“Brutal” is about the only word that can summarize last night’s game. But as Coach said in his press conference, “this is the NFL.”
23
20OT
The Defense gets the nod on introductions, and rightly so after their performance last week. Some local singer lip-synchs through the national anthem, but the pain of that got washed away by the fireworks over the river before the game.
Reed blasts the kickoff into the end zone but Figures brings it out and gets upended by Timmons inside the 20. All the emotion got drained right out of the stadium when Andre Frazier didn’t get up after the kick. The training staff came out and took Frazier off the field on a stretcher. Luckily, with JD off scared, our boy Jack was there to take care of his spinal injury.
As scary as it was, Frazier was up and walking around after the game and might play next week.
The Ravens come out and, reminiscent of how the Bungles started this week, fumble the first snap from center. McGahee goes nowhere on second down and Deshea jumps a slant route to break up a pass on 3rd down, forcing a punt. Bruce Davis picks up a totally unnecessary block in the back penalty on the punt, setting us back and eliminating our good field position.
Mendenhall gets stuffed on first down and Ben hits Heath heading towards the sideline with a defender right on him for a measley 2 yards on second down. This was just the start of the terrible offensive play-calling that would ensue in this game. Ben hooks up with Holmes to pick up the first down and more and keep the drive alive on 3rd down. Ben throws a risky pass over the middle for Spaeth that almost gets intercepted. Mendenhall powers for 8 yards to set up 3rd and short. In a crazy turn of events, Simmons gets called for a false start, but the penalty is offset by personal foul penalites on both teams, keeping us at 3rd and 2. Ben hits Nasty Nate on a quick slant to pick up and get the ball to the fringes of field goal range. Mendenhall blasts through a hole for 12 yards to get close to the red zone, but then gets set back for a loss of 2. The Steelers stay with him and he picks up 5 yards that are wiped out by a false start on Simmons. 3rd and long? You know what’s coming…
Flacco comes out and goes play-action against a 4-man rush and bombs one deep. Ryan Clark makes a terrible play on the ball, but was in good enough position to block force the receiver to try and jump over him to catch the ball. After the incompletion, we all catch our breath. McGahee goes nowhere on 2nd down, forcing a 3rd and long. Monday Night. Throwbacks. Baltimore. We’ve seen this before. We know what’s coming.
Ben comes out and runs a great play-action fake and has plenty of time to throw. Freeze frame this moment. Hines is streaking open down the middle, blowing past a safety. Holmes is outrunning a DB down the right sideline. Heath is open in the flat near numbers on the right side of the field. Mendenhall is open along the right sideline. Enjoy that picture? Good, because you know what Ben does next.
Ben throws a dump-off over the middle where there are only Raven defenders and one of the linemen tips it to himself and comes down with the interception.
McGahee gets stuffed again, and they get set back on a holding penalty on Todd Heap-of-$&^#. But Flacco comes back and hits Mason for 18 to get to 3rd and 3, which the Ravens convert on a short pass. Foote applies the heat on the next play, causing an incompletion. McGahee picks up 4, setting up another 3rd down that our defense blows. Mason pulls one down over the middle and gets wacked by Polamalu, but holds on to the ball and gets the birds into the red zone. McGahee picks up 2 to get the 15 and Flacco takes a shot for the corner of the end zone, but Mason can’t get his feet down, setting up 3rd down. Timmons makes a great break on the ball and almost picks it off, but the breakup is good enough to force a field goal that Stover barely sneaks inside the upright.
Ben is pressured and can’t get the ball to Holmes on second down, setting up 3rd and long where he overthrows Heath, forcing a punt.
