Steelers At Ravens: Wild Card Weekend

Sometimes non-sports fans will ask me what holds my interest in these silly little games.
My typical response is that sports provides the best drama you can find.
There are always so many storylines which come up over the course of a season, and then are further intertwined with extended history.

Tomorrow night’s Wild Card game between the Pittsburgh Steelers and Baltimore Ravens is just another great example of the drama really only sports can provide.

Defense-adjusted Value Over Average (DVOA) is a statistic used to evaluate the performance of NFL teams, and units.
By DVOA, the ’24 Ravens just had the 7th best season ever during the ’78-’24 time period.
The ’23 Ravens had the 5th best DVOA season during that time period, and the ’19 Ravens are 12th best.
Meaning that over the last 6 years, the Ravens have had 3 of the top 12 DVOA seasons ever since ’78.

(You can find the final 2024 season DVOA numbers at FTN Fantasy here.)

Pretty remarkable, and yet under appreciated because the ’19 and ’23 teams didn’t finish those seasons holding the Lombardi Trophy.
In-fact, the general sentiment both locally and Nationally during this run has been that the Ravens have collectively underachieved when it matters most.
If you boil that down further, it largely comes down to the fact that Derrick Henry (then of the Titans) ran all over the Ravens to end the ’19 season, and that the Ravens lost at home against the Kansas City Chiefs in the AFC Championship last year.

Does the narrative that the Ravens have underachieved in the post-season over this stretch hold water?

I guess.

It really comes down to how you choose to look at things.

The ’19 team had a fantastic season, and Lamar Jackson won his first MVP.  They seemed set for an extended post-season, and Henry quickly put them to bed.
Rightly or wrongly, Jackson has bared the brunt of the criticism for that loss.  To me, that was always ridiculous. He didn’t have a great game by his standards, but he had over 500 yards of offense (365 passing, 143 rushing) himself.  That was his first full year as an NFL starter.  It wasn’t his fault that Henry tore through the Ravens defense for 195 yards.

The ’20 Ravens avenged their playoff loss to the Titans from the year prior, before losing to Bills in Buffalo.  In that loss, Jackson had a pick 6 in the end zone, and was later knocked out.
The Bills game could have gone differently. Sometimes things don’t go your way.

The ’21 and ’22 seasons are just giant ‘what if’s, as Jackson was last to injury both years.

In the ’23 season the Ravens were clearly the best team in football.
After being Houston in the Divisional Round, the Ravens had the defending champs in-town with a trip to the Super Bowl on the line, and they lost.
It was probably a D- collective effort from the Ravens, and it was still a 1 score game. A 1 score game with Zay Flowers fumbling while attempting to cross the goal line.
Give Andy Reid, Patrick Mahomes, and the Chiefs as a whole some credit too. There’s a reason they’ve won 3 Super Bowls since 2019.

That loss was another what if.
That loss was another painful way to end a season.

If you think the Ravens have underachieved over these years in-terms of post-season success, you are right.
If you think there is some nuance to the overall discussion, you are also right.

And all of this talk about the past 5 years brings us back to tomorrow night against the Steelers.

The ’24 Pittsburgh Steelers aren’t a great team.
Before the season we said if they managed to get average ish QB play from either Justin Fields or Russell Wilson, they could make the playoffs.
That was believing in their defense, and believing they had just enough offensive pieces (George Pickens, Pat Freiermuth, Najee Harris) to be ‘ok’ offensively.
We also said they didn’t have enough weapons to scare you, and that their ceiling was 1 game in the post-season.

On December 8th, the Steelers climbed to 10-3 after beating Cleveland.
And at that point there was some chirping coming out of the Steel City that maybe the Steelers had been generally overlooked all year.
And then reality set over the last 4 games, as they were beat by 3 actual contenders, and Cincinnati.

Mike Tomlin knows his team isn’t built to go string together multiple playoff wins, and it doesn’t really matter.
Pittsburgh can still win their Super Bowl tomorrow night, by beating their rival, on their rival’s homefield.

If you are just looking at these two teams on paper, there isn’t a lot about this game which is going to excite you.
If you start looking at this game through the lenses of the rivalry, the drama of this game gets ratcheted up a ton.

My colleague Matt Jergensen said earlier this week it’s Super Bowl or bust for the Ravens.

Can you imagine the indignity of this season ending tomorrow night, to this Steelers team?

Ugh.

Jackson has 2 MVP’s to his name, and while Josh Allen might win the voting this year; Jackson certainly put up a season worthy of his 3rd.

And yet if he doesn’t have a huge postseason this year, his bandwagon of supporters is going to be a lot lighter.
Lose to the Steelers tomorrow, and the pitchforks are going to be out not just amongst the National media, but with every idiot in Ravens camo pants who are just dying to tell you that Jackson’s only capable of regular season wins.

Jackson isn’t the only Raven feeling some pressure as the post-season begins.
You think Harbaugh and Ravens GM Eric DeCosta aren’t feeling the weight of expectations (from others, and themselves) to finish the job?

