Ravens Fall to Steelers in Pittsburgh

I really don’t know what to say about this. The Ravens blew a 21-7 halftime lead and fell to the Steelers (again) in the AFC Divisional Round of playoffs by a score of 31-24. That’s right, Pittsburgh outscored the Ravens 24-3 in the second half. It’s a devastating, heartbreaking loss and I have no idea what the repercussions of this will be. The Ravens were primed for a SuperBowl run this year. Offense was the big issue with the team, and All-Pro wideouts Anquan Boldin and TJ Houshmandzadeh were brought in. Both of those men had key roles in last night’s game…but not the way Ravens fans imagined in. Boldin dropped a touchdown in the end zone in the fourth quarter on third down, and the Ravens had to settle for a field goal. As for Housh, who went on record several times this season bitching about wanting to be a more focal part of the offense? Well, on the final drive of the game, on 4th and 19, Joe Flacco threw a perfect strike to Housh. He dropped it.

There isn’t a lot that went right in this game, especially offensively. The Ravens only racked up 126 yards of total offense, a pathetic number against any defense. The team ran the ball 18 times, and only managed 35 yards. Ray Rice wasn’t much of a factor: 19 touches for only 64 yards, evenly split between rushing and receiving. He also had a HUGE fumble in hte third quarter that led nearly immediately to a Steeler touchdown, and the momentum drastically shifted after that moment. Anquan Boldin was totally shut down by the Steelers, collecting only 1 catch for -2 yards. Derrick Mason didn’t have a catch, a week after only having 1 against the Chiefs. And then there’s Joe Flacco. He wasn’t really terrible, to be honest. 16/30 for 125 yards is pretty bad, but he only threw 1 pick, a ball intended for Todd Heap that was overthrown. He seemed intimidated all night, missing receivers high, putting too much air under the ball, and so on. But he wasn’t actively bad like some fans will have you believe. He’s got a fumble on his record from last night too, but that wasn’t his fault at all. Matt Birk snapped the ball into his own thigh, and the ball came loose. Again, not Flacco’s fault…but I’m sure he’ll be raked over the coals for it.

Defensively, the team was awesome. They held Pittsburgh to only 263 yards, and forced a pair of fumbles. One was caused by Terrell Suggs sacking Ben Roethlisberger (which he did 3 times on the night), and that fumble sat on the ground for a couple of seconds before Cory Redding picked it up and brought it into the end zone. The second fumble was by Rashard Mendenhall, tied up deep in Steeler territory. Dannell Ellerbe popped the ball loose, and the Ravens recovered. A few plays later, Flacco hit Todd Heap for a TD. 

Anyway, back to the defense. Ellerbe, who went through a six week period of not playing or not accumulating any stats, went nuts. 7 tackles, one of which was for a loss, and the big forced fumble in the second quarter. Terrell Suggs backed up all the talk he was spitting out earlier in the week in a big way, going OFF with 6 tackles, 3 sacks, and an additional 2 behind the line. All in all, the Ravens sacked Roethlisberger 6 times. It still wasn’t enough.

Coming into the game, John Harbaugh said that if the Ravens protected Flacco, they’d win the game. Well, that didn’t exactly happen. The Steelers sacked Flacco 5 times, including 3 by James Harrison. On one of the sacks by Harrison, he zoomed right past Tony Moll on the right side before Moll was even out of his stance. Talk about missing the snap count. In addition to those 5 sacks, Flacco was hit another 4 times. O-line play was pretty bad for both teams all night.

Another thing that had a huge impact on the game was Jeff Triplette and his crew, who would throw flags at the littlest thing. In the first quarter, Josh Wilson was called for pass interference after Mike Wallace hooked Wilson’s arm. That 37 yarder accounted for half of the Ravens penalty yards on the evening. There were two other huge penalties that stick out in my mind, both from the fourth quarter. With the Ravens down by 3, the Steelers went three and out and punted to Lardarius Webb, who took it all the way to the house for a touchdown to give the Ravens the lead. Well, not so fast my friend. Marcus Smith was called for a hold despite making a clean block on the play. It was a terrible call and resulted in the Ravens getting the ball at the 19. That was the drive where Boldin dropped the TD pass on 3rd down, and the Ravens had to settle for a field goal. The other penalty happened on the very next drive. The Steelers had the ball on the 4, and it was second and goal. Rashard Mendenhall ran offtackle to the right, and picked up a yard. Terrance Cody was inexplicably called for defensive holding to give Pittsburgh a fresh set of downs. Think about that for a minute. Defensive holding, on a run play, by a 350 pound lineman. Makes sense to me. The Steelers would score three plays later.

So the season is over. What do we do now? I was cheering for the Falcons to come out of the NFC, but that went even worse for them than it did for the Ravens last night. So uh…go Seahawks? I guess that’s the proper course of action. Birds gotta stick together.