For two weeks in a row, the Pittsburgh Steelers had to come from behind with a double-digit deficit in order to get the win. Against the Baltimore Ravens the week before last, they trailed by 10. Against the Dallas Cowboys, they trailed by 13 before they began to claw their way back.
In a rare occurrence, Lamar Jackson and the Ravens, too, had to claw back their way to victory yesterday against the Indianapolis Colts, in a game that was closer than the final score made it appear—and partially swings on a controversial ruling of an interception that was called as an incompletion on the field.
The Colts scored first, and then took a 10-7 lead into halftime, one of the very rare occasions in Jackson’s career in which that happened. But they would put up 17 unanswered points in the second half to secure the 24-10 victory and keep themselves two games back in the AFC North halfway through the 2020 season.
While the Steelers’ 8-0 record leaves it wanting in comparison, let us not ignore the fact that Jackson’s Ravens are 6-2—and 20-4 over the past two seasons. In fact, as a starter, Jackson is now 25-5 in the regular season during his career, which is significant.
It ties Dan Marino for the best 30-game start to a career in NFL history, in fact, although Ben Roethlisberger was once on pace to best that. Entering his third season, he was 22-3 over the course of his first 25 starts, but coming off a Super Bowl win, the 2006 season was pretty disastrous. He would lose his first three starts of the season, and six of the first seven, ultimately finishing the season 7-8 (and the team 8-8), leaving him 29-11 in his first three season as a starter.
“It’s pretty cool that I’m up there with a Hall of Famer but still got to win each and every game so it’s alright“, Jackson said after the game about the note on the start of his career. “We want to win every game. We don’t want to be behind during the game, but it is what it is and we came out with the victory. It’s pretty good. It shows what our team is made of”.
Jackson is now 1-6 in his career, including the postseason, in games in which the Ravens have trailed at halftime, this being his first win. The Ravens as a team had lost 20 consecutive games when trailing at halftime, which was the longest in the NFL. That is what it took to tie Marino.
For those who might be wondering how Marino did immediately following his first 30 career starts, he lost the very next game, and three of the next four—and then finished his third season on a seven-game winning streak.
