At some point Thursday morning, I convinced myself that the Steelers were going to blow the hated Ravens out (win by at least two touchdowns). I spent a lot of time between then and now trying to convince myself that it was a really, really dumb idea to think that.
I have been unsuccessful in being convincing enough to unconvince myself. Therefore, I'm going to talk about why the Steelers will trounce Baltimore on Sunday.
The biggest reason is the fact that I think I overrated the hated Ravens. I think that, even though I hate them more than any other professional sports team, I also respect and admire them. I think that respect and admiration -- as well as all the positive press that has been flying around about them -- clouded my judgment. The simple fact of the matter is that the hated Ravens are limited on both sides of the ball.
They have Ray Rice on offense and Rice is a fantastic player. Aside from Rice, they have Lee Evans, who hasn't been relevant in some time, and Anquan Boldin, who caught all of 64 passes last year. I think that Joe Flacco is a good quarterback. At times he is a great quarterback. His problem is that the Steelers make him look average.
On defense, they're very similar to the Steelers in that they have a lot of talent in the front seven, an outstanding safety, and marginal cornerbacks. This means they're vulnerable in the secondary if the front seven doesn't get enough pressure. That's the basic weakness of the Steeler defense, but the big difference is that Dick LeBeau seems to have successfully coached his cornerbacks to the point where they realize their limitations and don't take risks. I don't see that with the Baltimore cornerbacks. That means that they are vulnerable deep, which is where the Steelers like to throw the ball. The Steelers have also shown a tendency in the preseason -- and have mentioned in interviews -- that they think they have the talent on offense to throw the ball a lot and score a bunch of points.
If you take a defense that struggles when it doesn't get pressure (hated Ravens posted only 27 sacks in 2010), add marginal cornerbacks that gamble too much, and put them up against an offense that will throw the ball a lot and likes to throw deep, it's a bad combination for that defense. When you couple that with an offense that doesn't have much firepower that is run by a quarterback that struggles against the Steelers, you get a blowout.
Also, I keep thinking about the season opener in 2003. The Steelers tuned up a high-powered offense in the preseason and hosted the hated Ravens at Heinz Field. Everyone was expecting a tight, hard-hitting game, with very little scoring and a high quantity of three yards and a pile of dust. Instead, Baltimore got smoked 34-15. You could tell by watching that game that the Steelers were ready for the season to start and the hated Ravens were not.
In last night's game, you could tell that the Saints and Packers were ready for the season to start. I think the Steelers are ready for the season to start. I think the hated Ravens have added just the right number of new faces that they're not ready. I think the Steelers will be a half step faster -- like they were in 2003 -- and they'll score quickly, like they did in 2003. The hated Ravens will then start to overcompensate, because this is a bigger game for them (home game, they probably circled this game in April when the schedule came out, they've been looking to get past the Steelers since 2008). The cornerbacks are going to start to gamble, the safeties will start to cheat, and we'll have the same situation as in 2003, where the hated Ravens made Jay Freakin' Riemersma look like an all-star.
It's entirely possible that I'm an idiot and it would not be the first time that I was proven to be horribly, horribly wrong. It's very possible that the Steelers will not be ready for the blitz -- even though they must know it's coming -- just like they weren't ready against the Saints last season. Ray Rice could take over this game all by himself.
It's just my opinion that the hated Ravens aren't ready to make that happen just yet.
Prediction:
Steelers 31, Hated Ravens 13
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