More so than the Pittsburgh Steelers, the Baltimore Ravens and the Cincinnati Bengals are exposing the Los Angeles Chargers, it seems. In their first nine games, they held every team to 20 points or less. But the Bengals put up 27 on them and the Ravens just dropped 30.
While the Chargers held the Browns to 10 points, every other team in the AFC North scored 20 or more on them. And the Steelers, Ravens, and Bengals are the only teams to score more than 17 against the Chargers. At least in the cases of the Ravens and Bengals, they have some of the game’s best offenses. But there’s something interesting about that, too.
Even given the recent circumstances, the Chargers have a very good defense. The Ravens still managed to put up 30 on them…but only managed 16 against the Steelers. They scored 20 points or more against every other team this year. And at least 19 points against every team last year—except the Steelers, twice.
Basically, nobody plays the Ravens the way the Steelers do, and last night was continued proof of that. The last three times the Ravens scored fewer than 20 points, the Steelers were responsible. *This does not include the playoffs, where they lost 17-10 to the Chiefs*
Neither the Ravens nor the Steelers have any explanation for why they have this success. Steelers-Ravens games are rarely high-scoring, but the Steelers have come out on top so frequently lately. Granted, the season finale in 2023 was against Tyler Huntley rather than Lamar Jackson. But the general trend is hard to ignore.
When the Ravens score under 20 points and lose and Lamar Jackson is playing, you can bet the Steelers are on the other side. By my count, Jackson has seven losses in which he played extensively and scored fewer than 20 points. The Steelers are responsible for three of those Ravens losses.
While that’s nice and all, having the Ravens’ number doesn’t help the Steelers otherwise. They still just lost to the Browns while scoring under 20 points. And the Ravens just put up 30 points on the top-ranked scoring defense in the league.
But we’re still dealing with a small sample size here, so do the Steelers really have the Ravens’ number? Obviously, we can reasonably conclude that they understand Lamar Jackson and how to defend him better than any other team. But what’s to stop the Ravens from dropping 40 on the Steelers in the season finale this year?
Hopefully a defense that has been able to do the improbable against Lamar Jackosn with surprising regularity.
