Week 17 @ Ravens

Tom Opferman and Matt Williamson break down the Steelers second meeting of the season against the Ravens.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
We got some work to do. This is the Advanced
Scout with Tom Opperman and Matt Williamson. The Steelers coming
off a big win on Franco Night, thirteen to ten
over the Raiders. The Ravens also got a win over
the Falcons last week. Ravens are now ten and five.
They're currently in second place in the a f C

(00:21):
North Pittsburgh's third at seven and eight. Against the division,
the Ravens are three and one compared to one in
three so far for the Steelers. The Ravens are also
seven and three in the conference, compared to the three
and seven mark for the Pittsburgh Steelers. Then the a
f C UH Steelers are four and four. On the road,
the Ravens have won five of their seven home contests
thus far. Steelers are on a two game winning Streekin

(00:42):
have won four of their last five, with the only
loss coming to these Baltimore Ravens. So they try to
avenge that loss in Baltimore this coming Sunday, and they
have won three of their past five. And Matt, you're
gonna get a Ravens team that's really motivated because they
want to keep pace with Cincinnati for that final match
for the year to win the division, get home game
in the playoffs. Absolutely, I mean they're in, but they're right,

(01:03):
you know, looking for greater things. At its time of
the recording, I don't know if Lamar is going to
play or not, but they're still very difficult to play against,
especially the defense, the special teams, the coaching. You know
exactly what you're gonna get. I mean we said that
several weeks ago doing this podcast the first time they played. Well,
now you're even more familiar, you know, because it was
just a couple of weeks ago. You know, you know,

(01:25):
the the ro Kan's and Stanley's and Dobbins and guys
like that are back. What the impact they're having. Yeah,
and we noted, you know, prior to or post that
Ravens beating of the Steelers a couple of weeks ago,
they got a real shot in the arm. With a
lot of those guys coming back, they could get the
ultimate shot in the arm with Lamar this week. You know,
we record this podcast on Tuesdays, and it's still hanging

(01:46):
over us right now, obviously whether it will be him
or Huntley. But I think that's kind of appropriate for
this podcast, mat because I think no matter when you
listen to it this week until Saturday before the game,
you're not gonna know who's starting. I don't think they're
gonna keep it pretty quiet. I mean, maybe we'll look
foolish on Thursday and it will come out. Lamar play
and reason. It doesn't seem very hard on it not,
you know, like he's questionable. He he was limited today.

(02:07):
That the kind of thing I bet we'd see. But
there's the contract stuff. It did play with him too.
The team's already in and is he super motivated to
see the field because every game he misses, I think
he becomes more and more valuable to Baltimore. Before you
get more into Lamar and the Ravens, let's get a
little serious history. Uh last meeting in Week fourteen. The

(02:28):
Ravens obviously won six team to fourteen, but the Steelers
had a four game winning streak in this matchup. You
know something that people love to say amount all the
time with these two is, oh they split. You can
always count on the Steelers and Races. Really case recently,
Sties have swept the past two years and now the
Ravens look like they're gonna try to sweep this year,
so in their building that brings the series that result
in Week four team brings a series to twenty five

(02:49):
in the Steelers favor. The first year the French Ship
was in Baltimore was six. Since then, the Ravens and
Stealers have met fifty six times. We've got four postseason
battles in that his were won three of those playoff games.
The Steelers have won eight of the last twelve. Before
that time prime the Ravens had a four game one
eight streak and in one nine of twelve. The Steelers
did own this series early on, winning six of the

(03:10):
first seven matchups. And Mike Tomlin is eighteen and sixteen
against Baltimore while Harbaugh is fifteen and seventeen against the Steelers.
So it has been a coin flip as far as
those two are pretty much and obviously hardball showed up
a year later, but they've been to the most tenured
coaches in the league. Uh, it's not really rocket science.
If you're a Steelers fan at this point in this season,
how you approach the Ravens offensively run heavy offense pretty

(03:33):
much as run heavy as it gets their tenth and
total expected points at it in the league. But their
second in e p A in the NFL, only behind
the Eagles nineteen as far as Droppack e p A
is concerned. And you know total passing yards they so
that kind of matches e p A a a little bit.
And their second in rushing guards as well. Yeah, they
just dominated on the ground. Yeah, absolutely, So you look

