This should be easily the most exciting game of the year for Baltimore Ravens fan, unless of course the Ravens make the Super Bowl. The Baltimore Ravens-Pittsburgh Steelers rivalry is… well, unrivaled in the NFL due to the gritty, close nature of these games. The games are tough, nasty, and downright physical to the point that you question whether the NFL is really moving in a more finesse direction with the desire for better offense. When the Steelers and Ravens meet, the NFL hears it because the thundering clash of the pads is near deafening. On any given normal day, this would be the match up of the day for NFL fans come Sunday.
This game, though, feels like it is going to lack a little of its luster. The Ravens were absolutely manhandled by the Jacksonville Jaguars to the tune of 44-7 and had to fly back from London to play an extremely tough and physical game against a division rival. Seems totally fair, right? Will the Ravens bodies hold up from the jet lag? Will they be hungry or demoralized after getting beaten by a supposedly inferior team? Will they be able to handle their biggest rival on what amounts to a short week? How will the recent injury to Brent Urban affect the Ravens? There are so many questions that need to be answered, but any reasonable fan wishes it were against the Cleveland Browns or the Luck-less Colts, not the Pittsburgh Steelers.
If there were a silver lining, however, it would be that the Steelers are coming off a fairly embarrassing loss to the Chicago Bears. Viewed as a cellar dweller team this year, the Bears were able to effectively control the clock with a hard nosed ground and pound game plan that limited the offensive possessions of the Steelers. Defensively, the Bears were able to limit the ever-dynamic Le’Veon Bell and forced Roethlisberger to beat the Bears with his arm, a game plan that would prove to be too much on a day where Roethlisberger was far from his best. Much like the Ravens, though, the Steelers will be answering a question of whether or not this loss will instill hunger or whether it will cause the team to be demoralized. My guess is for the former.
Without further ado, let us take a look at the key match-ups for the game.
Key Match-Ups
The Ravens Secondary vs the Killer B’s: Ben Roethlisberger, Antonio Brown, Martavis Bryant, and Le’Veon Bell might form the scariest group of starters along an offensive skill group in the entire NFL. Featuring arguably the best receiver in the NFL in Brown and the best running back in the NFL in Bell, the Steelers have no shortage of offensive weapons to challenge the Ravens secondary, including Bell who has proven to be an incredibly dynamic receiving threat in his career.
Last week, despite incredibly strong performances from Jimmy Smith and Marlon Humphrey, the Ravens secondary managed to make Blake Bortles look like Joe Montana. They were absolutely no match for the Jaguars receivers or tight ends as Bortles managed to carve up the Ravens secondary for four touchdowns. Largely due to porous coverage from CJ Mosley, Brandon Carr, Tony Jefferson, and Eric Weddle, the Ravens will want to avoid a repeat performance.
To have any hope of slowing down the Killer B’s, the Ravens will need not only Smith and Humphrey to continue to play well, but also need the aforementioned struggling players to step up.
The Ravens Front Seven vs the Steelers Offensive Line: Much of the reason that Blake Bortles was able to look so cool and composed was that the Ravens front seven just did not do its job to pressure and make Bortles move from his spot. Granted, the Jaguars did an excellent job of running plenty of counters, misdirection, quick passes, and bootlegs to keep the Ravens pass rush off kilter, but against an offensive line that, on paper, is as weak as the Jaguars, the Ravens still should have dominated. The Ravens, however, would generate very little pressure and would not get a single sack on the day.
Unfortunately, the match up only gets tougher this week. The Steelers have an incredibly strong offensive line from left to right with Alejandro Villenueva being the clear weak link on what is an incredibly strong offensive line. The bad news for the Ravens is that the “weak link” is still a decent starting option on an offensive line that otherwise does not appear to have any real weakness. If that were not bad enough, though, Roethlisberger is well known for his ability to maneuver the pocket and escape pressure, in addition to just being overwhelmingly difficult to bring down with just one person.
