The Steelers get in the playoffs with a win, a loss by Indianapolis to Jacksonville, and if the Las Vegas/Los Angeles Chargers game does not end in a tie. For Baltimore, the Ravens get in with a win and losses by the Chargers and Indianapolis, and a loss or tie by Miami.
WHAT: Week 18, Game 17 vs. Pittsburgh Steelers
WHEN: 1 p.m. (ET); Sunday, January 9
WHERE: M&T Bank Stadium, Baltimore (70,745)
RECORDS: Steelers, 8-7-1; Ravens, 8-8
LIFETIME SERIES (regular season): Steelers lead, 28-23, with Pittsburgh having won three straight and four of the teams’ last six overall meetings. In Baltimore, the Ravens lead, 13-12, but the Steelers have won on three of their last four Charm City visits after the Ravens had won four consecutive home meetings with Pittsburgh.
TV: WJZ-TV, Channel 13 (Ian Eagle, Charles Davis, booth; Evan Washburn, sidelines); RADIO: WIYY-FM, 97.9 (Gerry Sandusky, Obafemi Ayanbadejo, booth)
About the Steelers
Naturally, because of their division affiliations, Pittsburgh and Cincinnati are the opponents the Ravens have played more often than any other in Baltimore’s 26-season history. This Sunday’s upcoming game will mark the 52nd regular-season game and 56th overall lifetime meeting between Baltimore and Pittsburgh (including postseason); the Ravens have played Cincinnati 52 times and Cleveland on 46 occasions.
Since the AFC North was formed after the 2002 realignment, the Steelers have the most division titles with nine, the most recent coming in 2017 and 2020. But with Baltimore having won the division in both 2018 and 2019, its total is now six. Cincinnati has just won its fifth AFC North title, and Cleveland hasn’t won a division title of any kind since taking the old AFC Central in 1989.
When the Baltimore Colts were part of the NFL, they met the Steelers 11 times (including postseason), with Pittsburgh winning eight, including a 4-2 record in Baltimore and a 4-1 mark in Pittsburgh. Historically, the Steelers franchise has had a contrasting dual identity. From 1933-1971, Pittsburgh had only eight winning seasons out of its first 39 with only one playoff appearance. Since then, it has added 31 playoff appearances (the total of 32 is tied with the New York Giants for the league’s third-most; Pittsburgh is one of only six teams with 30 or more), with eight wild-card berths and a staggering 24 division crowns, one behind Dallas for the second-most first-place finishes behind Green Bay (29).
Pittsburgh’s eight Super Bowl appearances are tied for the second-most all-time with Dallas and Denver, and three behind record-holder New England. The Steelers’ six Super Bowl championships are tied with New England for the most and one better than the five each won by Dallas and San Francisco. Pittsburgh has made 16 appearances in the conference title game, tied with New England and Dallas for third-most all-time behind the New York Giants (19) and Green Bay (18).
The return match in this rivalry will be played in Baltimore on January 9, which is the regular season’s final Sunday (Week 18). It will mark the third time in the last four years the Ravens will host the return match, and the second time it will conclude the regular season since the league-mandated divisional play in the season’s final week starting in 2010. The teams also ended the regular schedule against each other in 2002, 2003, and 2007, before the final-week mandate was announced. In 2007, the Ravens won the home season-closer against Pittsburgh, a game that stopped a club-record nine-game losing streak.
A total of 17 of the teams’ 54 regular-season and playoff meetings have been played in prime time. The Ravens have registered four two-game regular-season sweeps of Pittsburgh (’06, ’11, ’15, ‘19), while the Steelers have six sweeps (’97, ’98, ’02, ’08, ’17, ‘20) and are going for a seventh this Sunday. There have been 15 splits (including 2018, when each team won on the other’s home field, the sixth time that has happened), and Pittsburgh has won three of four postseason meetings, including the 2008 AFC Championship Game. All of the playoff meetings have been in Pittsburgh. Had the Ravens won the 2008 game, they would have played in Super Bowl 43 in Tampa, site of Baltimore’s Super Bowl 35 win.
