Baltimore will be without two of its starting defensive linemen, besides Williams defensive end Brent Urban sustained a season-ending Lisfranc foot injury last week. With those two out of the lineup, Pittsburgh exploited Baltimore’s defense.
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Running back Le’Veon Bell carried the ball 35 times for 144 yards and two touchdowns.
“The Ravens catch a major break here, going from a quarterback that has dominated them recently to a passer who hasn’t won a game in over three years”, writes ESPN.
Sunday’s beatdown by the Steelers once again revealed the Ravens’ offensive struggles, as Joe Flacco and company continue to underperform.
“We’re going to try to stack the performances on top of each other”, cornerback Joe Haden said. The O-line kept digging at it, digging at it.
While he certainly has not been bad, by any means, through the first quarter of the 2017 regular season, Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger has been soundly unspectacular. Oakland Raiders: The Broncos are 8-3-2 ATS over their last 13 home dates and 16-7 ATS over their last 23 games when coming off a loss. Baltimore trailed 19-0 at halftime, generated only 154 yards through three quarters and stumbled through a second straight game with only one touchdown.
The key is to keep that momentum going next week against Jacksonville. “We needed that game against Chicago at the end of the day”. If he is able to offer an outlet when Roethlisberger fails to get control the game, the Steelers can be a very unsafe team.
“When you feel like you have an edge on the guys, you are begging the coach to keep running the ball because we have them where we want. And I thought we did a pretty good job of that”. As long as Big Ben stays healthy, he’ll be looking Brown’s way 10-15 times per game. He was also sacked four times.
“I sucked”, Flacco said. If the Bears game was a wake-up call, it could be a good thing overall. I know that we will. Most of those yards came on one 50-yard run from Alex Collins.
The NFL’s Baltimore Ravens team likely thought it had the ideal way to protest without feeling a backlash at Sunday’s game. The Steelers recorded four sacks and six quarterback hits. Flacco finished with a passer rating of 12.0. Skura started all four preseason games, but was waived by Baltimore just before the season.
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“We just have to improve”, Ravens coach John Harbaugh said. Following the win, Brown said that he had “no regrets”, adding that “you just get a little frustrated” sometimes. It’s 10 minutes of gambling goodness that we believe you will truly enjoy. We have to work. It was surprising to see the Ravens perform so poorly and this weekend we’ll find out if it was a fluke or if this is the new precedent from the team. We’ve been worse than 2-2 before and come back and gone to the AFC championship.
