The Steelers playoff hopes are hanging by a thread. If they could have hauled in a Tua Tagovailoa pass or two that he threw to the defense, or if a bounce or two went differently against New England or the Jets, things might be very different for the Steelers.
However, with Carolina, Las Vegas, Cleveland and Baltimore twice as the remaining five games on the schedule, anything is possible.
The only team with a winning record on that slate is, you guessed it, the Ravens. And playoffs aside, it is never a bad thing to beat the Baltimore Birdies, something the Steelers have now done four times in a row.
So, what are some keys to accomplishing that goal this upcoming Sunday, as well as in Week 17?
As the Ravens quickly found out last week when Lamar Jackson left the game -- something they also found out about this time last year when they lost their final six games -- the NFL changes very rapidly. So, let’s just focus on what the Steelers will be dealing with on Sunday and not down the line with Baltimore’s offense.
Even without Jackson, the Ravens present unique challenges on offense. No other team in the league approaches offense quite like Baltimore, and that won’t change with Tyler Huntley, who greatly resembles Jackson stylistically, at quarterback.
Mark Andrews is a star, but including quarterback, this is an offense with a lot of questions in terms of personnel. Left tackle, wide receiver and running back all have had more questions and concerns rather than answers all season long, and that is truer now than ever.
Speaking of personnel, no team quite utilizes their offensive personnel quite like Baltimore.
Fullbacks aren’t quite extinct yet in the NFL. In fact, they are making a bit of a comeback. But, no one uses the fullback position quite like the Ravens. And there isn’t a fullback in the league quite like Patrick Ricard, a 300-pound wrecking ball that plays the game more like a very mobile guard than an offensive weapon.
Ricard is a wrecking machine. But, he has touched the ball just 16 times this year. In his six seasons with the Ravens, Ricard has carried the football eight times and has caught 40 passes. The defense does have to guard him. Well, kinda. This year, a boom production year for Ricard, he has produced 88 yards from scrimmage despite being on the field for 502 of a possible 788 offensive snaps. As you all know, the rules in the NFL allow an offense to have five eligible receivers. The Ravens are the only team in the league that basically chooses to play with just four.
This 34-yard run by Justice Hill shows the damage Ricard can truly do. Baltimore loves to get this wrecking ball on the move before the snap to better help demolish his foe. While that certainly has value, Ricard has little to no value with the ball in his hands and the Steelers have an excellent understanding of how Baltimore employs Ricard.
Ricard’s backfield mate has been a revolving door this year. The starting running back gig was supposed to belong to J.K. Dobbins, but an injury has basically derailed him for two seasons. Dobbins has appeared in four of a possible 29 games over that time. Gus Edwards would have been Dobbins’ complement/backup, but he too has only played four games in two seasons.
Two weeks ago, Edwards got 16 carries while all the other Ravens running backs combined for only three. But last week, after struggling so badly, Baltimore went to a full blown three-back committee with Edwards, Hill and Kenyan Drake. Jackson is still the Ravens leading rusher -- by 343 yards. The Ravens are very much searching for a true top running back.
The same has been true at left tackle, a job that Baltimore is paying Ronnie Stanley very handsomely to do. Coincidently, the Ravens gave Stanley, an elite left tackle at that time, a massive contract the week before their game against the Steelers on Nov. 1, 2020. But in that game, Stanley brutally injured his ankle and has never been the same since. He has played one game since that injury while eating up a big chunk of Baltimore’s salary cap.
How about at wide receiver? The Ravens traded Marquise Brown to Arizona on draft day with the thought that they could lean on the previous year’s first round pick, Rashod Bateman, to step up and handle their top receiver duties, despite him only appearing in a dozen games because of injuries his rookie year. And Baltimore prefers to have king-sized fullback or extra tight ends on the field instead of a third wide receiver, so they didn’t invest heavy at this position, and are now paying for it.
Speaking of that draft day trade of Brown to the Cardinals, Baltimore made a whopping 10 selections in the first four rounds of the draft, and 11 choices overall. They didn’t draft a single wide receiver.
This season, Bateman lasted just seven games before landing on injured reserve, leaving the cupboard very bare at this position. Bateman has 61 career catches for 800 yards over his two seasons.
Now, the Ravens top two receivers are very clear. Those two are DeMarcus Robinson and Devin Duvernay. Robinson led the Ravens last week with seven receptions, a mark he has hit in three of his last four games. Duvernay had a career-high six catches last week and played 68 snaps. Robinson played 55. No other Ravens wide out played more than 25 offensive plays. They count on DeSean Jackson, recently pulled off the street, for the third receiver duties.
For the season, Duvernay has played 551 snaps and Robinson has been on the field for 452 plays. No other Ravens wide receiver has even played 200 snaps in 2022. The Ravens wide receivers have a league-low 1,184 yards this year.
Here is a great example of what they are missing with Brown no longer in the equation for Baltimore’s passing game. While Brown didn’t help the Ravens running game with his blocking, his extreme speed and big play ability kept defenders off the line of scrimmage.
In this clip, you notice that Miami didn’t have a deep safety in order to better defend the run, and that didn’t work out well for the Dolphins. Baltimore currently has no one nearly as explosive or as dangerous with Brown and Bateman out of the equation.
Over the past four weeks, Baltimore’s offense is 31st in the league in plays resulting in a gain of 20 or more yards.
Of course, the Ravens are an extremely run-heavy offense. But, they are without their best ball carrier in Jackson, have been getting by with subpar play at running back, left tackle and wide receiver. The passing game with Huntley is very horizontally based.
Last week, Huntley’s yards per attempt was just 5.8 yards. Last year he was also at 5.8. That is unbelievably low for today’s NFL. The Ravens passing attack is much more vertically inclined with Jackson pulling the trigger. And the Steelers have struggled defending the deep ball this year, something they might not need to worry about as much this Sunday.
Also, the Ravens run 62.8 offensive plays per game, 18th-most in the NFL. This is down drastically from last year when they ran 69.7 plays on average per game, which was far and away the most in the league.
Schematically, Baltimore has rudimentary passing concepts, but a very diverse rushing attack. But history is showing us that the more often defenses face the Ravens, with or without Jackson, the better bead they get defending the diverse blocking run concepts.
No one knows this offense better than the Steelers and no one plays the Ravens tougher on that side of the ball. And the Steelers run defense is drastically improved from a year ago. Remember Week 18 when these teams met with Huntley behind center? The Steelers won that game in overtime, 16-13, in a game in which Huntley only threw for 141 yards despite throwing the ball 41 times. And, Baltimore had Brown and Bateman for that game.
The Ravens did rush for 249 yards in that contest, but that led to just 13 points and the Steelers run defense, as noted, is vastly improved. The Steelers 4.1 rushing yards allowed per carry is better than all but four teams in the league. Last year they were dead last at 5.0. There have been stints against Atlanta and Cleveland, two of the best running teams in the league, where the Steelers' opponent clearly got the better of them on the ground. But, it certainly has not been a regular issue in 2022.
The Steelers face their bitter rival two times late this year. It wasn’t long ago, that those games would have massively favored Baltimore. That just isn’t the case now when the Ravens have the ball.
Could the Steelers take their winning streak in this rivalry to six straight games? Don’t rule it out.