The Good, Bad, & Ugly: JK Has a Day!

Well, that’s more like it! After weeks of frustrating performances, it took a road trip to see their most bitter rivals for the Ravens to get back to their style of football.

Sunday in Pittsburgh was exactly how we’ve come to expect matchups against the Steelers to go, hard-hitting with a heavy dose of ground and pound to go along with numerous key defensive plays in the biggest moments. Also as expected, it wasn’t perfect, and once again the Ravens will be entering a week with question marks in the injury department, but taking that into account only makes this victory that much sweeter and more important in the win column.

Any day you can hand a loss to the black and gold is a good day, so let’s get into this week’s good, bad, and ugly!

THE GOOD

THE NEXT IN LINE

Roquan Smith is quickly becoming the main character of this article on a weekly basis, and for good reason. It’s almost a bit redundant at this point to go through the lineage of great middle linebackers who’ve donned a purple jersey over the years, and since the departure of C.J. Mosley, the Ravens have been looking for the next player to fill those shoes.

Finally, after years of waiting, that player has arrived.

Smith may not have had double-digit tackles again this week, but despite that this may have been his best game as a member of the Ravens. He set the tone on the Steelers’ first offensive drive of the game with a big sack on rookie quarterback Kenny Pickett (that would ultimately lead to his early exit from this game, here’s hoping it’s nothing too serious), and later on in the second quarter would intercept Mitch Trubisky when the Steelers were driving right down field and building a bit of offensive momentum.

In every single game he’s appeared in, Smith has been a game changer and a difference maker.

A move that initially looked like it would be a half-season rental has quickly become the best mid-season acquisition that the Ravens have ever made. Major props to Eric DeCosta, for realizing that this defense needed a heart transplant and providing one in a major way. Regardless of how this season shakes out, the big question now becomes how do they keep him in Baltimore for a long, long time?

NO PICKETT, STILL PICKED IT

After a season where the Ravens couldn’t turn the ball over if their lives depended on it, they’ve overcorrected in a major way and once again find themselves at the top of the league in takeaways. Today, it was the linebackers who shone, with the aforementioned Smith interception as well as another for Patrick Queen. It’s not hyperbole to say that Queen’s interception in particular was the best play in pass coverage of his entire career. Both of those turnovers were deep in Ravens territory, keeping points off the board that would ultimately end up being the difference of victory and defeat.

Marcus Williams also got back in on the fun in his first game back, continuing what was an All-Pro knack for finding the football before his forearm injury against Cincinnati. While the throw by Trubisky on this one was admittedly awful, it was still great to see him get back involved and yet again prevent the Steelers from coming away with points in Baltimore territory.

These are the types of plays that become magnified in December and January, the plays that reside on that razor thin margin of wins and losses when the season is on the line. While the defense wasn’t perfect on the day (more on that in a bit), it’s game changing plays like they showed off in spades today that will be crucial to this team having success in the playoffs.

THE BAD

A SLIGHT HICCUP

Marlon Humphrey is having one of his best seasons ever in 2022, but Sunday was anything but. Rookie wide receiver George Pickens got the better of him on a long pass in the first quarter, and would follow it by drawing a pass interference call on Humphrey that led to the Steelers’ first touchdown of the day. The penalty call was as ticky tack as they come, but nonetheless it still put the Ravens in a really tough spot after momentum had been firmly in their favor with a 10-0 lead.

Fast forward to the Steelers’ last scoring drive of the day, when Humphrey would be beat deep again for 38 yards by Diontae Johnson on a play that put Pittsburgh deep in Ravens territory. The Steelers scored on the drive, and it marked the third time in as many weeks that the defense allowed a late drive like this to give their opponents life.

Today’s struggles are not anything to freak out about at this point though. Humphrey has been lights out all year, and there isn’t a corner in football who isn’t going to have at least one rough outing here and there. If anything, you should expect this to fuel Marlon in the coming weeks when the defense will continually be relied on in Lamar Jackson‘s absence.

