Ravens vs. Steelers LIVE: Recap & analysis (2024)

The Pittsburgh Steelers scored 14 unanswered second-half points to defeat the rival Baltimore Ravens 17-10 on Sunday. Here’s what you need to know:

• Steelers wide receiver George Pickens caught six passes for a career-high 130 yards and one touchdown. His 41-yard reception with 1:17 remaining gave the Steelers their first lead of the game.
• Pittsburgh linebacker T.J. Watt sealed the victory with a fumble recovery after an Alex Highsmith forced fumble on Ravens quarterback Lamar Jackson with 1:02 remaining.
• The Steelers improve to 3-2 as Baltimore falls to 3-2.

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I get it. Take away a couple of two-minute drives last season, and quite possibly two throws this year, and Kenny Pickett has been nothing more than an average-to-below-average quarterback.

It’s hard to argue that.

Pickett has yet to put together a full game where you can say with confidence that he not only should’ve been the 20th overall pick in last year’s draft but will be a championship-caliber quarterback at some point in his career.

Heading into Sunday’s AFC North matchup against the Baltimore Ravens, for the most part, four games were all that were needed for the majority of pundits, fans and national experts to do something that once was thought impossible — turn against Pickett.

Out of one side of their mouth, it was offensive coordinator Matt Canada’s ineptitude, while the other side suggested Pickett was nothing more than — and I’ve heard this from people this year — a weak-armed, scared and untalented average quarterback with his share of shortcomings.

Honestly, both can’t be true. But both seemed to be on the right path through the first month of the season.

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Baltimore Ravens left tackle Ronnie Stanley sat in front of his locker, staring straight ahead, his chin resting on his right hand. As teammates returned from the shower, got dressed and headed out of the locker room, Stanley barely moved.

All across a quiet visiting locker room Sunday afternoon at Acrisure Stadium, there was the palpable feeling of frustration, of giving another football game away, of contributing to a comedy of errors that started early and never relented. Some Ravens talked around it and tried to focus on the positives. Others didn’t bother.

“Same old scenario every time,” Ravens inside linebacker Patrick Queen said. “I’m pretty sick of it. Gotta clean it up.”

Or as tight end Mark Andrews put it, “It’s almost like a sleeping giant, man. We need to wake up.”

The Ravens insisted they were going to learn from the Week 3 loss to the Indianapolis Colts, a game in which Lamar Jackson and the offense squandered opportunity after opportunity to take control and win at the end — and coach John Harbaugh made a costly mistake and didn’t use a timeout ahead of a Colts free kick.

Yet, two weeks later, they showed they didn’t learn a thing.

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In the days leading up to Joey Porter Jr.’s first Pittsburgh Steelers–Baltimore Ravens game, coach Mike Tomlin had a request for the rookie.

“’Get a pick and hand it to me on the sideline,’” Porter remembers Tomlin saying. “So that’s exactly what I did.”

The Steelers trailed by two points late in the fourth quarter of a classic AFC North rock fight when the Ravens faced a pivotal third-and-goal. A touchdown in this situation and Baltimore would have extended its lead to two possessions, effectively putting the game on ice.

Instead, Porter lined up in press coverage across from receiver Odell Beckham Jr. Recognizing the situation — an unproven rookie versus an established veteran — Porter said he knew immediately the ball was coming his way. When Ravens quarterback Lamar Jackson looked for Beckham, Porter used his exceptional length to box out the receiver at the line of scrimmage and reel in the momentum-swinging interception.

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Dan Pompei: Any of the four teams can win this division, including the Bengals. Maybe especially the Bengals if Joe Burrow gets healthy. But for now, the Ravens, with a 2-1 record against North opponents, still look like the best. It was a bad loss to the Steelers, no question, but not a completely unexpected one given the nature of the rivalry. Baltimore had a really bad, out-of-character day offensively but remains tied for first in the division. There is a lot of football to be played, and this division surely will have many swings in power before the champion is decided — probably in the last week of the season.

