Predicting the Season Finale @ Ravens
Here we go, yinzers. One last anxiety-riddled weekend of regular season football with playoff implications all over the NFL, including an AFC North battle on Saturday afternoon with the Steelers taking on the Ravens in Baltimore.
Scenarios that get the Pittsburgh Steelers in the playoffs, via steelers.com.
There are several paths for our Steelers to get into the playoffs, but it certainly gets a hell of a lot easier for us if we just beat the damn Ratbirds in their house. As you can see, we can still get in with a loss, but there’s no universe where I trust these Denver Broncos in Las Vegas, so let’s just not even dive into that scenario.
FULL DISCLOSURE: I wrote out my spiel on Wednesday afternoon before the Baltimore Ravens ruled out some of their starters the following day, and I was going to predict a Steelers loss *ducks for cover*. I know Coach Tomlin has Lamar Jackson’s number, and I’m well aware of what our record is against the Ravens over the last few years. TRUST ME, I’ve watched every second of all of those games, and I was at Acrisure for one of the few that ended in a loss (fuck Mitch Trubisky). However, our secondary is LIMPING to the finish line and Lamar Jackson has thrown the ball much better this year than in years past, especially toward the end of this season. I expected us to get carved up and, for lack of a better word, embarrassed on Saturday.
But, we’re dodging that bullet and instead, we’ll be facing the Tyler Huntley-led Ravens offense.
Obviously, the Ravens aren’t gonna lay down for a division rival just because they have the one seed locked up. We won’t see Lamar Jackson, OBJ, or (most likely) Zay Flowers, so I would expect the Ravens to be trying to run the ball down our throats all afternoon. Also, I wouldn’t be surprised if they had some trickery on their minds both on offense and special teams. Hopefully, the Steelers’ special teams coach Danny Smith has the boys ready for that.
The Steelers’ defense has been dealing with injuries all year long, but the ‘next man up’ mentality has worked well for the most part. Teams have been able to move the ball pretty easily on us, but we tend to win the turnover battle and keep touchdowns off the board, which will be crucial on Saturday. I see a lot of field goals in the Ravens’ future. My prediction: they hang 17 points on us.
The Baltimore Ravens boast the number one scoring defense in football, so clearly they do a good job of keeping touchdowns off the board as well. They also lead the league with 57 sacks on the year. They get AFTER the quarterback. So, let’s not play victims of the moment with Mason Rudolph. He’s probably going to have a rough afternoon. This is the game where the Mason Rudolph vs. Kenny Pickett dynamic makes me nervous. Yinz love the fact that Mason Rudolph is willing to take deep shots down the field; hell, I love it. However, that has lost us some games in years past with Mason at the helm. Kenny Pickett is probably too conservative, but he isn’t going to lose you the game, and he will give you a chance at the end, which is what I think we’re going to need in this game.
Kenny Pickett will be dressing for this game as QB2, so don’t discount the possibility that he sees some action if things get tight toward the end of this one. Overall, given the pieces that will be resting for the Ravens, the Steelers are the better team in this instance, regardless of who’s at QB. We’re capable of scoring 20 points on this defense, which I think is enough to win this game. My prediction: we hang 20 points on the Ravens.
I think the Steelers win 20-17. I think we will keep it tight and win on a walk-off kick from Chris Boswell. After that, I’m going to transform into a HUGE Miami Dolphins and Tennessee Titans fan.
Week 18. AFC North ball (in the kitchen). Here. We. Go.
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