Hate to Do This: Hated Ravens at Steelers Preview

I hate the hated Ravens so much that I refer to them as "the hated Ravens."  I still hate Brian Billick and he hasn't coached for the team in like five years.  I hate Ray Lewis, Terrell Suggs, and even Elvis Grbac (mostly because of the weird name, but he did play for Baltimore for a season).  I hate the hated Ravens so much that they almost made me hate Rod Woodson.

But, there's one thing that I hate more than the hated Ravens: Jay Cutler's face.  Maybe there's two things.  Jay Cutler's face and picking the hated Ravens to beat the Steelers.  I already went on record picking them in this week's Pick Em, but I wanted to go on record here and explain how much picking Baltimore to win Sunday night sucked.

I think the hated Ravens are going to win and I hate saying that.

Now I'm going to talk about what the Steelers need to do to win.  It's not as impossible as it might seem.

Consider the following:

1. The Steelers are 4-0 at home (sure, they haven't beaten any good teams there yet, but they're undefeated.)
2. Baltimore is 2-2 on the road and their two road wins are against the Chiefs (with a Orioles-Royals score of 9-6) and the Browns (25-15).
3. The Unibrow sucks on the road this season.  Home numbers: 113-173-1612-10-3-108.3.  Road numbers: 71-136-719-3-4-62.7.  He gains 45 quarterback rating points and four yards per attempt at home.  Or, more importantly, he loses four yards an attempt and 45 rating points on the road.
4. For the first time in recent memory, the hated Ravens aren't defending the run well.  They rank 26th in the league in yards allowed, giving up 132 rushing yards a game.
5. In four home games, the Steelers have given up an average of 12.3 points per game.

Those are all good trends, because the Steelers need to do the following things to win the game:

1. Avoid getting off to a slow start.
2. Not turn the ball over.
3. Make it a low scoring game.
4. Run the ball effectively and frequently.

Trouble is, I think they'll only be able to accomplish #2.  They've done an exceptional job taking care of the ball thus far this season and I think that they'll err on the side of caution on offense -- no high risk pass plays, running backs keep both hands on the ball.  But, that's only one of the four things they need to do to win.

I think they'll get off to a slow start.  The hated Ravens know the Steelers almost as well as they know themselves.  They know that this team can't come back from a big deficit without Ben Roethlisberger.  Baltimore's primary objective will be to get off to a fast start and get the Steelers off balance as quickly as possible.

Byron Leftwich won't be as bad as he was against the Chiefs.  He'll have a full week of practice under his belt for this game and Todd Haley will put together a game plan that works with Leftwich's strengths.  There has been a lot of chatter about the fact that Leftwich is a bad fit for Haley's offense.  But, the fact of the matter is that Haley designed this year's offense -- and last week's game plan -- around Ben Roethlisberger and the other personnel the Steelers have on the roster.  When they hired him as offensive coordinator, I wrote about the fact that he's a personnel guy, not a system guy.  When he had Kurt Warner and a bunch of great receivers in Arizona, he called a lot of passes.  When he had Jamaal Charles and Thomas Jones in Kansas City, he called a lot of runs.  When he realized that the Steelers had a bunch of explosive playmakers at receiver and an offensive line that had trouble protecting its quarterback, he called a lot of quick timing passes and screens.  When Roethlisberger Monday night's game, they already had the game plan installed and he couldn't start calling stuff that was completely different than what they had practiced all week.  On Sunday night, his game plan will be optimized to make the most of what Leftwich brings to the table.  The problem there is that it's not just Leftwich.

Antonio Brown will probably miss this game.  Rashard Mendenhall will probably start after a long layoff.  The offensive line still has pass protection issue.  There are a lot of moving parts that are either unavailable or rusty.  Couple that with the fact that Baltimore will want to do whatever they can to start fast and shut the Steelers down early and you can see how it's hard to imagine that they'll avoid getting off to slow start.

I think that they can keep the game low scoring even if they get off to a slow start, but I don't think that means they'll win.  If they fall behind 14-0 or 10-0, they'll eventually rally, but I think they'll fall short.

Running the ball effectively and frequently is the last thing on the list, but it's also the most important.  It affects whether or not they'll be able to accomplish #1 and #4.  If they start out running the ball well, that takes the early pressure off Leftwich.  If they keep running the ball well, that helps keep the ball away from Unibrow and the ever-deadly Ray Rice.  It also sets up the play action passing game, which will slow down the pass rush of the hated Ravens and make things easier on Leftwich.

But... the Ravens know all this, which is why they'll stack the box, look to stop the run at all costs, and force Leftwich to beat them.  They'll also bring a lot of extra defenders on the blitz when Haley does call a pass, knowing that they don't have the personnel to cover the Steelers receivers for more than three seconds. 

Most of the pressure will come up the middle, since Leftwich doesn't have the mobility to break outside the tackle box and extend the play like Roethlisberger does.  That's a problem because the interior linemen -- though they've done an exceptional job blowing up big holes between the tackles in the running game -- have had some serious issues in pass protection.

So... if the Steelers can run the ball well out of the gate and if they don't turn the ball over and if the hated Ravens defense doesn't embed Leftwich into the Heinz Field turf in the first half and if they can keep Ray Rice contained, they'll be able to win a close game. 

