The Steelers lost Sunday 35-7 to the Baltimore Ravens in week 1 of the 2011 season and it was not pretty. The Steelers offense turned the ball over 7 times and the defense allowed 6 explosive plays of 20 yards or more in the loss. The Ravens tight ends and running back Ray Rice caused havoc for the Steelers on the day as Rice rushed for 107 yards and chipped in another 42 yards in catches. The Ravens tight ends had 7 catches for 104 yards and one touchdown on the day and Anquan Boldin added 4 catches of his own for 74 yards and a touchdown. Ravens quarterback Joe Flacco finally got a win against Ben Roethlisberger as he threw for 224 yards on 29 attempts with 3 touchdowns. The Steelers defense did a poor job getting pressure on Flacco throughout the game and only sacked him once.
On the flip side the Steelers offensive line allowed pressure all day on Roethlisberger and he was sacked 4 times on Sunday to go with his 3 interceptions. Mike Wallace had 107 yards on 8 catches, but most of it came with the game well out of reach. The Steelers ran the ball 16 times for 66 yards in the loss.
There were not many, if any, bright spots on the Steelers offensive line today with left tackle Jonathan Scott struggling against Terrell Suggs and right guard Doug Legursky having problems with Haloti Ngata. Suggs forced 2 of the 4 fumbles and Ngata forced another 1 of the 4.
The Steelers linebacker group really had a bad game as they had no answer against the run or in pass coverage as they trailed the tight ends or Rice out of the backfield all game.
One of the few bright spots on the day was cornerback Ike Taylor, who was seeing his first action since breaking his thumb against the Redskins early in the Steelers first preseason game.
The Steelers only real injury suffered in the game was a knee contusion suffered by James Harrison. Harrison had a rough time with new Ravens left tackle Bryant McKinnie and actually was substituted for Jason Worilds during the game for a bit.
The Steelers start the season 0-1 and host the Seattle Seahawks next Sunday at Heinz Field.
You can listed to the Mike Tomlin post game press conference here and we have more content coming on this embarrassing loss to start the season.