Figures muffs the punt, but recovers, giving Baltimore the ball at the 35. After doing nothing on 2 plays, Flacco hits McGahee over the middle with a short pass that he runs with for the first down. Mason beats McFadden down the sideline and Flacco throws one up for him, but Troy comes over the top and punches the ball away. McGahee tries to go around the outside, but puts his tail between his legs and runs out of bounds when Harrison cuts off the corner. Harrison comes up big again with pressure on 3rd down to force an incompletion and a punt. After the Eagles punter was able to flip the field on us last week, the Ravens took full advantage and Koch booms a 56-yarder to pin us inside the 10.
Backed up near the goal line, there’s only one thing for Arians to go with: the motif offense. Run-Run-Pass-Punt. Sadly, Berger is nowhere near as good as Sepulveda or either punter we faced the last 2 weeks. A 40-yard punt gives Baltimore the ball at the 50.
Three runs by McGahee later, the Ravens are in field goal range inside the 30. The Steelers defense gets confused and has to use a timeout. Flacco dumps one off to McGahee who picks up 5. McGahee picks up 5 more on first down, and has to get helped off the field, clutching his ribs. Flacco hits Mason to get the ball inside the 10. McClain gets stuffed by Foote and Flacco can’t connect with Clayton on 2nd down. McGahee comes back in and plows for 6, but Ryan Clark wraps him up to keep him out of the end zone. Stover comes on and makes another one.
With a short field, the Ravens come out attacking. Flacco throws an out-route to Mason on the sidelines and he gets called out of bounds, but replay shows he dragged his toes and got them in. McGahee got stuffed by Polamalu on the next play, and had to get walked off the field to the locker room with another injury, forcing Baltimore to take their 2nd timeout. Flacco hit McClain in the flat on the next two plays, the latter of which McClain took all the way down to the 3 as he eluded tacklers. That’s right. 6-foot 260-pound LeRon McClain out-maneuvered some of our defense.
Baltimore takes a timeout with first and goal at the 3. They run Ray Rice out of the backfield in motion and noone on the Steelers defense goes over to cover him. Flacco throws the ball short of a guaranteed TD. But we dodge another bullet because Baltimore got called for an illegal formation. After another incomplete pass and offsetting personal foul penalites, Woodley jumps offsides, giving them the yards back. Flacco goes play-action out of a triple-TE set and lobs one for the corner of the end zone that one of his tight ends runs down for the score.
The Ravens try an end-around to Clayton, but B-Mac stays home and seals the corner, stopping Clayton in the backfield for a loss. Flacco couldn’t hook up with Mason on second down, bringing up a 3rd and long. Flacco has all kinds of time and rolls out to the left where Aaron Smith bears down on him. Smith takes a bad angle and Flacco is able to get away from Smith and scramble back across the field because of lack of pressure from anyone else and hits Mason deep along the right sidelines for 26 yards. The boo birds come out from the fans again as the Ravens move the ball into Steelers territory. McClain runs twice to get the ball inside the 40, but Flacco can’t find a receiver on 3rd down and the Ravens are forced to punt. Their punter, who actually kicks the ball like an NFL punter, pins the Steelers at the 7.
Ben hits Hines for the first time in the game for 8 yards to get the ball to the 15. Davis goes around the end for 8 yards for our first first down since 9:42 of the first quarter. This came at 9:28 in the 3rd quarter. That’s right, let that sink in. The Steelers offense went over 30 minutes of game time, or half the game without getting a first down.
And how does Arians respond to his first first down since their opening drive? The motif offense, of course. Run-run-pass-punt. Berger’s punt goes 44 yards and is downed by Patrick Bailey at the Ravens 39.
McGahee apparently hadn’t been injured enough, so he came back in for more punishment and carries for a yard. Hoke was injured on the play, but he returned later. Flacco throws an incompletion on 2nd down then tries to go downtown again on the exact same play they tried before, and Polamalu makes an identical breakup along the sidelines, forcing a punt. Koch comes out and shanks one, making Berger’s 35-yarder look like a Tiger Woods drive.