The history of this rivalry has been enriched by the number of close games that have resulted. The Ravens and Steelers have played to one-score margins in 21 of their last 27 regular-season meetings, dating back to December 2007. Also, 15 of the last 27 regular-season meetings between these two teams have been decided by three or fewer points–the most by any pair of teams, outdistancing Dallas-Washington and San Francisco-St. Louis/Los Angeles (eight each). Since 2008, Ravens-Steelers games have had an average margin of approximately seven points, closer than any other pair of teams. In the teams’ last 32 meetings, the teams have split them evenly (16-16), with Baltimore also holding a slim 41-point advantage (685-648).
Pittsburgh is one of nine league teams with a lifetime winning regular-season record against the Ravens. The two teams split their first clashes in 1996, but the Steelers have led ever since. Baltimore very nearly tied the series on Christmas Day, 2016, but Antonio Brown’s game-winning touchdown, in which he memorably stretched the ball over the goal line while being tackled, gave the Steelers a 31-27 win in a game that had the Ravens won, would have evened the series. The other clubs with winning records against Baltimore are Carolina, Chicago, Green Bay, Indianapolis, Jacksonville, Kansas City, New England, and Tennessee.
After notching what was seen as a surprising Week One win in Buffalo, the Steelers lost three straight games before winning four in a row. That stretch was halted by the team’s home tie game against the Detroit Lions. Since then, Pittsburgh has allowed 41 points in each of its last two games, losing by four at Los Angeles (Chargers) and by a 31-point blowout at Cincinnati. Pittsburgh wasted a good early schedule, one in which they played four home games in five weeks. The road has not been kind to the Steelers, as they have trailed by 24 or more points at halftime of each of their last three road games.
The Steelers’ eight wins have come by a total of 44 points; seven of them have come by single-digit margins until last Monday night’s home win over Cleveland. Pittsburgh has failed to score 20 points in eight of its games this year and is 2-5-1 in those games. The Steelers are uncharacteristically out of balance offensively, having run the ball 381 times and attempted to pass it 657 times (including 37 sacks allowed). Pittsburgh’s ground game has produced only ten of the team’s 33 total touchdowns. The Steelers had not scored a first-half touchdown for five straight games before finally doing so at home against Cleveland last Monday night.
Defensively, the Steelers have allowed 42 total touchdowns, including 24 through the air and 16 on the ground (two via returns). Pittsburgh has allowed 58 more points than it has scored and has been outscored in every quarter except the fourth, where it holds a 162-106 edge. Steeler opponents have attempted to run the ball 462 times and tried to pass it on 583 occasions (including a league-high 52 Steeler sacks allowed by 11 different players).
TJ Watt’s 21.5 sacks lead the league; he is one off the NFL single-season sack record set by Michael Strahan, and he could become the first player to lead the league in sacks in consecutive seasons since Reggie White (1987-88). Watt had 3.5 of the Steelers’ seven sacks against Baltimore in the team’s first meeting this year, and former Ravens draft pick Chris Wormley, whom Baltimore traded within the division, had a pair of sacks himself.
The Steelers are in the middle of the league pack with 100 accepted penalties committed, a total that is just one more than that of Baltimore. Pittsburgh’s 788 penalty yards are the league’s 12th-most. The team has committed 20 false starts, one of only a handful of teams to have more than 20, and 13 holds, which are rather respectable totals for this juncture of the season, but they have been cited for 11 defensive holding flags, only one more than Baltimore. Individually, four Steelers have committed five or more penalties, led by receiver Chase Claypool (eight), who has been flagged three times for offensive pass interference. Wideout Diontae Johnson (eight) has false-started six times.