Ted Nguyen: The Ravens are the favorites and should have won against the Steelers by multiple touchdowns. I’ve never seen receivers let down a quarterback like they did Jackson in this game. And these weren’t just small drops. These were downfield, explosive passes that were in their hands. Zay Flowers even tripped on what looked like it could have been a long touchdown. The Ravens are just getting healthy, they have an elite defense and the receivers will improve. The Ravens are the team to beat.

Vic Tafur: It’s still the Ravens. I am going to assume that their receivers don’t drop as many passes — Zay Flowers has so much upside — and that Lamar Jackson is not going to make terrible passes in the red zone. Jackson was doing so much better in that area under new offensive coordinator Todd Monken before Sunday. Jackson may have set a career high for frustrated helmet slams in the loss to the Steelers. I don’t know how Pittsburgh does it. The Steelers had no business beating the Browns or the Ravens, but here they are. Give Steelers quarterback Kenny Pickett credit, I don’t see it in terms of his skill set, but he made some nice throws down the stretch.

It seems to be bad karma for John Harbaugh when it comes to holding the Pittsburgh Steelers to only three points after three quarters, as following today’s loss, his Ravens squads are now 0-4 when that happens. In each loss, Baltimore took a lead into the fourth quarter but couldn’t hold on to it.

The Baltimore Ravens have to be happy to have held the Pittsburgh Steelers to only three points after three quarters, but history suggests this could be a bad omen for Baltimore.

John Harbaugh-coached Ravens teams have held Mike Tomlin-coached Pittsburgh teams to three points through three quarters on three occasions and had leads headed into that stanza in each of those contests but lost each of those games due to Steelers fourth-quarter comebacks.

Steelers are inside the Ravens 35 as the fourth quarter begins. Baltimore is still holding a tenuous 7-point, thanks to repeated missed opportunities on offense.

Considering the matchup difficulty, it hasn’t been a bad first half for fantasy managers with Ravens on their rosters in today’s Baltimore-Pittsburgh battle.

Lamar Jackson is trending towards his fourth straight 20+ point game, as he has tallied 10.02 points despite not having accounted for a touchdown. Mark Andrews has 9.3 PPR points and thus should get his third game with 10+ PPR points this season.

Justice Hill is rostered in only 23.9 percent of ESPN leagues and thus isn’t in many starting rosters, but managers who did start him are happy with the 11.5 PPR points he has posted thus far. The same cannot be said for Gus Edwards’ fantasy managers, as Gus the Bus has generated only 3.4 PPR points.

The Ravens D/ST has only one impact play so far this game, that being a sack, but allowing only three points has kept this platoon with a 10-point total at halftime.

The Steelers D/ST has done nearly as well, as a combination of one sack and only 10 offensive points allowed has kept this group at 8.0 first half points.

George Pickens is trending towards a solid game with 6.8 PPR points so far, but every other Pittsburgh player has been a fantasy scoring disaster, as Jaylen Warren has only 1.6 PPR points and Najee Harris has 1.2 PPR points.

Ravens go into the half leading 10-3, but they've done their best to let the Steelers hang around. Two end zone drops. Few other drops. A fumble near midfield. And then they just eschewed taking a 40-yard field goal to go for it on 4th-and-2 with 20 seconds left in 2nd quarter.

Ravens have out-gained the Steelers, 244-88. They've run 43 plays to the Steelers 26. They've possessed the ball for nearly seven minutes more than Pittsburgh. Yet, it's a one-score game and the Steelers start the third quarter with the ball.

Steelers get on the board with a 43-yard field goal by Chris Boswell.

Pittsburgh has now scored touchdowns on just 9.1% of its drives that reached opponent territory this season (2 of 22), the lowest rate in the NFL (average is 35%).

Every week, the Ravens lament things that are holding their offense back. It's often been fumbles and that was the case here as running back Justice Hill turns the ball over after catching a screen pass from Lamar Jackson.

The Steelers turned the turnover into three points with Chris Boswell converting a 43-yard field goal to cut the Ravens lead to 10-3.

The Ravens have now lost five fumbles this year.