And, while I'm asking for stuff, I'd like a pony.

Prediction:
Hated Ravens 17, Steelers 10

Let's Do This: Hated Ravens at Steelers Preview

Heading into Sunday night's game, there is only one thing I know for sure: The Steelers won't get blown out like they did in Week 1.  Other than that, I am not sure about anything.

I don't think it will be a high-scoring affair.  I don't think the Steelers will blow the hated Ravens out and that makes me sad.  I think the Steelers can (and will) win this game, but I don't know that for sure.  There will be no Flacco Jersey bets this year. 

Well, I guess I know two other things for sure: I know that I'm very excited for the game and I know what they need to do to win.  Just like with the Patriots, it's pretty easy to figure out how to beat Baltimore.  The actual execution is the difficult part.

Don't Turn the Ball Over:

This is kind of a general thing, but it was certainly overlooked on opening day.  It's true that the Steelers have turned the ball over 13 times and the hated Ravens have forced 16 turnovers.  But, if you take into account that seven of those turnovers/takeaways came in the first game, the Steelers have only given the ball up six times in seven games and Baltimore has only taken it away nine times in six games.  That's still a big number for the HR, but they had four more takeaways against the Jets, which means five in five games. 

Um... Let's just keep with, "Don't turn the ball over."

Since the Steelers can't seem to force any turnovers this year, they'll need to hang onto the ball to win.  Turning it over once probably means losing the turnover battle and that can't happen.

Contain Ray Rice:

This has the second lowest easy-to-type/difficult-to-execute ratio.  Rice is an elusive, explosive, athletic player that has great vision, catches the ball well, and is tough to bring down.  We saw that first hand in Week 1 and pretty much throughout his career.  Like with Maurice Jones-Drew, there's no real way to completely shut him down; you just need to limit the damage he does.

The defensive line has been much better in terms of gap discipline and attacking the line of scrimmage the last five games, so that's part of the solution.  The fact that LaMarr Woodley and James Farrior probably won't play is a big problem.  If the d-line can get him moving east-to-west, the linebackers -- even if they're not the starters -- should be able to close on him and bring him down.  James Harrison looks like he might return, which means that Lawrence Timmons can move back to the inside.  That's a key factor in containing Rice.  Not containing him as a runner, but making sure he doesn't kill you catching checkdowns from Joe Flacco.

In the past, Rice has still been a big factor in games where the Steelers have bottled him up as a runner.  He's accomplished this by catching a four yard dump-off pass and turning it into a ten yard gain.  The Steelers need to have a spy on Rice at all times.  Troy makes the most sense, but he'll be busy roaming around the secondary and hopefully causing problems for Flacco there.  That means Timmons needs to get back to his Team Assassin ways and focus on murdering Ray Rice.  I think it can be done and I think Timmons (v 2010) would be the man for the job.

Suggs and Ngata:

Here's your lowest easy-to-type/difficult-to-execute ratio.  These two guys have destroyed the Steelers the past few years and were particularly destructive in Week 1.  Yes, Ed Reed and Ray Lewis still make plays, but Suggs and Ngata just seem to straight-up murder them.  I think the pass protection has improved since Max Starks came back and I think Starks is a big upgrade over Jonathan Scott, but there's only so much lipstick you can put on this situation.  Ramon Foster is an upgrade over Legursky and a healthy Kemo will fare better against Ngata than the last time out, but neither guy is in Ngata's class.

Just like with Ray Rice, there's no way to take these guys completely out of the game.  You just need to know where they are, know where they're going, and try like hell to stop them.  If Foster, Pouncey, Kemo, and Starks win more battles than they lose, then the Steelers can win.  If Ngata and Suggs go off like they did in Week 1, well you saw the results.

Pass to Set Up the Run:

This is a good idea for two reasons: It has worked the past few weeks and it lets the Steelers know what they're working with early.  Ben Roethlisberger threw the ball a lot more in the first half the past few weeks -- especially against New England -- and they were able to move the ball and get some open space in the running game.  Historically, open space in the running game has been extremely rare against the hated Ravens, so this strategy is worth a shot.  My thinking is that there won't be a whole lot of things that go well for the Steelers on offense and they may as well find out how poorly things are going to go as early as possible.

If they work Roethlisberger out of the shotgun early, then he'll have more time to get rid of the ball and they'll be able to gauge Baltimore's plan on defense.  If the hated Ravens bring the house, then I think Roethlisberger will shred them, since he's been very effective against the blitz thus far this season.  If they rush four or five guys and get to him almost immediately, then it's time to try something different.  The issue in the first game was that Suggs and Ngata were in Roethlisberger's face as soon as he said "Hut" so Baltimore didn't need to blitz that much.  If they're not successful rushing four or five guys -- meaning Suggs and Ngata are being somewhat contained -- then they'll start sending more guys and then they're screwed.

So...

I think it's possible that the Steelers can accomplish all these things, but I don't know how likely it is.  I would love to see a blow out -- I hate the hated Ravens, I'm playing a guy this week who has Rice, Flacco, and Baltimore's defense, I hate the hated Ravens -- but who would be stupid enough to predict something like that?

I think it's close.  I think the Steelers win more of these battles than they lose.  I think, in the end, Roethlisberger makes all the difference.

Prediction:
Steelers 17, Hated Ravens 13