Sports

Five Takeaways From the Ravens Playoff Beatdown of Rival Steelers

Lamar Jackson and Derrick Henry were unstoppable, and a few more highlights.

Well, that was almost too easy.

In the first-ever postseason matchup between the archrivals in Baltimore, the Ravens handled the Pittsburgh Steelers, 28-14, in a game that wasn’t even as close as the final score indicated. On a frigid night at M&T Bank Stadium, 70,546 fans watched as the Ravens built a 21-0 halftime lead and mostly cruised from there to advance to next weekend’s AFC divisional round.

Here are five takeaways from an almost completely satisfying Ravens win:

Lamar is MVP worthy (again).
In a way, Lamar Jackson went back in time. In the first half of Saturday night’s game, he looked like he did in the early years of his Ravens career. You remember—when Greg Roman was coordinating the offense and relied on Jackson mainly running around and past anyone who tried to tackle him? With the Steelers defense clearly keyed on stopping Derrick Henry early, Jackson rushed 11 times in the first half, including on five straight edge-rushing plays on the Ravens first scoring drive. He finished with 81 yards on 14 carries.

But here’s the thing: Lamar put together an efficient passing performance, too—the kind that has become more common as the 28-year-old has developed as a pro. He was 16 for 21 passing for 175 yards and a pair of first-half touchdowns. That’s when we saw this other kind of Jackson vintage: a how-the-heck-did-he-do-that evasion of multiple rushers before finding Justice Hill leaking out of the backfield for a five-yard TD.

“All you can say is wow,” Ravens coach John Harbaugh said of the play with 11 seconds left in the half, which was designed for Jackson to throw the ball away if a receiver isn’t open early. “He runs around and finds a touchdown pass…I think I said wow about seven times right there.”

Put it all together—Jackson improved to 3-4 in his postseason career—and the recently minted first-team all-pro pick looks worthy of winning a second MVP in a row. The stuff Jackson has done this year is historic. He’s become the first quarterback in NFL history with more than 40 passing touchdowns and fewer than five interceptions, and the first in league history with more than 4,000 passing and 900 rushing yards.

Late on Saturday, fans serenaded Jackson with “M-V-P” chants when the Ravens had the ball in the fourth quarter, but he signaled to the crowd to be quiet instead. “He is in full control,” Harbaugh said.

Jackson said this week he’d gotten “antsy” in previous playoff games. But not this one. “I was just chill,” he said, adding that he avoided his phone, including calls and messages from his mom. “I was eager for the whole week to hurry up and become Saturday, but when the day came, I was just cool throughout the day.”

One concern to keep an eye on in the week ahead: Jackson confirmed after the game he got kneed in the back at the end of a first-half scramble and he wore a heat wrap after to keep his muscles loose. He said he’d be okay, but clearly it bothered him.

King Henry did his thing, too.
A signature Derrick Henry stiff arm of Steelers safety Minkah Fitzpatrick at the tail-end of this play early on was a sign of Henry’s dominant night on the ground, as well:

It was also a brand-new play the team put in at practice on Thursday, featuring a direct snap to Henry and a fake toss to Lamar running in the backfield. Standing at the podium in his postgame press conference, Jackson said the image of the 6-foot-3, 250-pound Henry running through the Steelers defense reminded him of Lightning McQueen in the Pixar animated movie Cars. Ka-chow.

Henry was unstoppable, finishing with 186 yards on 26 carries and two touchdowns including an eight-yard scamper that capped a remarkable 13-play, 85-yard first-half scoring drive during which the Ravens didn’t throw the ball once—the first time any NFL team did that on a touchdown drive in a game since 2006.

But that’s what you can do when you have a pair of running stars in the backfield. “I can just hand the ball off, [and he gets] 10 yards, 20 yards, 30 yards, and I’m just chilling,” Jackson said. “I’m fresh. It’s just making my job a lot easier. We just piggyback off each other.”

The Ravens totaled 299 rushing yards.

“It’s the best job in the world blocking for Derrick Henry and Lamar Jackson,” center Tyler Linderbaum said in the Ravens locker room after the game. “It would be a disservice not to go out there and play hard with those guys in the backfield.”

The Steelers were more pathetic than we thought.
We know the Steelers had lost four games coming into this one—and against good teams (like the Chiefs, Eagles, and Bengals, in addition to the Ravens last month), but this performance from Pittsburgh was unbecoming of arguably the NFL’s greatest rivalry, especially early.

The Steelers’ offense punted four times in the first half, gained just two first downs, and only almost managed one big play in the first 30 minutes, when wideout George Pickens pushed Marlon Humphrey in the back on a deep pass that was called back for offensive pass interference. Meanwhile, the Pittsburgh defense looked lethargic and at times confused as Jackson and Henry ran over and past them.

Pittsburgh showed signs of life coming out for the third quarter, with Russell Wilson connecting on a handful of deep sideline throws to Pickens and Van Jefferson for a pair of a scores, but the early advantage the Ravens built was too large to overcome. When Lamar and company got a couple early fourth-quarter first downs, the Ravens’ win felt inevitable.

You have to wonder if the locker room issues that emerged in Pittsburgh in the second half of the season played a role in the Steelers reeling heading into the playoffs. A few weeks ago, several players seemed to point the finger at the veteran Fitzpatrick for playing “hero ball” and not doing his job in the secondary after a loss to the Chiefs. Former Ravens-turned-Steelers linebacker Patrick Queen also lamented the team’s communication after losing to Baltimore in December. Miscues showed up again Saturday, particularly on Henry’s second TD run right up the middle of the Steelers defense.

“I don’t want to talk about it,” Queen said afterward.

You can come back, Patrick. Just sayin’.

No Flowers, no problem.
The Ravens’ top receiving threat, Zay Flowers, missed the game because of a knee injury sustained in the regular season finale last week against Cleveland. It ended up being a good week for Flowers to rest and get healthy.

Rashod Bateman scored the Ravens’ first touchdown on a beautiful throw from Jackson to the back of the end zone between two defenders. That capped a 95-yard drive. And Bateman caught a key third-down pass with less than two minutes left in the first half that kickstarted the Ravens’ nine-play scoring drive. Isaiah Likely had three catches for 53 yards, and five different Ravens had multiple receptions.

A Super Bowl dream isn’t far-fetched.
With Jackson and Henry being trouble for any opposing defense and the Ravens own defense looking mostly stout in the second half of the year, a deep playoff run for this team is not out of the question.

The third-seeded Ravens will likely travel to Buffalo for next weekend’s AFC divisional round. That is, if the second-seeded Bills beat the seventh-seeded Denver Broncos on Sunday, as they are expected. If they do, the Ravens next playoff matchup would pit the two leading candidates for NFL MVP, Jackson and Bills quarterback Josh Allen. It would also be a rematch of one of Jackson’s early-career postseason losses in Buffalo, a good place to exorcise some demons.

Should Denver upset the Bills, however, the third-seeded Ravens will host the divisional round against the Houston Texans, for the second straight year, next weekend.

Asked if he was rooting for Denver to win, “I’m not rooting for nobody,” Jackson said.

Harbaugh was more revealing. “I can always root for a home game,” he said.