WHO KEEPS WALKING UNDER LADDERS?

At this point, the Ravens’ string of luck in terms of injuries, or lack thereof, has been seemingly historic. While the list of players on the mend coming out of this one may not be as long as some weeks in the past, once again they found themselves in a quarterback emergency after Tyler Huntley left the game in concussion protocol after being blown up on a designed QB run.

There’s no doubt that the Ravens’ style of offense opens up their quarterbacks to more hits, but at the same time it can’t be denied that this aspect of the game is the most dynamic part of their individual skill sets. It’s a sword that you live and die by, and don’t let the “Lamar’s injuries have happened in the pocket” narrative make you think that isn’t the case. It’s a matter of the law of averages: the more hits you take as a quarterback, regardless of where they are on the field, the higher the risk that something is going to go wrong. Cumulative hits take their toll whether you want to believe it or not, and whether or not they lead to a player missing time. Watching Huntley run makes us appreciate LJ’s ability to avoid taking the big hit even more, because man, does Tyler take a lot of them!

THE UGLY

NOW YOU SEE US, NOW YOU DON’T

The Ravens defense has been thoroughly dominant for the vast majority of the last month, but for some reason they just can’t seem to shake those late-game woes that have led to blown leads and blown games on more than one occasion. Thankfully against Denver and now this week, their late game collapses haven’t yielded similar results to the Miami and Buffalo games, but it’s absolutely something that will come back to bite them late in the year if it’s not fixed.

As we mentioned before, it’s tough to be as critical as the situation probably calls for when looking at this unit’s performances as a whole, but situational football is the most important part of these do-or-die games. If Russell Wilson and Mitch Trubisky can take their pound of flesh with the game on the line, what is Patrick Mahomes going to do? It’s tough to gauge whether it’s an issue of guys simply being tired, or Mike Macdonald’s approach schematically, but it’s now become a trend where Dr. Jekyll becomes Mr. Hyde with the game on the line.

Finding a way to have similar turnover success in the late stages that they have throughout the first three-plus quarters of games has to be priority number one for Macdonald down the stretch.

THE MARGOT ROBBIE

J.K. ALL-DAY

The return of running back J.K. Dobbins was a sight for sore eyes on Sunday, and he wasted no time getting himself reacclimated with making big plays. It started at the end of the first quarter when he broke through the first line of Steelers defenders and rumbled his way over 40 yards down inside the Pittsburgh 5-yard line. He then capped that drive with the Ravens’ first score of the day, and wouldn’t slow down from there. By the time the final whistle blew, Dobbins would finish with 120 yards on the ground and an 8.0 YPC average in what was one of his most impressive performances as a pro.

Outside of that possession, his most impressive stretch came on the Ravens’ final scoring drive of the day, where the Steelers knew full well the run was coming at them following Huntley’s departure but still had no answers for the explosiveness of the Ohio State product (sorry, just had to throw that one in there for personal reasons). The offense rode Dobbins all the way down the field to kick what ended up being the game-sealing field goal, a drive that was likely a major sign of things to come until the return of Lamar Jackson. Dobbins could very well be the most important weapon on this team going forward, and if games like this are what we have to look forward to, the Ravens should feel very confident in that fact.

WRAP UP

With numerous questions abound, the Ravens still find themselves sitting at 9-4 and in great position to lock up a playoff spot in the tough AFC. At this point we should probably expect every game to go the way they have over the last month, but as long as they keep ending up with positive results in the win column we’ll take it how we can get it!

Up next is a matchup we’ve all been looking forward to since August, against the Cleveland Browns and “guy who probably won’t be seeing any Walter Payton Man of the Year awards” Deshaun Watson. If ever there was a game for the Ravens defense to show up and bring the pain once again, it’s this one.

Until then, enjoy this week and make sure to remind all of your local Steelers fans of the oh-so satisfying loss they get to sit with until next week!