BALTIMORE -- The Steelers' run defense took the Week 14 loss to the Ravens personally. Giving up 215 yards on the ground is not reflective of what the organization stands for.
However, the Steelers' run offense also wanted to make amends for only tallying 65 yards on the ground in that loss. And boy, did they make a statement.
"That was a challenge the first time we played them this year. They’ve got a great rush defense, great defense in general. So, we know if we can control the line, then we’ll be able to win the game," Najee Harris said after Sunday night's game at M&T Bank Stadium. "Obviously, that helped us with the outcome. But you know, this rivalry, that’s what it's going to be like. When we control the line of scrimmage, we win the game. It’s just that plain and simple. That was what Mike Tomlin challenged us offensively and challenged me to get downhill and run on them, and that’s what we did. We executed the plan."
They sure did. The Steelers racked up 198 yards on the ground en route to a critical 16-13 win over the Ravens on Sunday night. That's five wins in the past six games for Pittsburgh, who now sits 8-8 after carrying a 2-6 record into their bye in Week 9. A win over the Browns next week, along with some other help, could actually put them in the playoffs as the No. 7 seed in the AFC for the second straight season.
The biggest takeaway from Sunday night's game will focus on the game-winning drive led by Kenny Pickett, the third fourth-quarter comeback of the season and his young career.
However, the Steelers' running game was the engine for the offense throughout the night, even when drives weren't ending with touchdowns. And in order to succeed against this Ravens defense, they were going to have to execute better and try some different things.
"This front seven is really good," Mason Cole told me. "We were going a little more wide zone, getting them running, getting them lateral a little bit, mixed in the inside zone. It was a good mix today. It felt like we had them on their heels the whole time."
One of the key reasons the Steelers had the Ravens on their heels was the many different looks they gave in the running game. It wasn't just running it up the middle with Harris. One curveball the Steelers threw was having Jaylen Warren run multiple jet sweeps. The first one really took the Baltimore defense by surprise and resulted in a huge 31-yard gain on the first drive of the game:
This is a look the Steelers hadn't put on film all season. Turns out, according to what Warren told me after the game, this is something they implemented just this week.
"Just (different) ways to utilize the guys we have, they're going to find a way," Warren told me. "Whatever they feel is best, they're going to put the players there."
Not all of Warren's 76 rushing yards were gained on jet sweeps, but the Steelers ran two of them with Warren and another with Gunner Olszewski to help keep the Ravens' defense spread out. But, whether the Steelers were running jet sweeps or dives up the middle, it all happened because of an offensive line that's been trending upward for most of the season.
"Those guys have been on the upswing all year," Tomlin said. "Matter of fact, you guys (the media) stopped asking me about them in a negative light. That’s probably a good thing."
The Week 14 loss to the Ravens has been the only game the Steelers hadn't logged at least 100 yards on the ground since Week 7. The Steelers' offensive line took it personally, especially when they had to watch Baltimore's offensive line dominate as their running game racked up 215 rushing yards on their own home field.
The resurgence of the running game has been vital to the team's turnaround over the second half of the season, and the offensive line was out to correct everything that went wrong when they faced Baltimore the first time.
"It was the difference in the game," Cole told me. "Last game, they had 200 yards rushing. They controlled the game with their offensive line. We watched the film from the last game as an O-line on Saturday. We saw how close we were. We just technically weren't very good. We knew we were close. We just emphasized technique. It was a good day's work today."
With the mix in the play calls and a dominant push up front, Harris turned in what might have been his best performance in a Steelers uniform. His 111 yards certainly didn't touch his career-high of 188 yards last year against Cleveland, but the constant battering against Ravens defenders was everything this running game needed to impose their will in the game.
Even on the first drive of the game, Harris gained 23 yards on five carries. For those of you that have watched Steelers-Ravens throughout the years, that's more than a good start, especially when Baltimore was stacking the box.
As mentioned, the offensive line played a key role in that. But, Harris was seldom tackled without gaining some sort of extra yardage after contact. Everything moved forward. And, on top of it all, he found different ways to use his power and athleticism to gain yards in between the tackles.
This was no better personified than during the final drive of the game when Harris did this:
Harris hurdles over a would-be tackler inside the tackles, then after taking on contact around the 15-yard line, throws himself forward to get beyond the 12 (though officials somehow marked him short of the first down).
That type of finish, that's what happened all night long. And even though Harris' game-winning touchdown eventually came through the air, his work on the ground set the table for the the Steelers to be two-dimensional in a four-minute offense that was executed to perfection.
The Steelers started their final drive with 4:16 on the clock and Harris scored with :56 remaining. The first three plays of that drive were runs (two by Harris), and they produced a first down. Four-minute offenses can't be run efficiently without the ability to produce yards on the ground. The Steelers executed it to perfection, using a lot of clock while forcing the Ravens to take the rest of their timeouts to give themselves a chance to tie or win the game in case the Steelers took the lead.
Pittsburgh didn't finish drives earlier in the game due to penalties and other miscues that put them behind the sticks, such as Pickett tripping over Harris on a play-action fake. However, the barrage of runs that punished the Baltimore defense paved the way for the Steelers to remain disciplined in their approach. In turn, when they cleaned up everything else, they'd be able to attack the Ravens with their full arsenal when they needed to.
"Najee wants it," Tomlin said of Harris. "He wants to be the focal point. He likes the tough circumstances. It’s good to have young people that are running to it, as opposed to from it. We’ve got some young people that run to the action, and that’s a good thing."
Having young people run to the action has been the catalyst for the turnaround over the last eight games of the season. Whether or not the Steelers make the playoffs, this is exactly what this team needed to do down the stretch. Not only fight like hell, but get better while doing it.
"[I’m] really proud of those guys in that locker room," Tomlin said. "Another challenging week, hostile environment, primetime television on the road, but those guys didn’t blink."