Category
🥇
SportsTranscript
00:00What this game represents to me is so perfect.
00:05If you are the Ravens, and you are the,
00:09if this is finally the year where being the best team
00:13in the regular season, by the way, 12 and five,
00:15three seed, absolutely not the best team
00:16in the regular season, they're not.
00:19But if that's, if it's gonna finally translate,
00:22it translates by beating the Pittsburgh Steelers by margin.
00:27Not squeaking it out with Justin Tucker in a clutch kick,
00:30not Russell Wilson turning it over late,
00:33you dominate this team.
00:35Because this Steelers team is the same team
00:39that made the playoffs, Mason Rudolph,
00:43or the final year of Big Ben, they show up,
00:48they're completely outmatched, they are only here
00:51because Mike Tomlin going 500 is completely undeniable,
00:55and they get absolutely rolled.
00:58But what is challenging for Baltimore
01:01is no opponent has been better at grabbing the Ravens
01:06and saying, get right down here to our level
01:08than the Pittsburgh Steelers, every time without fail.
01:13Not only did Pittsburgh beat this team
01:15in a preposterous victory earlier on this year,
01:18even the 17 point win that went the Ravens way
01:23at one point was I think a seven point game
01:26and Lamar threw an interception
01:28that looked like it was gonna flip
01:30the whole thing on its head.
01:31And then Russ threw a pick six and the rest is history.
01:34That's why I say that, Nani, because either
01:37we're going to find out that this year, to me,
01:40like I know Lamar's had some fine round ones, this is it.
01:44If the Ravens roll here, it is actually going
01:47to look different for Lamar in this postseason.
01:49If this is a four point victory,
01:52it's gonna feel like the same thing as always.
01:54Yeah, if we are setting up the game too,
01:55look at it this way.
01:56This is one of the few times where it'd be basically
01:58a double digit playoff spread and you say,
02:00Donnie, Baltimore won that game.
02:02Yeah, that's what they're supposed to do.
02:03Donnie, the Pittsburgh Steelers won that game.
02:05Yeah, what'd you think?
02:05That game was gonna be a blowout?
02:06I mean, it's the Pittsburgh Steelers
02:07and the Baltimore Ravens.
02:08It has an odd connotation to it.
02:10But here's what I like to bring it up to.
02:11And you're not supposed to think this way.
02:14Their best wide receiver, Joe,
02:15is not gonna play in this game, Zay Flowers.
02:17Gets hurt, you know, banged up knee,
02:18hopefully he's back next week.
02:19You know what I say?
02:20Good, don't throw, like, I'm not saying
02:23you don't throw the football,
02:25but it feels like if I have weapons,
02:26I have to use them, I have to keep this football
02:28on the ground, that's how you can break
02:30the Steelers on defense, as opposed to throwing
02:32the football and putting it in harm's way.
02:34So when I look at this matchup and say,
02:36either way it goes, and we're expecting, obviously,
02:38a Pittsburgh Steelers loss in this game,
02:40which, who knows what's gonna happen in the future,
02:41a quarterback, we can get into that later.
02:43But for me, if you are going to beat this Steelers team,
02:46run the football, Joe, right at that front side.
02:48And I think it's with Derrick Henry
02:50and Lamar Jackson breaking contain.
02:51He did that in the first half against Cleveland,
02:53made a lot of plays outside the pocket with his legs.
02:56Once they built a lead, then they started
02:58throwing the football a little bit more.
03:00I think that's the recipe.
03:01You look at Baltimore's offense right now,
03:03they've won four games, Kev, by an average margin
03:06of victory of 23 points per game, right?
03:08They have the quarterback advantage.
03:09They already beat this team three weeks ago
03:12and dominated them in the second half by 17 points.
03:15And to your point about Russell Wilson
03:17and Pittsburgh right now, they've lost four straight.
03:20They haven't had the quarterback advantage
03:21over the last four games.
03:23They played Jalen Hurts and lost.
03:24They played Lamar, they lost.
03:26They lost to Pat Mahomes and they lost to Joe Burrow.
03:29And in each one of those games,
03:30they try to drag those teams into a lower scoring game
03:34and they couldn't do it.
03:35They're gonna need a monumental effort,
03:36in my opinion, from Russell Wilson
03:39to potentially cover this line or win it out right now.
03:42They might be able to back the word
03:43if they get them into a lower scoring game.
03:45Maybe it's 23-10 and all of a sudden
03:47they tack on a late touchdown and it makes it look good.
03:51But at the end of the day, you have to break tendency
03:54and without throwing the football consistently,
03:57how are they gonna score points?
03:59How are they gonna score?
04:00If George Pickens is getting eight targets
04:02and he has two catches for eight yards
04:05and Friar Muth is your big target coming out
04:07in terms of the tight end, you can't win games like that
04:10against better elite quarterback competition.
04:13So again, I think Baltimore,
04:15they try to run the football early.
04:17If they have success and build a lead,
04:19put the game on Russell Wilson
04:20and he's gonna have to deliver
04:22in order to pull this game out.
04:23I do lean Pittsburgh because it is a divisional game,
04:27but I do feel this game is an under
04:28just because of how inconsistent
04:30Pittsburgh's offense has been.
04:32By the way, real quick on this.
04:33You know, like you handicap a regular season,
04:35you play four or five really good teams
04:36and now finally we get the Carolina Panthers.
04:38They played really good teams down the stretch
04:40and get a really good one in the playoffs.
04:42So there's not anything we can lean back on
04:43when I talked about the 16 and a half points.
04:45Like, oh, they'll get it together today.
04:46Will they?
04:47It's another good team.