With Brandon Williams again appearing to be a possible scratch on Sunday, the Ravens front seven will likely have another long day, only being made worse by the absence of Urban along the defensive line. Missing two starters against an offensive line that is as good as the Steelers is a recipe for bombs away on your secondary.
Joe Flacco vs the Steelers Secondary: I promised that this would be a key match up every single week until Joe Flacco could prove that he could play with consistency in a positive manner. If Sunday was any indication, we are still a long way off from having consistently good performances from Flacco.
To be very fair, the Jacksonville Jaguars have a very expensive secondary and feature a defense as a whole that is very high priced and littered with several high draft picks. However, that does not justify what might go down as one of the worst quarterback performances, if not the worst, of the 2017 NFL season. Flacco completed just 8 of 18 (10 if you count the two interceptions) passes and struggled to find his open receivers downfield. In fact, Flacco failed to find anyone past the line of scrimmage. According to Pro Football Focus, Flacco did not complete a single pass for positive yardage through the air and all positive yards (yes all 28 of them) were picked up by the receivers gaining YAC. The offense in the first half, due largely to Flacco, led five three and outs, had an interception, and only one drive of more htan three plays (five). This must be improved on.
The Steelers will provide an excellent chance to improve. The duo of Artie Burns and Joe Haden is a far cry from AJ Bouye and Jalen Ramsey and Tashaun Gipson and Barry Church should be considered a wash, if not an improvement, over Sean Davis and JJ Wilcox. The Steelers defense has yet to actually face a strong test since Sam Bradford was out for the Vikings game, so this could be their first real test of the season… or it could be a continuation of poor quarterback play that will allow their relatively porous secondary to settle in and potentially find a groove.
Can Flacco take advantage of a more favorable match up? So far, the answer would appear to be prematurely a no. Flacco has failed to find his open receivers and has resorted to very conservative passes to his tight ends and backs. If the Ravens want to lead a more potent and explosive offense, the Ravens will need their $120M man to start finding his receivers down field. Otherwise, this will be another extremely long day.
Final Score Prediction:
Coming into the season, I was extremely confident for this game. The Ravens were supposed to be fresh off a London win against the Jaguars and Joe was supposed to have been finding his groove in time for the opening game at home against the Steelers. Instead, the Ravens looked like a high school JV team against the Jaguars and Flacco appears to be on a sharp decline. I just cannot feel confident about this game.
Pittsburgh Steelers: 27, Baltimore Ravens: 13
Lost_In_Translation: I am slightly scared to ask, but who are you taking?
So…. Let’s pretend last week didn’t happen. I would like to call it the perfect storm of awfulness. Even though last week was horrible, for lack of a better/more professional term, I feel more confident going into this game. That said, I also have this penciled in as an L as of this moment. And once we delve into my viewpoints of your matchups, you’ll understand why.
The Ravens Secondary vs. The Steelers’ Killer “B’s”: Since Brandon Williams is a confirmed scratch this week I fully expect Bell to do very well against this defense. That man can turn reading war and peace into a five-yard gain given his patience. I don’t expect us to get man handled, even though the Steelers have a very good offensive line. But Bell is going to do well. However, I do expect our passing defense to bounce back. We historically play the Steelers very tough and this shouldn’t be any different. Jimmy and Marlon both played well last week, with us struggling because of passes over the middle. Let’s be honest: we know where the ball is likely to go. Brown is arguably the best WR in the NFL right now, and even Jimmy is going to have a tough time against him. It should also be interesting to see how well Humphrey acclimates to having to occasionally cover Bryant, one of the league’s better deep threats. But overall, the Steelers well oiled machine of an offense is going to make our defense look bad, and people are going to irrationally call for the head of Dean Pees again. But injuries are taking a toll.