The Steelers have been surprisingly mediocre when it comes to the giveaway-takeaway ratio, playing to an even zero with one game remaining (Baltimore’s minus-9 reading is the league’s sixth-worst). Pittsburgh has created 19 turnovers and given the ball away the same number of times. It has fumbled 19 times, losing nine, although rookie running back Najee Harris has not fumbled all year. The defense has forced 21 fumbles, recovering eight of them through six different players, and the team’s 11 interceptions have come from eight different players.
Through Week 17, the Steelers are ranked 24th in total offense (28th rushing, 16th passing, 21st scoring at 20.4 points per game). Also, the Steelers are ranked a rather mediocre 22nd in both red-zone offense and average possession time (30:03). Pittsburgh has the league’s 18th-best third-down conversion rate, even while averaging only slightly more than 19 first downs per game.
Defensively, Pittsburgh is ranked 21st overall, allowing 359.9 yards per game (31st vs. rush, 12th vs. pass, 22nd scoring by allowing 24.1 points per game). Pittsburgh is ranked ninth in red-zone touchdown percentage allowed and 11th in allowing third-down conversions. The Steelers are allowing just over 20 first downs per game, ranking them solidly in the middle of the league’s 32-team pack.
Head coach, William & Mary graduate, and Hampton, Virginia native Mike Tomlin, now in his 15th season at the helm but still relatively young at 49, is the 16th head coach in Steelers’ franchise history. He is only the third since 1969, following former Baltimore Colts assistant Chuck Noll and Pittsburgh native Bill Cowher. Tomlin has a combined regular-season/playoff record of 153-85-2 (.642), the second-best winning percentage among active coaches (Bill Belichick), but a rather mediocre postseason mark of 8-8. Tomlin has never posted a losing record over a single season in his time coaching the Steelers. The worst he has done is 8-8, which has happened three times (2012, 2013, 2019). Against Baltimore, Tomlin is 14-14 in regular-season play and 2-1 in postseason games. Tomlin has won six division titles, reached the playoffs four times in his first five seasons (and in nine of his 14 years overall), and became the youngest head coach in NFL history to win a Super Bowl (36) when his team beat Arizona in Super Bowl 43 in Tampa. Tomlin’s teams have made three AFC Championship Game appearances and played in two Super Bowls, losing to Green Bay in Super Bowl 45 at Dallas. After several collegiate coaching stops, Tomlin coached defensive backs in the NFL at Cincinnati and Tampa Bay before becoming Minnesota’s defensive coordinator, then moving on to Pittsburgh after Cowher retired after the 2006 season.
Starting quarterback Ben Roethlisberger, a six-time Pro Bowl pick and two-time Super Bowl champion, is now in his 18th and final season. Sunday will mark his club-record 249th regular-season game. He made his NFL debut off the bench in Baltimore in 2004, when he replaced Tommy Maddox in the only game the 15-1 Steelers lost that year. He is 16-10 lifetime against the Ravens, but he has missed three of the Steelers’ last five games against Baltimore due to injuries. Not including this year’s earlier meeting, Roethlisberger has completed just over 61 percent of his passes lifetime against the Ravens, with 40 touchdowns, 24 interceptions, and a passer rating just over 85. This season, Roethlisberger has hit on 64.2 percent of his passes with 21 touchdowns and nine interceptions, playing to a passer rating of 87.3. The Ravens have sacked him 60 times, tied with Cincinnati for the most sacks of Roethlisberger by any opponent. Roethlisberger is backed up by Mason Rudolph, a 6-foot-5, 235-pound South Carolina native taken in the third round of the 2018 draft (76th overall) from Oklahoma State. The former Washington Football Team first-round pick Dwayne Haskins is the #3 QB.
Prediction
There’s some history here. The 2007 Ravens broke a club-record nine-game losing streak by winning the season finale at home against Pittsburgh. Three years earlier, a rookie named Roethlisberger saw his first NFL action in Baltimore, and the Ravens won that one, too. But Baltimore must protect Tyler Huntley and tackle well to have history repeat itself.
Baltimore 23, Pittsburgh 17