(03:54):
at two ways. I mean, the Ravens had great success
running on the Steelers in the first meeting. Rates at
great success. Um. But if you can take that away
as you did against Carolina, the Raiders, some other good
rushing teams we've seen of late, if you can have
a better game in that regard, that really makes this

(04:14):
team play left handed because their passing game is a disaster.
I mean, their run games are really impressive. Dobbin's coming
back has helped, but their receivers and passing game, especially
without lamar Is Andrews and he gets doubled all the time.
I mean the receivers. I mean, I'm not sure this
is in the packet I sent you or not if

(04:35):
I just put it in, but Sammy Watkins, the Marcus
Robinson and who's the third of the Sean Jackson, they
each ran exactly forty percent of the routes last week,
Like they're just totally searching and picking up Watkins and
Jackson off the street. And Robinson was even cut by
the Chiefs did to start the season, Like they have

(04:55):
nothing at the receiver position. It's odd. Yeah, and you
know Andrews, he's kind of disappeared recently. Yeah, you just
get too much attention. Right, He's their leading receiver by
three hundred twenty two yards still on the year, and
he's missed one game. But he's only had two receiving
yards over his past eight games in average of just
thirty six point five yards per game over that stretch.
That's even with Lamar Jackson at quarterback. A lot of

(05:17):
stretch includes it, so not a great year for him.
The last time the Ravens played the Steelers, the Ravens
mustard just ninety four yards through the air. Don Marcus
Robinson was the leading receiver with five pass catches for
fifty two yards in that game, but no other Ravens
receiver had more than two catches. Last week, Ravens only
through for just one hundred and forty three yards total.
So it's not they don't and they don't really try

(05:38):
to throw the exactly so, and I think that's gonna
be especially true if you do see Twther Huntley in
this game lean towards the run even more so jacksonal Traditionally,
Jackson throws the ball down field much more. Huntley's a
lot more throwing it laterally getting it out of his hands.
And they don't throw the backs either, which is crazy,
you know, like you think maybe they should. Dobbins involved

(06:00):
in the receiving games and so hurting so bad, and
then they don't. Well, when you're trying to stop the run,
the inside linebackers are going to play a pretty big
part in that formula. Roberts Plaine has been kind of
the all star of that inside lineback as far as
snap counts are concerned. Didn't leave the field at all
last week, didn't leave the field the week prior to that,
sixty three defensive snaps against the Raiders on Saturday night.

(06:23):
The other inside linebackers, Devin Bush and Miles Jack played
twenty one and sixteen snaps respectively. That's an avalanche of
a difference between difference, and what I found interesting too
was Jack played zero snaps on third or fourth down
you know, so his snap counts have dropped and dropped
and dropped. Splane's taken over as the true every down
guy were early in the season, Splane was pretty much

(06:45):
just the dimebacker, you know, exactly when he was the
only backer out there with six defensive backs. And now
he's taking it over. It's an interesting position right now
for the Steelers, and the defense is playing better, but
they're not getting any splash from that group. Yeah, I'm
go into that stat that you were bringing out to
me before we went on the air. This illustrates pretty
much the season. I think it puts it in a
pretty nice light as a whole for the Steelers, but

(07:08):
also just that position group of inside backer, and it
just Nail's home how little they're affecting games exactly. Between
those three players, they have about eight hundred snaps. Is here.
It's a lot of opportunities to make plays, right. They
have a combined eight tackles for loss that's really poor.
This is worse between interceptions, fumble recoveries, forced fumbles, and sacks,

(07:35):
all the splash plays that a splash position should get.
They have a combined one of all all four of
those categories. Combined, and all those combined one, So those
eighteen ish hundred snaps created one one sack by Splane
in Week one against the Bengals. Gonna ask if you

(07:56):
who the guy was and what the st That's why
he's on the do all the time now he's the
big explosive play guy week one when when the Bengals
were in shambles. I mean, it's just hard to have
that happen. That's almost impressive in a weird way because
you fall into a fumble recovery every once in a while.
It's almost like Deante not being able to find the

(08:17):
zone you're playing in the middle, gets tipped up, you
pick it off. It has designed them for you guys
to be the ones making the tackles, making the plays
like this is another insane stat with this defense, but
reflects on the inside linebackers. If you don't realize that
Steelers have the most interceptions in the league, most people
wouldn't guess that, but the fewest fumble recoveries. They've only