The Ravens Front Seven vs. The Steelers’ Offensive Line: Again, not a matchup I’m particularly confident in. Even though Suggs has turned the clock back a few years, that Steelers oline is as formidable as anyones. We’re going to need excellent performances from our younger players in Bowser, Williams, Judon, Henry, and Kaufausi in order for us to have success. Again, without Brandon Williams for the game, I expect the Steelers rushing attack to be very effective. Ben as always is a hard QB to sack even when we are putting pressure on him, so again, we’re going to have to hit him hard if we want to get into his head. I fully expect another down week for the front seven.
Joe Flacco vs. The Steelers Secondary: They had to sign Joe Haden.. Let’s be honest for a minute, that secondary on paper is pedestrian at best. Mitchell is a solid player, but Burns doesn’t look promising, neither does Davis, and Haden looks like he’s gotten old… Except when he plays Flacco. I fully expect Flacco to keep his stupid interception streak going given that we are playing against Joe Haden, a corner who historically owns him. That said, even with the interception streak going, I expect somewhat of a bounce back game for Joe. Hopefully Mike Wallace is hungry to play his old team again and can take advantage of going against Davis. Maclin actually seems to have gained some of Flacco’s trust, and I could see Flacco trying to feed him again. But ultimately, this isn’t the matchup I’m seriously worried about.
The Ravens Offensive Line vs. The Steelers Front Seven: This is a matchup every week for me until further notice. With Yanda gone we got destroyed more than we probably would have against the Jaguars. Although the Steelers’ secondary is suspect, the front 7 actually shows some promise. TJ Watt looks like a good player, if he can make the field. For whatever reason, James Harrison decides to play his old self whenever we go against him despite his old age. Tuitt and Heyward are an underrated duo. Ryan Shazier is also a good player, but is very inconsistent. But overall, Greg Roman has a lot of work to do. If we can consistently garner a rushing attack which is possible given how the porous the defense looked last week, then we have a chance to make some plays against them.
Final Verdict: Steelers 23, Ravens 17. I can’t quite predict the two score loss. We almost always play the Steelers close, and coming off of the ugliest loss in years, I feel like we’re going to arrive to put up a fight. If we were healthy, I’d pick us to win. But injuries have killed what hope we had for the game. Ultimately, we need this win though. I truly think the game could go either way, but given last week and injuries, I’d rather not think about it too hard.
This game, though, feels like it is going to lack a little of its luster. The Ravens were absolutely manhandled by the Jacksonville Jaguars to the tune of 44-7 and had to fly back from London to play an extremely tough and physical game against a division rival. Seems totally fair, right? Will the Ravens bodies hold up from the jet lag? Will they be hungry or demoralized after getting beaten by a supposedly inferior team? Will they be able to handle their biggest rival on what amounts to a short week? How will the recent injury to Brent Urban affect the Ravens? There are so many questions that need to be answered, but any reasonable fan wishes it were against the Cleveland Browns or the Luck-less Colts, not the Pittsburgh Steelers.
If there were a silver lining, however, it would be that the Steelers are coming off a fairly embarrassing loss to the Chicago Bears. Viewed as a cellar dweller team this year, the Bears were able to effectively control the clock with a hard nosed ground and pound game plan that limited the offensive possessions of the Steelers. Defensively, the Bears were able to limit the ever-dynamic Le’Veon Bell and forced Roethlisberger to beat the Bears with his arm, a game plan that would prove to be too much on a day where Roethlisberger was far from his best. Much like the Ravens, though, the Steelers will be answering a question of whether or not this loss will instill hunger or whether it will cause the team to be demoralized. My guess is for the former.
Without further ado, let us take a look at the key match-ups for the game.
Key Match-Ups
The Ravens Secondary vs the Killer B’s: Ben Roethlisberger, Antonio Brown, Martavis Bryant, and Le’Veon Bell might form the scariest group of starters along an offensive skill group in the entire NFL. Featuring arguably the best receiver in the NFL in Brown and the best running back in the NFL in Bell, the Steelers have no shortage of offensive weapons to challenge the Ravens secondary, including Bell who has proven to be an incredibly dynamic receiving threat in his career.
