With the loss, Baltimore falls to 9th in the AFC playoff chase.
Wednesday, December 2, 2020: When a Ravens game is on the horizon, the team’s passionate fan base goes into social-media overdrive. It often says things like, “Is it kickoff time yet?” “This game can’t get here fast enough.” Then, there’s the ever-popular “Two more sleeps” or “One more sleep.”
It’s easy for any team’s fans to look forward to a game, especially when the team is good and a championship contender. That’s why it’s so very tough to deny that feeling when the club is injury-riddled, playing poorly, or an overall non-factor.
Ravens’ fans have had a very pronounced cold-water moment this year due to the insidious COVID-19 virus, which has eaten away at the team’s roster to the tune of nine starters not being available for the team’s thrice-rescheduled game Wednesday afternoon in Pittsburgh.
With many players out, the Ravens’ hung tough but eventually went down to the undefeated Steelers, 19-14, in a game played with empty stands at Pittsburgh’s Heinz Field.
Former sixth-round pick Trace McSorley subbed for Robert Griffin III with seven minutes remaining and threw his first NFL touchdown pass, a 70-yarder to Marquise Brown to cut the Pittsburgh lead to five with 2:58 to go. But the Ravens defense– one that pulled off three red-zone stops early in the game, couldn’t get the ball back for one more chance.
“A lot of guys showed their true character today,” guard Bradley Bozeman said. “We’re down a lot of guys right now. We’re going to get healthy in the next couple of weeks. There’s a lot of fight in this team. We’re going to build from here. This is just the beginning. We’re ready to work.”
The Ravens mustered all the heart and guts they could, taking a 7-6 lead on Gus Edwards’ one-yard touchdown run. But a sloppy, four-turnover first quarter (two by each team) culminated when a Griffin pass was picked off by Joe Haden and run back for a 14-yard touchdown.
Chris Boswell added two field goals to put Pittsburgh back in front before Ben Roethlisberger found Juju Smith-Schuster with a one-yard scoring pass to give the hosts a wider working margin before the Ravens’ rally.
But without quarterback Lamar Jackson, the Ravens’ offense was found wanting with only ten first downs, 219 total yards, a 3-for-13 third-down performance, and only 26 minutes’ worth of possession.
It was the first NFL game in the league’s highly-chaotic season to have been postponed three times. Originally set for Thanksgiving night, it was moved to Sunday and, then, Tuesday before being played Wednesday afternoon. It was only the second NFL game played on a Wednesday since 1948.
It was also the third straight loss for a rusty Baltimore squad (6-5)–its first three-game losing streak since 2018–and fourth in the last five games since the team’s bye week. The team’s midseason slump – already well underway due to a lack of offensive identity, injuries and underperformance – continued against the franchise’s most intense rival.
With the win, Pittsburgh (11-0) inched closer to securing its ninth AFC North title, the most since the division was created in the 2002 realignment.
Since the NFL regular-season schedule expanded to 16 games in 1978, Pittsburgh could become only the second team to go undefeated, following the 2007 New England Patriots, who narrowly beat Baltimore on the way to accomplishing that feat.
With this win in their 50th lifetime regular-season meeting against Baltimore, the Steelers also completed their sixth two-game intradivisional sweep of the Ravens and their first since 2017.
With the loss, the Ravens fell to ninth place in the AFC playoff chase. Its conference record isn’t as good as the Las Vegas Raiders. So with both teams at now 6-5, Las Vegas now has the eighth spot, one notch below the seven playoff teams.
For now, the Ravens’ only salvation is an allegedly-soft December schedule, one that gets underway with a twice-rescheduled home game against the Dallas Cowboys (Tuesday, December 8, 8:05 p.m.). Baltimore is slated to face just one team with a winning record the rest of the way. They’ll play the Browns on the road in a Monday night game on December 14.
With Baltimore experiencing ten straight days of positive COVID tests and close-contact risk links involving the aforementioned players, it was rather surprising to see the National Football League insist that the game be played–especially when it had suggested extending the regular season by one week as an outlet for rescheduling games that couldn’t be played on time.