(08:40):
recovered three fumbles all year. And I looked into it
right before we came in here. Only three defenses have
caused fewer fumbles, so that reflects on your tacklers, your
second level guys getting the ball off or getting the
helmet on it, or getting a lot of bodies to them,
and you know it's they're not creating any plays on

(09:00):
the second level, so you don't get a big play.
As far as the humble recoveries concerned, what about the sacks.
They blitz their linebackers, they blitz everybody. They blitz at
the six highest rate. And no one's getting blitz at
a higher rate on their dropbecks than the Ravens. We
should add in the NFL. So the formula should be
that this week against Baltimore. But none of them. If
you're if your name is not t. J. Watt, if
your name is not cam Heyward, Job and Highsmith, you're

(09:23):
not going to get home. And they're not getting home
consistently with the blitz No. I mean, they cause pressure
and they're not bad when they blitz, but they're not
they're not blitzburg. They're not leading the league in sacks.
I wonder, I mean, what would those numbers look like
if what would have been healthy for you know, seventeen
games of course, but he hasn't and the sacks are
way down from what we're used to. The Ravens produced

(09:45):
the NFL second most rushing yards per game, as well
as the second most rushing yards per attempt. And we
all know last time these two teams met, two d
and fifteen rushing yards total is what the Steelers yielded
to Baltimore last week. The Steelers did great against Josh Jacobs.
You know, I think something that we've highlighted is, yeah,
they we rushed defense is much improved, but sometimes the
superstars can still get them. The run heavy teams can

(10:06):
still get them. Last week was very impressive. That environment
called for running the football a lot, and still its
just did not allow the Raiders to do that. And
unlike Atlanta, Baltimore and to a lesser case, Carolina, this
team had the Vante Adams. You know, there's two dimensions.
It wasn't just stopped and stopped ru and stop the run.
It was stopped Jacob stop Adams. And those are two

(10:28):
very different things and they accomplished both. But Baltimore is
gonna obviously continue that style of running it down your
threat and Patrick or card is going to clear the way.
He played forty four of a possible fifty two snaps
for the Ravens offense last week. So I mean that
guy is an X factor as far as what the
Ravens want to do. And I think j K. Dobbins
has looked pretty good, has come back from injury, and

(10:49):
that's something that they sorely need. And fingers crossed because
I'm a Steeler fan, I want him to stay alive.
I hope Lamars not back for this game, but as
a football fan, I'm really excited to see the dynamic
of Lamar and j K. Dobbins healthy together. Someone needs
to take some of that rushing workload. I mean, Matt
Lamar still the Ravens leading rusher by three and thirty
seven yards and he's been out for three weeks now,

(11:10):
and Huntley's a good ball carriers quarterbacks go yeah, exactly,
make switch the michaelob ultra version, you know like that,
And you're right about Dobbins. Like a lot of people
out there, running backs don't matter. Well, the running backs
of the Ravens trotted out before Dobbins came back. They

(11:31):
were they were rough and it was a revolving door
and Dobbin still wasn't playing the snaps, but he's been
very effective with his tough no they split last week
and one carries or snaps excuse me, and Dobbin said
twenty two snaps. But Dobbins has the impact. Dobbins makes
the big splash play happen against Steelers. One last thing

(11:51):
you I want to note about the Steelers defensively, Uh,
they surrender five point one points on average in the
first quarter of games. Only three teams are worth. Steelers
get off too slow starts defensively. The Raiders looked like
they couldn't be stopped in the first drive on Saturday
night and nothing for the rest of the game. So
Ravens are on offense that starts pretty hot too. You

(12:13):
can score early, you can't let the game get out
of hand too too early. If you're the Steelers, kind
of weather that storm. The last couple of weeks, I've
been digging into scoring by quarter because I think it
reflects a lot on coaching and you know how you adjust.
And what's interesting too, is and we'll get to it
when the Ravens. Yeah, it's total. I mean maybe you
have it in front of you because it's it's bonkers
with their their quarterly splits. Yeah, that's what a transition man,