John Harbaugh turned 62 in September.
And while he still looks great for 62, he’s not the 45 year old guy who took over the Ravens job in 2008.
17 years at the helm is a long time.
He’s had a great career by any measure.
Many Ravens fans despise Harbaugh on game days.  Maybe some of the criticism is fair.
But he also has to get some of the credit for the Ravens overall success in his tenure, and particularly with what they’ve done with Jackson as their starting QB.
And yet, since the Super Bowl win after the 2012 season, the Ravens have gone just 3-6 in playoff games since.

I shudder to think what the landscape looks like for Harbaugh Sunday morning if the Ravens lose to their rival tomorrow night.

This game is all upside for the Steelers at this point.
They are entering this game with zero expectations being placed on them.
Everyone expects the Ravens to walk, even with Flowers being unavailable.
Many Ravens fans (myself included) weren’t even concerned about buying playoff tickets, largely because it feels like a foregone conclusion that the Ravens are going to win.

Win or lose, the drama is there.
Win, and there is a whole other layer of intrigue next week.
Lose, and the drama is pretty self-evident.

Quick Hits

I gave most of my thoughts on this game in my write up previewing all of the Wild Card games, which you can find here.

To repeat myself:

Pittsburgh’s chances of winning this game are the Ravens making multiple errors (turnovers, missed kicks, penalties), and riding the emotion of the rivalry.  The Steelers know they aren’t built to go win multiple playoff games.  This is their Super Bowl. Nothing takes the emotion out of a team like being physically dominated at the line of scrimmage.

Flowers will miss this game.
No Flowers definitely impacts the ability to regularly move the chains.
Hopefully Justice Hill is back, as he spent most of the year as a nice security blanket on 3rd.
If Hill is not available, one positive is that Keaton Mitchell was moving better on Sunday.
If Flowers is not available, maybe lots of 2 TE sets with Mark Andrews, and Charlie Kolar; and you split Isaiah Likely out more?

Feeding Derrick Henry of course has to happen.
We know the Steelers know that, and he will be their focus.
Due to that, I think you’d normally say, maybe the Ravens should come out passing some to pull some defenders from the box.
I’m thinking just go JUMBO, tell Pittsburgh you are running, and make them show they can stop you.
Just keep running at them with the big uglies until they’re tired of tackling.

My expectation is that Russell Wilson starts, but that Justin Fields is used in multiple packages.

The Ravens of course are the 3rd seed after winning the AFC North.
Pittsburgh is the 6tth seed.

The Ravens opened as a 8.5 point favorite.
Baltimore lost 18-16 in Pittsburgh Nov. 17th. 
The Ravens beat the Steelers 34-17 Dec. 21st. 

Baltimore finished the regular season 12-5, outscoring the opposition by 157 points.
Pittsburgh finished the regular season 10-7, with a plus 33 point differential.

The Ravens won their last 4 games, while the Steelers lost their last 4 games.
The Ravens were 6-3 away, while Pittsburg was 5-3 at home.

DVOA Rankings:
Pittsburgh – 15th overall, 19th rated offense, 8th rated defense, 2nd rated special teams
Baltimore – 1st overall, 1st rated offense, 6th rated defense, 23rd rated special teams

The Ravens were 5-2 against the other AFC Playoff teams, with wins against everyone (Buffalo, Houston, LA, Pittsburgh, Denver) but Kansas City.
The Ravens were 2-1 against the NFC Playoff teams (wins vs. Tampa Bay, and Washington, a loss vs. Philadelphia).
The Steelers were 4-3 against other playoff teams (wins over LAC, Denver, Washington, Baltimore, losses to Baltimore, Philadelphia, KC).

The Ravens have been given a 72.2% chance of winning.

On our Message Board, I posed this:

I tell you the Ravens avoid multiple turnovers, numerous penalties, make their kicks…. but they still lose…  what would that look like / make that possible?

Here were the replies I got from our posters:

• 3rd downs, red zone, and special teams.
• Brandon Stephens getting burned… 4th down fails that flip field position and mimic turnovers without the stat… poor clock / timeout / challenge management and decisions… Lamar dropping back to pass (and thus the O line being forced to pass protect) 50+ times…
• It’s hard for me to even paint that scenario but if I must…..a special teams TD allowed, Russ connects on multiple moon balls and Monken/Harbs crap themselves with the gameplan again.
• Lamar and the WRs not performing. Steelers locking down Henry. Steelers hit on some big balls to Pickens and or draw big PIs
• It’s not the scenario that usually leads to a Pittsburgh win.  But I guess if Pittsburgh’s special teams wins them the field position battle, while the Raven’s punter continues to be erratic, and Pittsburgh’s D locks the Ravens down and gets them off the field consistently on third down…..then I suppose they could win a low scoring defensive struggle by holding ball last and kicking a last second FG.

 

All reasonable thoughts.

Tomorrow night doesn’t have to be pretty, the Ravens just have to win.

Survive and advance.

That’s all that matters at this point.