Three Winners, Three Losers in Steelers Fall to Ravens

The Pittsburgh Steelers will need to be better on both lines to compete with the best.

Author:
Stephen Thompson
Publish date:
Dec 12, 2022 7:00 AM EST

In this story:

PITTSBURGH -- The Pittsburgh Steelers fell just short of pulling an upset on the Baltimore Ravens, falling by two at Acrisure Stadium to their divisional rivals.

While the Steelers are all but certain not to extend their season in the playoffs, games like these against an opponent that leads their division and is fighting for home-field advantage in the postseason says a lot about what the franchise's future will look like.

Winners

George Pickens

The targets were few and far between but Pickens made the most of his limited looks. He caught each of his three targets for 78 yards, a team-high mark, and probably could have added a fourth catch for a touchdown if he wasn't interfered with in the endzone in the first quarter. One week after his sideline outburst drew some criticism, Pickens was spectacular in a limited role. The frustrating thing is that Pickens is already drawing targeted coverage schemes, which make an already difficult transition to the NFL even harder. How he has fought through that - and continues to fight through them - will be telling about how high Pickens' ceiling is.

Cameron Sutton and Minkah Fitzpatrick

These two are listed together because they combined to blanket Baltimore's leading receiver, Mark Andrews for the entire afternoon. He caught just two of his six total targets for 17 yards and was a virtual non-factor. They were giving up loads of size but still did a remarkable job defending one of the best players at his position in the league.

Losers

Mitch Trubisky

His long-term future may not be in Pittsburgh, but Trubisky had a golden opportunity in front of him nonetheless when he took the injured Kenny Pickett's place at quarterback midway through the first quarter against the Ravens. But instead of reminding the football world that there is a place for him in the NFL, Trubisky served up a reminder of why he was benched for Pickett in the first place.

Trubisky was good, even exciting at times, like when he connected with Pickens and Diontae Johnson for long gains through the air or when he snuck a touchdown pass to Pat Freiermuth into a tight window. But he was disappointingly reckless - something Trubisky himself admitted to - at other times. His three interceptions were all very costly and while many spent his days as the starter wishing he would be more aggressive, that was not the type of aggression they had in mind.

Offensive Line

This line has been better than many expected to this point of the season, but this is still far from an elite unit and Baltimore's outstanding front seven was able to expose that. Not only were Steelers quarterbacks under fire all afternoon from Raven rushers, but the running game that had been so productive over the past few weeks disappeared as well. Najee Harris was getting hit in the backfield so frequently that he couldn't get anything going.

The line can be a stabilizing force for an offense that is struggling to find itself and the contrast between this loss and wins over the Colts and Falcons illustrates what is lost when the line is not at its best.

Interior Defensive Line

It was obvious when Tyler Huntley was in the game and it got even more obvious when the Ravens had to substitute Anthony Brown when Huntley suffered a concussion - Baltimore was going to run the ball. Andrews was a non-factor, meaning the Steelers front really had one thing to worry about - stopping the run - and they weren't able to.

J.K. Dobbins and Gus Edwards ran for 173 yards on 25 carries and their offensive line was able to pave big holes for them to dash through. This talented Steelers front was pushed around fairly easily for the first time in a while, but against a motivated division opponent, it looked particularly bad. The Steelers have invested a lot in that position but haven't gotten the results to match this year.

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