(12:36):
and let's let's do this again. How about let's let's
get to the defensive side of the ball and we'll
start at that statistic there you've you've tracked with. The
defense is allowing by quarter two point two points on
average during the first quarter of games. It's immaculate against
the Ravens. We're talking about ven Yes, this is the
Ravens defense, the best in the league as far as
the first quarter is concerned, and the second quarter of game,

(12:57):
the Ravens defense are only bested by the Party Niners
as far as points allowed per on average in the
second quarter. In the third quarter, only four teams are
better than the Ravens, so you're starting to move down
a little bit to five. In the fourth quarter. This year,
the Ravens give up an average of seven point nine points.
Only the Panthers and the Colts, both teams have fired

(13:20):
their head coach at some point. They spot are worse
than the Ravens are in the fourth quarter. They give
up over a touchdown in that quarter on average, which
is crazy. I mean, I don't have a great reason
for it. The conditioning. Are they predictable? Once It's like
a batter facing a picture the fourth time to the lineup.
Do you see something different in the fourth quarter. Maybe

(13:41):
they don't have a lot of checks, you know, like
you figure it out that they always go to cover
two in this situation, or they only have a handful
of blitz packages and we've seen them all. Maybe it's conditioning.
But the Ravens are blown a lot of leads this year,
and that correlates with, you know, great defense for three quarters,
bad defense for fourth. Right, But as a whole, I
think they're really good defense. I mean their thirteenth and

(14:03):
overall e p A as far as uh defending the
dropback is concerned, so maybe there is a week you
can move the ball through the air on them. You
gotta worry about the interception thing to take the ball
away a lot. And they got playmakers in that secondary
to Oh and by the way, they sack the quarterback
a lot as well, something like that, So it's by
committee to Houston's their best guy, but a lot of

(14:25):
sacks from a lot of different people. Fourth and EPA
against the run. Third, as far as total defense is concerned,
against the run, eighty seven yards per game allowed and
teams just don't run the ball against the Ravens either
right there, like I think second or the least amount
of teams even trying to run the ball. And you
saw that with the Steelers in Week fourteen. They just
kind of waved the white flag on Naji in the
second half. You got like three touches total. That's exactly

(14:49):
what happens is people just kind of give it up
and then Ravens started throwing exotic blitz is at you
and things like that. Um So yeah, I mean it's
a very hard defense to play against. It's certainly to boost.
When they traded for Roquan Smith, I mean he has
been a big time We talked about the inside linebackers
for Steelers, Well he's been the opposite. I mean, he's
been a big time playmaker for them. So I'm not

(15:09):
picking out of the game, you know. I mean he's
got to pick up Rabinsky and both inside linebackers and
play they made. Both Ravens linebackers on the inside made
equal to the Steelers core three in splash plays. In
that one game against Steelers, they both in an interception,
right exactly, that's right, exactly exactly. One interesting note about

(15:35):
them though, is everyone goes three four deep at the
corner position last week, and it was against the Falcons,
who are we know are very gonna They only played
two corners the whole game. A third corner never even
walked out on the fields Peters and Humphries. Peters was hurt,
that was Stevens. That's right. Peters is questionable for this weekend.
But I don't think it would have mattered because what

(15:57):
they've been doing is Kyle Hamilton's the first round pick,
the big Notre Dame safety who's six four to thirty,
I mean, is a really good prospect. He's kind of
been their slot corner by default. His snaps keep going
up and going up. It's weird for a team to
only play two corners throughout the entire game, no matter
who's healthy and who isn't, no doubt, and you know,

(16:17):
as far as that continuity is concerned, just last week,
out of a possible seventy one snaps, the Ravens had
six defenders miss miss four snaps are fewer, So it
wasn't just those cornerbacks that were always on the field.
I mean, Roquan Smith, Chuck Clark and Humphrey didn't miss
a snap. Marcus Williams missed one, Stevens you just mentioned
MS three, Patrick Queen missed four. So they're out there
all the time, out there all the time, rotate their
defensive front doesn't leave much else, you know. And those

(16:40):
guys are identity guys. I mean, I know, you got
guys at the front of Clay's Campbell, JPP, Travis Jones,
Meta bookag. But some of those guys are older. You know,
they will still get the job done. But that's a
mixed bag of different styles. Their core is in the secondary,
their futures in the secondary, and their inside linebackers. Yeah, absolutely, um, yeah,
you're you're right. They have three really good safeties. Now

(17:03):
they have two really good linebackers now, you know, added
to both spots during this past you know, calendar year.
They're always good at corner and it's just a fresh
rotation upfront. I'm not sure if Clive Scambe's gonna play
or not. I think now he's questionable as well. Lamar
obviously is questionable. You know. It's interesting before we get
to the key matchups. Just one overall note of this series.

