Pending the outcome of Monday’s Browns-49s game, the Ravens jumped into sole possession of 1st place in the AFC North. On the injury front, Jefferson was lost for the year.
SUNDAY, OCTOBER 6, 2019, PITTSBURGH, PA: The Ravens entered Sunday’s critical AFC North Division game at Pittsburgh teetering on the edge of an early-season cliff. With the Ravens’ historically-worst month, October, beginning with Sunday’s game at Pittsburgh, it added heightened concern that the team would fall back just enough to have to struggle to make the playoffs.
Indeed, no one knows what this season holds for the Ravens, but Sunday’s exhausting 26-23 Ravens’ overtime win against the Steelers offers relief and hope.
With the win, Baltimore (3-2) could be on top of the AFC North all by itself if Cleveland loses at San Francisco on Monday night. The teams will be tied if the Browns prevail. The Steelers, on the other hand, fell to 1-4 and hold third place in the AFC North, one game ahead of the winless Bengals–a team the Ravens will take on at 1 p.m. next week at home.
The Ravens had something else to celebrate on Sunday. They raised their all-time OT record to 13-13-1 and picked up their fifth win in six overtime games against Pittsburgh. It was a happy turn of events, too; the Ravens had lost the last four overtime games and five of the past six.
More good news came by looking at the game’s stat sheet. A historically-great defense had allowed 1033 yards in two games before facing the Steelers. That included 500 yards+ to both Kansas City and Cleveland, which is something that had never happened in franchise history.
But the Steelers gained just 269 net yards on Sunday, including a paltry 77 on the ground. One reason is the re-insertion of a healthy Brandon Williams along the defensive line. Without Williams, Cleveland gained nearly 200 rushing yards last week.
The Ravens also changed things up by welcoming back old teammate Josh Bynes, whom they put at middle linebacker. Patrick Onwuasor slid to the weak side. That move rendered Kenny Young inactive.
But the player of the game–and perhaps the player of the season so far–was cornerback Marlon Humphrey. He made the play of the day in OT by stripping receiver Juju Smith-Schuster of the ball and recovering it at the Steeler 34. That play set up Tucker, who had tied the game with ten seconds left in regulation with a 48-yard kick. Tucker has missed only once at Heinz Field in his career and also has the second-longest kick there (52 yards) since the facility opened in 2001.
John Harbaugh: Big-time players make big-time plays in big games, and that’s what Marlon Humphrey did. I thought the defense just stepped up in so many situations. Our guys kept their poise.
Although the defense had been slumping, the same could not be said for quarterback Lamar Jackson, who made his first career start against Pittsburgh on Sunday. Jackson played in both Pittsburgh games last year, but starter Joe Flacco began each game.
Jackson had seen his club-record streak snapped against the Browns–248 consecutive passes without an interception. But the youngest passer in NFL history to post a perfect single-game passer rating–and who ranked first in third-down rating before facing the Steelers (147.8)–was sacked five times and threw three more interceptions, playing to an uncharacteristically below-average 54.9 passer rating.
As was the plan in the offseason, Jackson has not relied as much on his legs. But through four weeks, he was the only player in the league to have passed for over 1100 yards and run for at least 200.
Jackson now has over 1000 career rushing yards, reaching that mark in 21 games, the fewest for a quarterback. The Steeler defenders knew that Jackson sported a league-high eight touchdown passes while being blitzed, playing to a 121.8 rating in those situations. But despite the sacks they got on Jackson, they could not slow him down.
On the other side of the ball, the Ravens’ beleaguered defense got to go against a backup Steeler quarterback at Heinz for the fourth time since Ben Roethlisberger came into the league. The Ravens had been 3-0 in those previous games–beating Charlie Batch in 2010, Byron Leftwich in 2012, and Michael Vick in 2015.
This time around (with Roethlisberger out due to elbow surgery), Baltimore’s quarry was third-round rookie Mason Rudolph, who came to the NFL out of a spread-offense scheme at Oklahoma State. The 76th overall pick presented the Ravens with a hefty Roethlisberger-like physical challenge. The 6-foot-5, 235-pounder has been succeeding by throwing short, quick passes.
The problem for Rudolph this day was that he didn’t stick around until the game’s end. Safety Earl Thomas knocked him out of the game with a concussion that required hospitalization.
The Ravens streaked out to a 17-7 lead thanks, in part, to Bynes’ interception of Jaylon Samuels’ wildcat pass deep into Steeler territory. Mark Ingram’s four-yard touchdown run and Marquise Brown’s leaping 11-yard touchdown capped a long scoring drive. It was his first touchdown since Week One.
Pittsburgh, with the NFL’s fifth-youngest offense, soon turned the game around. Smith-Schuster shook off a sideline tackle to score on a Rudolph 35-yard pass. Then, Kameron Kelly’s interception set up Chris Boswell’s 41-yard field goal.
Despite the Steelers’ lack of success on the ground, James Conner eluded Clark’s backfield tackle and scored a one-yard touchdown to give Pittsburgh the lead, 20-17. Then, with 2:38 remaining, Boswell converted another field goal try to put the Steelers back in front.
And it seemed these Pittsburghers were on to their way to a fifth win in the last six games against the Ravens. But Tucker tied the game, then benefitted from Humphrey’s big play by winning it.
Now the Bengals come to town. But don’t expect the Ravens to be celebrating the opportunity to play a winless team. Even though Cincinnati was a consensus pick to be one of the worst teams in the NFL, the Bengals have won eight of their last 11 meetings with Baltimore, and nine of the previous 13.
Besides that, the injury-riddled Ravens’ secondary got bad news when it learned that safety Tony Jefferson was lost for the season with a torn knee ligament. Either Chuck Clark or DeShon Elliott will likely have to fill in for him.
Following Sunday’s game, Baltimore travels to Seattle–a city in which the Ravens have never won–to play the always dangerous Seahawks.