Last week, despite incredibly strong performances from Jimmy Smith and Marlon Humphrey, the Ravens secondary managed to make Blake Bortles look like Joe Montana. They were absolutely no match for the Jaguars receivers or tight ends as Bortles managed to carve up the Ravens secondary for four touchdowns. Largely due to porous coverage from CJ Mosley, Brandon Carr, Tony Jefferson, and Eric Weddle, the Ravens will want to avoid a repeat performance.
To have any hope of slowing down the Killer B’s, the Ravens will need not only Smith and Humphrey to continue to play well, but also need the aforementioned struggling players to step up.
The Ravens Front Seven vs the Steelers Offensive Line: Much of the reason that Blake Bortles was able to look so cool and composed was that the Ravens front seven just did not do its job to pressure and make Bortles move from his spot. Granted, the Jaguars did an excellent job of running plenty of counters, misdirection, quick passes, and bootlegs to keep the Ravens pass rush off kilter, but against an offensive line that, on paper, is as weak as the Jaguars, the Ravens still should have dominated. The Ravens, however, would generate very little pressure and would not get a single sack on the day.
Unfortunately, the match up only gets tougher this week. The Steelers have an incredibly strong offensive line from left to right with Alejandro Villenueva being the clear weak link on what is an incredibly strong offensive line. The bad news for the Ravens is that the “weak link” is still a decent starting option on an offensive line that otherwise does not appear to have any real weakness. If that were not bad enough, though, Roethlisberger is well known for his ability to maneuver the pocket and escape pressure, in addition to just being overwhelmingly difficult to bring down with just one person.
With Brandon Williams again appearing to be a possible scratch on Sunday, the Ravens front seven will likely have another long day, only being made worse by the absence of Urban along the defensive line. Missing two starters against an offensive line that is as good as the Steelers is a recipe for bombs away on your secondary.
Joe Flacco vs the Steelers Secondary: I promised that this would be a key match up every single week until Joe Flacco could prove that he could play with consistency in a positive manner. If Sunday was any indication, we are still a long way off from having consistently good performances from Flacco.
To be very fair, the Jacksonville Jaguars have a very expensive secondary and feature a defense as a whole that is very high priced and littered with several high draft picks. However, that does not justify what might go down as one of the worst quarterback performances, if not the worst, of the 2017 NFL season. Flacco completed just 8 of 18 (10 if you count the two interceptions) passes and struggled to find his open receivers downfield. In fact, Flacco failed to find anyone past the line of scrimmage. According to Pro Football Focus, Flacco did not complete a single pass for positive yardage through the air and all positive yards (yes all 28 of them) were picked up by the receivers gaining YAC. The offense in the first half, due largely to Flacco, led five three and outs, had an interception, and only one drive of more htan three plays (five). This must be improved on.
The Steelers will provide an excellent chance to improve. The duo of Artie Burns and Joe Haden is a far cry from AJ Bouye and Jalen Ramsey and Tashaun Gipson and Barry Church should be considered a wash, if not an improvement, over Sean Davis and JJ Wilcox. The Steelers defense has yet to actually face a strong test since Sam Bradford was out for the Vikings game, so this could be their first real test of the season… or it could be a continuation of poor quarterback play that will allow their relatively porous secondary to settle in and potentially find a groove.
Can Flacco take advantage of a more favorable match up? So far, the answer would appear to be prematurely a no. Flacco has failed to find his open receivers and has resorted to very conservative passes to his tight ends and backs. If the Ravens want to lead a more potent and explosive offense, the Ravens will need their $120M man to start finding his receivers down field. Otherwise, this will be another extremely long day.
