The “A” players had to perform to an “A” level. The game couldn’t be won in the first quarter, but it could be lost in the first quarter, meaning it was going to require 60 minutes to leave with a victory, but allowing the opponent to build a big, early lead could make it impossible to close a sizable gap against a quality team on its home field.
Check off those boxes, and then you’ll have a chance to win it in the fourth quarter because historically that’s what it always comes down to in these games vs. the Ravens.
It may have been simple, but that didn’t make it easy.
The Steelers were eliminated from the playoffs by a 28-14 loss to the Ravens in the Wild Card Round at M&T Bank Stadium, and it’s because they didn’t follow the recipe.
This was how it started. On the offense’s first four possessions – roughly an entire half of football – it ran 17 plays, got 2 first downs, and punted 4 times. In that same half of football, the defense allowed the Ravens to rush for 164 yards and convert 7-of-8 on third down. Particularly troublesome was Baltimore’s 13-play, 85-yard touchdown drive that contained nothing but running plays and required only 2 third-down conversions.
At the end of the first half, Derrick Henry had 100 yards rushing on a 7.7 average, including a 34-yard chunk run; and Lamar Jackson had 64 yards rushing on a 5.8 average, including a 20-yard chunk run.
“We just weren’t physical enough,” said OLB Alex Highsmith. “We didn’t work off enough blocks. We didn’t make enough tackles, and you know that’s what it’s all about. To stop the run, you have to be physical. You have to make tackles and didn’t do that enough tonight.”
That’s especially disappointing when it happens vs. the Ravens. This is a hatred that had its roots in the 1950s when the Ravens used to be headquartered in Cleveland, and the teams’ fans would pack Cleveland Stadium on a Saturday night to watch a bar fight on the field while many of their members threw hands in the stands. Fast forward a generation or two, and Steelers vs. Ravens in the 2008 AFC Championship Game was so violent that it became the impetus for what’s now known as the “player safety initiative.”
So when one team establishes a physical superiority in one of these tussles, it’s especially not fun at all for the other team. Because as Joe Greene once put it, “NFL football is not an ‘excuse me’ profession.”
The Steelers’ deficit was 21-0, and the Ravens were due to receive the kickoff to open the second half. From that point on, the Steelers may have been able to trade punches during the third and fourth quarters, but the Ravens are too good and were too effective running the ball to allow the eventual outcome ever to be in real doubt.
“There were times we weren’t in our gaps,” said DT Cam Heyward, “and there were times we didn’t tackle well. Props to them. To (Derrick Henry) and (Lamar Jackson), they had a lot of success. I wish we had a better outcome. Guys fought, but to start the game 21-0 didn’t really do ourselves any favors.”
To start the second half, the Steelers defense forced a punt when ILB Elandon Roberts stopped Henry for no gain on a third-and-1 near midfield. Russell Wilson followed by leading the offense on a 9-play, 98-yard touchdown drive where he converted a third-and-9 from the 3-yard line with a 25-yard beauty down the middle of the field to Calvin Austin III, a third-and-5 with a 37-yard moonball down the sideline to Mike Williams, and then a third-and-10 with a 30-yard strike into the end zone to Van Jefferson for a touchdown.
It was exactly what the Steelers had needed a couple of quarters earlier.
The Ravens next offensive series began with a 10-yard sack of Jackson by Highsmith, but that was overcome with 3 successive big plays. A 21-yard pass from Jackson to WR Tylan Wallace, a 15-yard jet sweep by Steven Sims, and the coup de grace was a 44-yard dash through the defense by Henry for an answering touchdown.
Yes, the Steelers even found an answer to that when Wilson completed 3-for-3 for 66 yards, including a 36-yard touchdown to George Pickens, but even though that looked pretty it had the feel of “too little too late” even though there was still 18 minutes to play.
“I just think sometimes when people are playing with a lead, you get those opportunities,” said Coach Mike Tomlin. “I appreciate the efforts of the guys. Certainly, we were playing to win, but we weren’t able to close the distance. I thought that big run by (Derrick Henry) kind of quelled some of that. Obviously, I appreciate the efforts and the intensity in which we took the field in the second half.”
But the deficit simply was a bridge too far.
“Congratulations to the Ravens. They were the better group today,” said Tomlin. “The X-factor was Lamar’s unique talents. It seems like every time we got him behind the sticks, he made up for it, or when we got him in a possession down circumstance he extended and won those circumstances. We never really found a fluid answer all day. That was highlighted by our inability to convert third downs in the first half, and they wore us out a little bit. The fatigue component of it became a factor. You can sum it all up to say they were certainly the better group today.”
There is an excitement to qualifying for the playoffs, but when it ends it does so abruptly. The Steelers now will have months to stew over a season that contained the hope and promise of a 10-3 record in December only to have it unravel with four straight losses to end the regular season and then a final defeat at the hands of the Ravens.
And although these Ravens came into the game at 12-5 and as the back-to-back AFC North champs, they were the same Ravens the Steelers had defeated in 8 of the last 10 meetings and 4 of the last 5 in Baltimore. It was interpreted as a good sign that their measuring stick would be against an opponent with which they were familiar, an opponent against which they had success both at home and on the road.
That the outcome then would be a 2-touchdown defeat is going to leave a scar.
“I’m worried less about the regular season,” said Tomlin. “We’re in the single-elimination tournament. I’m really just disappointed in how we performed tonight, given the opportunity we had.”
