I’m not quite sure Baltimore Ravens ILB Patrick Queen received the reaction he thought he might the other day when he revealed his grievance with Pittsburgh Steelers head coach Mike Tomlin. In case you missed it, Tomlin supposedly yelled at him that he’s not a Raven when he was on the Steelers’ sideline during a game in his rookie season. He said that since then, Steelers games have been personal for him.
He’d better not get himself distracted, though, because the Ravens have a mission as they come into Pittsburgh on Sunday. And they have a clear top priority on the defensive side of the ball, according to Queen: shutting down RB Najee Harris
“Any time you’re playing a great player like him, you want to try to get after him”, he said this week, via the team’s website. “Obviously, when he goes, their team goes, and when you shut him down, their team shuts down. The biggest focus is definitely stopping 22”.
Harris has 210 rushing yards through the first four games of the season, averaging 4.3 yards per carry. He does happen to be coming off his best game of the season so far, rushing for 71 yards on 14 carries in a 30-6 loss to the Houston Texans. He added a 32-yard reception on top of that, giving him his first 100-yard game of the year, measured by scrimmage yards.
His best game of the 2022 season came against the Ravens in their second matchup. He rushed for 111 yards in that one on 22 carries, his only 100-yard rushing game of the year. You might recall that he also had a pretty significant reception in that one.
The Steelers went 5-1 in games in which Harris rushed for 80 or more yards last season, it is worth noting, and the offense still scored 30 points in the one loss. They were 3-4 when he rushed for fewer than 50 yards, with the offense scoring 14 or fewer points in five of those games.
Speaking in the most general terms, it is quite fair to say that the Steelers operate far better as an offense when they have the run game going, and Harris has been a catalyst for much of their success when he is playing at a high level.
The state of the passing game is such that it is not currently equipped to be the engine of the unit. If they don’t get complementary play out of the running game, they are going to struggle to score points—which is exactly what we’ve seen this year.
The Steelers had better hope that they can continue to build off the better showing on the ground that they had this past week and manage to score more than six points while doing so. Because if they can’t, then they’re going to have to pray for a shutdown defensive performance.