The Steelers take over at the 33. Nate Washington gets the ball on an end around and almost gets stopped twice in the backfield, but somehow makes enough moves to gain 8 yards. A Raven hit him out of bounds after the play, tacking on 15 more yards for a penalty. Ben busts out the no huddle version of the motif offense. After two terrible plays (Davis carry for 2 and a QB sneak for 4) Ben has a choice to make on 3rd and 4. He goes to Santonio on a quick slant with pressure in his face.
…then blows by Ed Reed to take it to the HOUSE.
Not only were the Steelers back in the game, the crowd was back in the game too. The Steelers should pay the person who is in charge of the PA announcements/video sequences/music selection extra for what followed. The “Ooooooooh mama” of Renegade blasts through the stadium and the crowd jumps to their feet as the Defense Pump-up video plays and the crowd gets more and more frenzied.
The crowd is the loudest it might have ever been for a kickoff as Patrick Bailey comes up with a huge tackle of Figures.
LaMarr “Big Stick” Woodley makes the heads up play of just falling on the ball to make sure he has control of it.
None of the Ravens seem too intent on touching him down, so Woodley gets up and takes it to the HOUSE.
Woodley jumps into the stands and Harrison joins him.
17-13
20 seconds. 2 touchdowns. Gamechanger.
It was at this point in the game where you had the feeling that a touchdown would pretty much seal the deal and put the Ravens out of it. The Steelers feel rejuvinated and Ben comes out with a big completion to Nasty Nate. With the ball on the 50, Arians goes back to the motif offense. Run-run-pass-punt. “Lob Wedge” Berger drops one in nicely at the 9.
McClain rumbled for 6 yards as the quarter expired.
Davis carries for 2 on first down. Ben scrambles on a broken play for some positive yards, but the play is called back on offsetting penalites on Hines and Ray Lewis. Ben doesn’t like what he sees in the defense and calls a timeout. After the breather, the Maginot Line almost crumbles as Ben has to make a fancy move to avoid some pressure, but he scrambles and finds a wiiiiiide open Hines Ward down the right sideline who tries to cut inside the safety, but loses his footing and falls down at the 10. The Steelers bring in Mewelde Moore and run a swing pass to him that he takes to the sticks, but the refs come in and blow the play dead, saying that Tomlin called a timeout from the Pittsburgh bench before the play started.
The boo birds come out during the timeout and people are pissed at Tomlin.
Davis carries for 2 yards. Ben goes play-action out of a power-I set with McHugh (3rd string TE) lined up as a blocking back and looks for McHugh in the flat, but he’s covered, forcing Ben to improvise. While avoiding pressure, Ben is able to throw it away out of the end zone. Baltimore gets called for defensive holding, giving us a first and goal at the 4. After an incompletion on first down, Mewelde Moore is into the game as Davis is out with an ankle injury. Moore carries for 3 yards to get the ball to the 1. On 3rd and goal from the 1, they try to run Moore to the outside and he gets stopped. ARRRGH. We have a 6’5 220-pound quarterback. Just sneak it! Or run straight up the middle. Reed comes on to hit a field goal as the crowd is split over whether or not we kick or go for it.
Flacco hits Mason on the second play to move the Ravens across the 40. McClain powers for 11 yards to get the ball across midfield as the nerves start to creep back in. Flacco goes back to Mason for 10 more to keep the drive rolling into Pittsburgh territory. McClain goes nowhere on first down and Woodley and Harrison team up for a sack on second down, forcing a 3rd and long. Flacco hits Mason down the sideline and he streaks down to the 5 before Polamalu knocks him out. It takes McClain 2 carries from the 5 to break the plane.
Ben can’t hook up with Moore on 2nd down and Santonio drops a deflected pass that was still very catchable on 3rd down. Lob Wedge comes in and drops the ball inside the 15. Figures tries to pick it up, but is too close to the sidelines and goes nowhere.