Final Score Prediction:
Coming into the season, I was extremely confident for this game. The Ravens were supposed to be fresh off a London win against the Jaguars and Joe was supposed to have been finding his groove in time for the opening game at home against the Steelers. Instead, the Ravens looked like a high school JV team against the Jaguars and Flacco appears to be on a sharp decline. I just cannot feel confident about this game.
Pittsburgh Steelers: 27, Baltimore Ravens: 13
Lost_In_Translation: I am slightly scared to ask, but who are you taking?
So…. Let’s pretend last week didn’t happen. I would like to call it the perfect storm of awfulness. Even though last week was horrible, for lack of a better/more professional term, I feel more confident going into this game. That said, I also have this penciled in as an L as of this moment. And once we delve into my viewpoints of your matchups, you’ll understand why.
The Ravens Secondary vs. The Steelers’ Killer “B’s”: Since Brandon Williams is a confirmed scratch this week I fully expect Bell to do very well against this defense. That man can turn reading war and peace into a five-yard gain given his patience. I don’t expect us to get man handled, even though the Steelers have a very good offensive line. But Bell is going to do well. However, I do expect our passing defense to bounce back. We historically play the Steelers very tough and this shouldn’t be any different. Jimmy and Marlon both played well last week, with us struggling because of passes over the middle. Let’s be honest: we know where the ball is likely to go. Brown is arguably the best WR in the NFL right now, and even Jimmy is going to have a tough time against him. It should also be interesting to see how well Humphrey acclimates to having to occasionally cover Bryant, one of the league’s better deep threats. But overall, the Steelers well oiled machine of an offense is going to make our defense look bad, and people are going to irrationally call for the head of Dean Pees again. But injuries are taking a toll.
The Ravens Front Seven vs. The Steelers’ Offensive Line: Again, not a matchup I’m particularly confident in. Even though Suggs has turned the clock back a few years, that Steelers oline is as formidable as anyones. We’re going to need excellent performances from our younger players in Bowser, Williams, Judon, Henry, and Kaufausi in order for us to have success. Again, without Brandon Williams for the game, I expect the Steelers rushing attack to be very effective. Ben as always is a hard QB to sack even when we are putting pressure on him, so again, we’re going to have to hit him hard if we want to get into his head. I fully expect another down week for the front seven.
Joe Flacco vs. The Steelers Secondary: They had to sign Joe Haden.. Let’s be honest for a minute, that secondary on paper is pedestrian at best. Mitchell is a solid player, but Burns doesn’t look promising, neither does Davis, and Haden looks like he’s gotten old… Except when he plays Flacco. I fully expect Flacco to keep his stupid interception streak going given that we are playing against Joe Haden, a corner who historically owns him. That said, even with the interception streak going, I expect somewhat of a bounce back game for Joe. Hopefully Mike Wallace is hungry to play his old team again and can take advantage of going against Davis. Maclin actually seems to have gained some of Flacco’s trust, and I could see Flacco trying to feed him again. But ultimately, this isn’t the matchup I’m seriously worried about.
The Ravens Offensive Line vs. The Steelers Front Seven: This is a matchup every week for me until further notice. With Yanda gone we got destroyed more than we probably would have against the Jaguars. Although the Steelers’ secondary is suspect, the front 7 actually shows some promise. TJ Watt looks like a good player, if he can make the field. For whatever reason, James Harrison decides to play his old self whenever we go against him despite his old age. Tuitt and Heyward are an underrated duo. Ryan Shazier is also a good player, but is very inconsistent. But overall, Greg Roman has a lot of work to do. If we can consistently garner a rushing attack which is possible given how the porous the defense looked last week, then we have a chance to make some plays against them.
Final Verdict: Steelers 23, Ravens 17. I can’t quite predict the two score loss. We almost always play the Steelers close, and coming off of the ugliest loss in years, I feel like we’re going to arrive to put up a fight. If we were healthy, I’d pick us to win. But injuries have killed what hope we had for the game. Ultimately, we need this win though. I truly think the game could go either way, but given last week and injuries, I’d rather not think about it too hard.
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