(17:25):
We've touched so much with Tim Ben's on countdown to
kick Off, and just in general about the Ravens back
in Week fourteen. L backup quarterbacks have a lot to
do with this series, a lot. They seem to get
their imprint on it. Yeah, and this series in particular.
And then the last time they met, every quarterback that
had a helmet played Anthony Brownsky, Kenny Picktt. I hope
you see Kenny pick It play a full game against

(17:45):
the Ravens because I think his ability to not turn
it over. I know he had a bad one against
the Raiders, but still he's one of his last five games.
And that's what really cost the Steelers because they moved
the ball pretty well against the Ravens in the first matchup.
Like you know, in hockey, you lose the game one nothing,
but you outplay them everywhere else. It's kind of how
I felt walking away. Other than the rush defense and
the turnovers, Steelers were able to move it on this Ravens.

(18:07):
They definitely moved that. Trabinsky moved it very very well.
I'm gonna fight you a little bit on that game
in that I thought, so, I'm kind of we got
to two sides of my mouth. I love that the
Ravens were the more physical team. That day without question,
which almost always wins and translates to the two fifteen
they put up on the cause and they were the
better run and run defence team that day, so I

(18:30):
thought they were the better football team and deserve to win.
But speaking out the other side of my mouth, if
Trabinsky throws one less interception or the fuel goal doesn't
have blocked, I still think the Steelers win, even though
I didn't think they were the better team. So that's
how fine line it is. Key matchups to highlight in
this uh second meeting between the Ravens and the Steelers.

(18:51):
Ravens running back JK. Dobbins versus the Steelers linebackers in
a in a limited role in the first meeting this year,
on fifteen carries, Dobbins racked up one and twenty rushing yards,
including a forty four yard run. So it's a huge
key to stop him. Shut him down, whether Lamar's back
or not. If you can cut off one of their
heads to the running game, that's gonna pay off a
lot down the stretch in the game, without doubt, And

(19:13):
there weren't many other matchups to focus on, you know,
I mean it, I thought about and it's the running games.
And what's interesting is, I think we mentioned four. They
don't throw to the backs. It's not like Josh Jacobs
where you know that he's out there every snap and
you know, so it's a different challenge, but it's you
know what you're getting. And then very similar matchup on
the other side of things, Steelers running back Nagy Harris

(19:34):
first Ravens linebacker ro Kwan Smith. I love the all
around game from Nagy against the Raiders. Fifty three yards
on the ground, another forty four through the area, six catches.
I know they didn't really put them out on some
routes like you've been begging them to do, but the
dump offs were working really well and he was taking
on defenders one on one in the field. And I
hope that in this game, if he can't get much
traction in the ground game like the first time around

(19:56):
against the Ravens, they look for him in that passing
game a little bit more. Get him on one of
the matchups because man, the offense, you notice the drives
are better when Naji's cooking, like he can carry this
load for the offense, and then that will translate to
them looking better as a team, no doubt. I'm a
much more to add, except for the two backs are
really good in protection too, and they thrive in it.
And I think that's a big deal because those they

(20:17):
will blitz those inside backers as as well as others.
They're not a huge blitz team, but they're good at it. Um,
you're right. I mean, not a lot of mystery around
this game, and they'll probably won't be three years from now.
There wasn't ten years ago, there wasn't five years ago.
I mean, be the more physical team. Run the football,
don't make mistakes, two good kickers. Steelers will try to
get back to five with all win down in Baltimore

(20:39):
on Sunday Night Football after the flex. I'm sure you
heard about that, but if you haven't, make sure just
your plans will be an eight twenty kickoff down in Baltimore.
Go Steelers, stay alive in the playoff race, and go Patriots.
I know that's weird to say, but go Patriots. Go.
Seahawks need the Jets and the Dolphins to lose for
the Steelers to have a pulse heading into Week eight.

(21:00):
Ean for Matt Williamson. I'm Tom Offerman. We'll talk to
you Guys next week on the Advanced Scout