With 1:40 to go, Baltimore is determined to run out the clock and force overtime, but it seems as though this will never happen. McClain carries 3 times and gets hurt on the 3rd play, forcing Baltimore to use their last timeout. With 7 seconds left, Flacco kneels on it, but the Ravens get called for illegal formation, so the play doesn’t count and they have to kneel it again.
Reed pounds the kickoff, but Figures brings it out across the 50, but wait! There’s a flag. Two actually. Two different Ravens get called for holding and they get sent back to the 15.
McClain gets 1 yard on first down. Flacco tries to go deep on second down, but B-Mac is there to say no. The play doesn’t matter anyways because McClain gets called for a chop-block. On their second try at second down, McClain carries for 7 yards to get back to 3rd and 10. 2007 First Round Draft Pick Lawrence Timmons busts through and comes up with a HUUUUGE sack, forcing a punt.
Enter Mewelde Moore: Overtime Hero. Moore carries for 2 on first down. Pressure from Lewis forces an incompletion on 2nd down. Ben dumps one off to Moore in the flat on 3rd down who stiff-arms a Raven and runs towards daylight, getting by another before he’s finally dragged down at the 31 yard line after a gain of 24 yards. I thought we should have just gotten the ball to the middle of the field and kicked it, so as not to risk a fumble or anything. But Arians makes the decisions, not me. Though I’m starting to wonder how much longer he’ll be doing it. Moore carries for no gain, then gets stuffed in the backfield for a loss of 4.
On a play that could have made or broken our season, Arians calls the awful 5-wide set. The Ravens show blitz from the left side. You know Ben is going to get hammered in the shotgun. Ben takes the snap and lobs the ball to Moore over the top of the blitzing defenders along the sidelines to pick up 7 huge yards.
Out comes Jeff Reed. 46 yards is well within his range. Baltimore calls timeout right before the snap, so Reed gets a practice kick that he makes. But then it’s go time. Everyone’s breath is held….
Ballgame.
23-20
Players of the Game
Offensive Game Ball: Jeff Reed. I would say Jeff Reed is money in the bank, but with the way the banks are going right now, I think it’s a lot safer to call him Mr. Automatic.
C0-Defensive Game Balls: James Harrison and LaMarr Woodley. Harrison had 10 tackles with 2.5 sacks and 1 forced fumble. Woodley had 8 tackles, 1.5 sacks, 1 forced fumble, 1 fumble recovery for a touchdown.
Honorable Mentions:
Mewelde Moore- Overtime Hero. He single-handedly got us into field goal range
Lawrence Timmons-A big pass breakup to halt the Ravens first scoring drive and a huge sack in overtime.
Kick and Punt Coverage teams- they did a great job containing Figures all night. Came up with some great tackles.
Santonio Holmes- he dropped a few balls he should have caught, but his touchdown single-handedly got us back into the game and reenergized the crowd.
Mr Yuck Sticker of the Game
Mitch Berger
- We need to throw to Heath Miller more. He needs to be getting 8-10 looks a game like Witten does in Dallas, rather than the 2-3 he’s getting now.
- Besides the 20-second stretch in the 3rd quarter where we put up 14 points, our offense did very little. We had 45 yards on our first drive and 1 total yard the rest of the first half.
- If you take away Ward’s 49-yard reception and Santonio’s TD catch, the Steelers only had 104 yards in the 2nd half and OT. All things considered they had 237 total yards. The two big plays by Hines and Holmes accounted for 37% of our total yards in the game.
- Najeh Davenport re-signed with the team today. That’s probably the best signing they could make. Willie needs to get well soon.
- Kendall Simmons is out. If Darnell Stapleton can’t do it, will Colon move over to make room for Starks? Or will the coaches use Trai Essex, who was very successful at guard in the preseason?
- We run the ball SOOO much better with a blocking back in the game. Sean McHugh threw some great blocks. I want to see more of him in the running sets.
- We need to fire Bruce Arians. Offensive play-calling is downright terrible
Add The Sports Daily to your Google News Feed!
