Pittsburgh Steelers TE Heath Miller is one of the best players to play the position in team history, and while he was well-known for his receiving prowess, by nature of being a tight end, he had to block too. Miller was a pretty solid blocking tight end, but on Cameron Heyward’s Not Just Football podcast he said that one player he had trouble with was former Baltimore Ravens OLB Terrell Suggs.
“He was probably the toughest guy throughout my career that I had to block,” Miller said. “He was so versatile, he could beat you with power, he could beat you with speed. He was such a savvy player. He could diagnose things that were happening behind you and play out of character a little bit. So he always kept you guessing, you didn’t know exactly how to play him.”
Miller said that having Ben Roethlisberger at quarterback helped when he missed a block.
“He could make a guy miss when you didn’t block him, which always helped. There were some ‘Throw it Ben’ moments,” Miller said.
Roethlisberger certainly had one memorable play fending off Suggs in a Sunday Night Football game, holding him off to throw the ball away, which set up a game-winning touchdown pass to Isaac Redman.
My 2nd favorite Ben Roethlisberger play of all-time, only trailing his Super Bowl throw to Santonio, is an incompletion. The strength to fend Suggs off, throw the ball away, make an impossible play (with a broken nose) sums up his game and the Steelers/Ravens rivalry. pic.twitter.com/pr3LYo7DCb
— Alex Kozora (@Alex_Kozora) July 1, 2019
But Suggs was a beast on the field, one of the players who really defined the Steelers-Ravens rivalry throughout the 2000s and 2010s. He totaled 139 sacks in his career, 132.5 with the Ravens, and 14.5 of those came against Pittsburgh, including a three-sack effort against the Steelers to open the 2011 season. It’s little surprise that Miller had trouble with Suggs. Most offensive linemen had issues blocking him, so a tight end in particular was going to struggle to find a way to block one of the most dominant players in football.
Miller is a Steelers legend, and blocking really was an underrated part of his game. But some guys are just tough to handle, and blocking Suggs one-on-one is certainly a challenge, especially with his football IQ and different ways to win. But the Steelers went 16-14 against the Ravens with Suggs on the field, and the final score is all that matters in the end, and Miller was a key contributor to a number of those wins.
While the Steelers have had the upper hand against the Ravens lately, it’s still one of the best rivalries in sports, and it’s due to the battles that guys like Miller and Suggs had over the years.
