor just couldn't get him the ball, overthrowing him several times. Roethlisberger won't do that and McDonald is a much better downfield option than O'Leary. Pittsburgh's tight ends caught just three passes for 24 yards in the first meeting with the Jaguars this season, but they'll be much more active in this game. And McDonald promises to be a big part of that. Look for at least four catches for 45 yards in this game.
THE STAFF PICKS
Our football coverage team offers predictions:
Dale Lolley: The Steelers can't come out and throw the ball 55 times again in this game but they can't just rely on Bell in the running game, either. Bell shouldn't have 35 carries in this game, but he shouldn't have just 14 like he did the first time around, either. A good number would be 25, which would keep Jacksonville at bay enough to allow Roethlisberger to get the ball downfield. As good as Ramsey is -- just ask him -- he will give up some big passes because he gambles, much like Kansas City's Marcus Peters. And the best way to solve Jacksonville's red zone defense, which allowed a league-low 11 touchdowns in 28 trips, is to not worry about going into the red zone. Attack the corners not named Ramsey or Bouye and run Bell when needed. Just don't get into third-and-long situations. If the Steelers do that, Jacksonville's offense will struggle to score. Even with the 231 rushing yards they had in the first meeting, Jacksonville scored just 17 offensive points. They can't win this game if they don't get into the 20s. Steelers, 23-13
Christopher Carter: The Jaguars’ defense has earned a great deal of respect for their production throughout 2017, but while they ranked first against the pass and second in total yards and points allowed, they are 21st against the run. Expect them to try and overcompensate to stop Bell, and for Roethlisberger to throw intermediate passes over their linebackers to soften up their run support. The Jaguars' best chance in this game is to force several turnovers and get their offense some short-field opportunities, but Roethlisberger won’t let that happen this time. Steelers, 24-10
Matt Sunday: Normally, you’d think a rematch with a team who beat you 30-9 would be anything but ideal. That probably would be the case if Roethlisberger made a career out of throwing five interceptions, or if the Jaguars were still the hottest team in the league. Neither of those is the case, though, and the Steelers' offense is as dynamic now as we thought it would be at camp. Flip the script: Steelers, 33-17
Dejan Kovacevic: The key will be cutting off offensive options. And that's from either perspective. The Steelers need to cut off Leonard Fournette and the Jacksonville running game, which is, of course, the only offensive option on that side. That won't be easy, but it will be simple. There's a difference. It will be demanding in the sense that it'll require intensive physical football in the middle, equally intensive discipline in sealing the edges. But that's doable. Given the choice of cutting off one option or several, any defense would prefer the former. And the Jaguars, in turn ... well, let's just say that dynamic secondary could dial up a big play or two, but the number of options for which they've got to account will be far too many at once. Steelers, 31-12