The most devastating week in the Ravens’ 25-season history–one that left the team with only 43 eligible players flying to Pittsburgh started on Sunday, November 22, when running backs JK Dobbins and Mark Ingram tested positive for the virus. The positive-test and close-contact numbers, not to mention the profile of the players involved, got bigger and bigger as the week wore on. At one point, the roster only had two of four quarterbacks left and three practice-squad tight ends, and severely-depleted offensive and defensive lines. With nearly two dozen players going on the COVID reserve list, it left enough active-roster room to promote the entire 16-man practice squad.
The COVID list reads like a who’s who of the Ravens roster, including reigning Most Valuable Player and starting quarterback Jackson, top receiving target and starting tight end Mark Andrews, and wideout Willie Snead (17 receptions, two touchdowns in his last four games). Defensively, top defensive linemen Calais Campbell and Brandon Williams were sidelined, and linebackers Matthew Judon and Pernell McPhee, safety DeShon Elliott and many others.
Of the Ravens’ club-record 13 Pro Bowl selectees from last season, only four were healthy, and one of them–cornerback Marlon Humphrey–had gone on the list in early November, completed a quarantine period, and returned. Ten other players were on injured reserve or other similar lists.
Published reports have linked the outbreak to fifth-year Raven’s strength and conditioning coach Steve Saunders, who allegedly would go long periods of time within the team complex without wearing a mask or tracing equipment while interacting with players.
Saunders has been suspended, and the team went through most of last week without hitting the field for a regular full session in preparation for Pittsburgh. The league canceled a previously-scheduled Monday morning walk-through, but a late-Monday walk-through and another Tuesday were held.
Fortunately, five of the Ravens on the list – quarterback McSorley, defensive linemen Brandon Williams (subsequently ruled out for the game) and Broderick Washington, linebacker Jaylon Ferguson and tackle/guard DJ Fluker – were activated in time for Pittsburgh. Simultaneously, tackle/guard Tyre Phillips came off temporary injured reserve, and recent Denver waiver pickup Jake Rodgers was also added to the offensive line. The ten-day quarantine period for running backs Dobbins and Ingram expired Tuesday, but they were not activated for this game.
But when the team plane took off for Pittsburgh, the bad news returned: offensive line coach Joe D’Alessandris and running backs coach Matt Weiss missed the flight with illnesses, as did one of the equipment crew. Plus, safety Geno Stone was left behind as the newest positive case.
Even with the league’s rigorous testing program, there haven’t been many instances cited of point-of-care testing–the kind where results can come back the same hour that the test is administered. Yet a final round of testing took place among the Ravens mere hours before kickoff Wednesday. The totally negative round of testing capped off a final, frantic few days before the game.
On a Sunday video call, Ravens personnel complained to NFL chief medical officer Dr. Allen Sills about the matter. There were apparently virus-infected players standing on the sideline and playing during the team’s home loss to the Tennessee Titans. Subsequent rumors about a player boycott came out of that call, as well as a Monday-morning discussion with player union representatives. Later that day, the move was made to push the game to Wednesday.
Before the outbreak, injuries had already weakened the team to the point where the Ravens’ trademark cohesion was severely lacking. That was because only three members of the offense had started each of the first ten games: Jackson and offensive linemen Orlando Brown, Jr. and Bradley Bozeman. The number went down to two when Jackson could not play at Pittsburgh.
Last year, the regular season ended when backup Griffin guided the Ravens to a meaningless home win over the Steelers. But Griffin had to take the reins Wednesday at Heinz in his first road start in four years, working with a rookie center in Trystan Colon-Castillo, who was making his NFL debut. Colon-Castillo was part of the sixth different offensive-line combination the Ravens have used this year.
Griffin, who passed for just 96 yards in last year’s win over Pittsburgh, completed just seven of 12 passes for 33 yards and an interception, and he got sacked three times. He played to a 28.5 rating in a game where Baltimore was decidedly at a disadvantage.
In fact, the Ravens, 3.5-point underdogs on Thanksgiving week but a 10.5-point dog at kickoff, hadn’t been a double-digit underdog since Ryan Mallett surprisingly beat the Steelers late in the 2015 season. That’s the Ravens’ only win under such conditions in 11-lifetime tries, but they could not duplicate that by pulling off what would have been an earth-shattering upset of an undefeated team.
Wednesday capped off a bizarre week that those that inhabit the Ravens’ world won’t soon forget.
