Game overview:
This was never a game, really...21-0 Ravens at the half. Baltimore was never really threatened. The Steelers did get it down to 28-14 late 3rd-quarter, but Baltimore just sat on Pitt from there. Everyone suspected the Ravens would roll the Steelers, and they did.
Baltimore moves on to go play Buffalo next week...that will be quite the battle. The Bills are so tough at home in the winter. My first reaction is...this is where the Ravens 2024 story ends.
The Steelers now go through the annual debate...Should they move on from Mike Tomlin, or do you continue to honor that he keeps making the playoffs...but always as an underdog and then losing?’
Player Scouting Notes from the game:
*Note any fractional numbers in parentheses (4/2) or (2/3), etc., are a 'split' stat on our definition of a 'quality start' (or not) marker on a player -- using 14 PPR points in a game for RB-WR-TE and 21 (6pts TD pass) for a QB ...point levels that are good/productive/well above average starts for a Fantasy week. Trying to identify trends, consistency (or not) in players we might not normally realize.
A (3/2), for example, means: 3 times the player hit at/above the QUALITY mark, and 2 times they did not (this current season).
-- Lamar Jackson (16-21 for 175 yards, 2 TDs/0 INT, 15-81-0) is a good QB, but I don’t know how we’re getting to multiple MVPs and ‘best QB in the league’ status.
When Ross Jacobs said something, this weekend, about this being Lamar’s 3rd MVP coming up, I was like...WHAT?? He’s won TWO MVPs already? I had to go back and check and then stew on the fact that Lamar won the MVP last season. I didn’t even remember it. And then I couldn’t remember or figure out why he won it...it’s not like he had this surreal season in 2023. I think he won it on his usual hype/acceptance...like how all NFL analysts glom onto one draft prospect and proclaim him the greatest they’ve ever seen (Marv) or best in the class (Caleb) -- and they’re all VERY sure...and they all end up being VERY wrong (and never acknowledging their terrible track record). Lamar is riding that wave of -- of course everyone knows he’s the best QB; you’re a dummy if you don’t think that.
I don’t think that.
I think Derrick Henry is breathing life into this entire offense and getting Lamar back to his MVP output from 5 years ago riding the coattails...the fear of Henry.
Side note...the Patriots just gave their organization over to Mike Vrabel. And what did Vrabel do with his years at Tennessee? Inherited Henry and ultimately started hot then spiraled downward over time with God’s gift to run game-based head coaches. How do you mess up having Derrick Henry? Vrabel had a good couple of years, as a team, with Henry...then ran it into the ground to the finish line and got dumped. But that’s all forgotten now...here’s the keycard to the Patriots vault, I’m sure you’ll be fine.
I’m not so sure.
Derrick Henry ain’t walking through that door...(use your Rick Pitino voice for that)
https://youtu.be/uRik9erWgQ8?si=jTiHD4oDd3duTZay&t=19
-- Didn’t Russell Wilson (20-29 for 270 yards, 2 TDs/0 INT, 3-6-0) have his best season in years...I mean, just by watching him in games? Doesn’t he look better? Not off the charts, but just -- a very solid veteran QB...this is what you expect from a solid veteran QB.
If you go look at Russ’s last 5 years...I don’t know why we all think he was ‘shot’? He had a bad year with Nate Hackett in 2022, proving the thesis on the really bad coaches bringing down the best of players...which I think is a hope for Will Levis into the future (a la Baker Mayfield’s career arc), among others...but if you look at the two years prior and two years after 2022 season, for Russ...those are all really solid seasons.
2020 = 40 TDs/13 INTs
2021 = 25/6
2022 = The Hack year 16/11
2023 = 26/8 with Sean Payton
2024 = 16/5 with Tomlin/Art...in 11 games, a 24.8 TDs/7.7 INTs extrapolated into a 17-game season.
He’s just 36 years old...a spring chicken at QB in the modern era. He’s also a total free agent now. Where is he going in 2025? Pittsburgh or Cleveland, perhaps. Probably back to Pittsburgh.
If this 2025 QB class is as weak as many think (I’m just starting my draft studies, so I can’t say yet)...Russ actually has a nice little market for his services, perhaps.
-- I bet, a minor amount, that George Pickens (5-87-1/5) would have a bounce back game (over 52.5 rec. yards Prop)...and he did. After struggling with drops last week, he caught all of his targets this week...some of them his usual ‘wow’ catches.
How he wound up with only 5 targets in such a critical game...I cannot understand, but then that was the theme of most of the losing teams this past weekend, especially the big underdogs -- these underdog teams that possess a great weapon/asset on offense, and they didn’t wear it out in an effort to try and pull off the upset.
I leave this game wondering...is the last time we’ll see Pickens in a Steelers uniform? I think it’s 50/50. I believe the Steelers will try to ‘sell high’, to try to ‘Chase Claypool’ him if they can...dump the headache on someone else. Pickens is likely to want a huge contract extension, so there is that fight coming. If the Steelers can find a bad team to send him to, one that will pay him what he wants because they cannot attract talent through natural free agency, so they have to trade for a pay it big to come over (like CLE, NE, CHI)...if PIT can find the right dance partner, they’ll dance. They really don’t want to send him to like a KC, LAR, SF, MIN, or DET...somewhere where they might fix him and make the Steelers look bad.
We might have seen the last of Pickens in Pittsburgh, but we very likely have seen the end of the awful Najee Harris (6-17-0, 3-41-0/3) era. Some defensive-minded head coach is gonna see Najee as ‘their Derrick Henry’. There was a ridiculous market for Jerry Jeudy...there will be one for Najee. You’ll know the dumb teams by who signs him to a big deal.
Early guesses are: New England, Dallas, NY Giants, Cleveland, LA Chargers.
-- No Zay Flowers here, and Isaiah Likely (3-53-0/4) having some of his best games this year against the Steelers -- so, it made sense to bet the Likely props in this game, at the low 26.5 yards receiving mark...and we banked this pretty quickly in this game, as Likely led the team in receiving for the game.
Probably not going to be a follow up event by Likely this week against Buffalo, especially if Zay is back.
-- Better game/season analysis on the Steelers from ‘Pittsburgh Dad’: https://youtu.be/XPN3nMIaaR8?si=IFA0uI4DYsvh4Krz
Snap Counts of Interest:
59 = Likely
45 = Andrews
39 = Wallace
36 = Bateman
36 = Pickens
34 = Jefferson
33 = Austin
45 = Henry
28 = JHill
