Week 5 Game Changing Plays: Steelers Take AFC North Lead
8 min read
Steelers QB Kenny Pickett
Death, taxes, and the AFC North turning into a slugfest.
With the Browns on a bye, the Pittsburgh Steelers and Baltimore Ravens faced off for first place in the division, and they played the most Steelers-Ravens game in the history of Steelers and Ravens games. If you’re looking for Pittsburgh and Baltimore in a tight, low-scoring game that went down to the wire, you have a choice of about 40% of all Steelers-Ravens games that have ever occurred, and Sunday was no exception.
The Steelers seem dedicated to being the one token playoff team with a stifling defense and the absolute bare minimum amount of offense, the way Matt Canada had planned this entire time. The Ravens seem equally dedicating to dropping as many passes and running as many wrong routes as possible, as the preseason hype of the best receiving corps Lamar Jackson had ever played with seems both amusing in retrospect and, in all likelihood, still correct. In other words, it’s looking like business as usual in the AFC North, where all four teams will smash into each other enough times to dampen their eventual win-loss record, and then create problems as a battle-tested and battle-wounded team come January. The more things change, right?
Half of Week 5’s top Game Changing Plays came from the fourth quarter of the Steelers’ 17-10 win, as a key divisional win in a tight race is tough to match. We’ll handle the rest of the league first, and then focus on how the Steelers managed to hold off the Ravens and come out with the victory.
9. Calvin Ridley Down There Somewhere
6. Long Live the King-Slayer
Two years ago, giving the ball to Derrick Henry on fourth-and-1 from inside the five-yard line was a near-guaranteed touchdown. It is not two years ago. With the Titans down four and needing a touchdown, Henry plows into the line and is absolutely bodied by Zaire Franklin. No tricks, no clever scheme, just one-on-one in the hole, and power beating power. The Titans never got this close again — they only had the ball one more time, throwing a game-ending interception with less than 30 seconds left.
Henry was held to 43 yards on 13 carries with a long of just eight, as Indianapolis bottled him up for most of the day. This game was for playoff position, and the Colts sit in fifth place (behind Jacksonville due to the Week 1 loss but ahead of Baltimore and Buffalo thanks to their 3-1 conference record) because of this stop.
Falcons-Texans Interlude
We were getting ready to write about C.J. Stroud’s big comeback, with the Texans quarterback leading Houston down the field in the waning seconds to score the go-ahead touchdown that put the Texans in playoff position. And doing that despite being put in awkward down and distances — Dameon Pierce losing three yards on 1st-and-10 (Play #10) and then barely gaining it back on the next play meant that Stroud had to covert a 3rd-and-9 for the game. And he did it! But it turns out, 1:49 was too much time on the clock for Desmond Ridder and the Falcons, not a sentence I thought I would be saying through four weeks of limp offensive performances.
The Falcons game-winning drive, as a whole, should be on this list, capped off as it was by Yunghoe Koo’s 37-yard game winner at the gun. But on an individual play level, there’s not a lot to highlight — a couple passes to Drake London to move the chains (Plays #5 & 8), a couple key grabs by Kyle Pitts and Tyler Allgeier to keep the ball moving, and so forth. So we’ll just group the entire drive together with a gold star for Atlanta.
The win’s a big one for Atlanta, too — it keeps them atop the three-way tie at 3-2 in the NFC wildcard race, with their 2-1 conference record holding serve at the moment. Houston, on the other hand, finds itself on the outside looking in in the dogfight that is the AFC South; you can’t let these winnable games slip through your fingers like that.
Anyway! On to …
Baltimore Ravens at Pittsburgh Steelers
We take you midway into the fourth quarter to start our recap. A safety had cut the Baltimore lead to 10-5, because this is an AFC North game where normal football scores need not apply. Pittsburgh received the ensuing safety kick, but looked like they were going to stall out, facing 3rd-and-8 from just about midfield. Pittsburgh has a win probability of about 23% at this point — not doomed, but in trouble and beginning to have issues with the clock.
7. Play Jaylen Warren, Dang It
Jaylen Warren is slowly, slowly, slowly cutting his way into playing time for Najee Harris — there’s argument that Harris is still the better rusher of the two, but Warren is the more-talented pass-catching back. And that’s what you need on 3rd-and-8, a guy who can catch! Warren leaks out to the flat, catches the ball behind the line of scrimmage (Matt Canada, what are you doing), makes one guy miss, and then takes three other guys with him for a gain of 23. That pushes Pittsburgh’s win probability back up to 38%, and from there, he keeps working — two more gains of double-digit yards moves the ball into field goal range before the drive stalls.
Pittsburgh opts to kick the field goal to cut the lead to 10-8 — a disappointment, considering they had first-and-goal from the five, but it keeps them alive at about a 26% WP. Pittsburgh’s defense comes up with a big stop forcing a punt on the ensuing Baltimore drive — but Gunner Olszewski fumbles it on the return, setting Baltimore up for the knockout blow. Pittsburgh’s win probability dips down to a low of 12% as Baltimore drops back on 3rd-and-goal from the five…
4. Joey Porter Saves the Day
I hate, hate, hate the goal line fade. It hardly ever works, and certainly not to a receiver like Odell Beckham who does not have the hops he once did. It’s Jackson’s worst throw of the day — an underthrown fade or an inside back-shoulder target — and Joey Porter is in perfect position for the first interception of his career.
Simply falling down and kicking a field goal would have kept the Ravens above an 80% win probability. Successfully scoring the touchdown essentially ends the game right here. Instead, Pittsburgh found itself with life, and about a one-in-three chance of pulling off the come-from-behind win.
…And so, the Steelers immediately face another 3rd-and-long, because this offense is not good, people.
3. and 2. Third-Down and Musts
The Steelers faced a third-and-nine three plays after the interception. And, on a must-have play, Kenny Pickett found Allen Robinson for 10 yards, extending the game. Three plays after that, the Steelers were in third-and-four. And, on a must-have play, Kenny Pickett found George Pickens on a back-shoulder throw for 21.
Converting before third down, on occasion, would make things a little easier for Pittsburgh, but credit where credit is due — three of their six third-down conversions on the day came in the fourth quarter, as they furiously fought back. And now, past the two minute warning and facing a 2nd-and-9 from midfield, the Steelers had seen their win probability tick up to about 55% — for the first time all day, they were in control. And who better to seal it?
1. George Pickens Runs Away With It
George Pickens had six catches for 130 yards in this one, including this touchdown where he just torches Marlon Humphrey. The Ravens are playing cover zero, sending pressure, and Pickens just won the rep. Credit to Pickett for finding him and getting the ball there, and then Pickens did the rest.
This didn’t quite end the game — one more strip-sack was necessary to finally put this one to bed — but the Steelers finally had the lead, and would never relinquish it.
The win has the Steelers sitting atop the AFC North — tied with Baltimore at 3-2, but with this head-to-head win firmly in their pocket. A loss would have had them out of the playoff picture entirely, looking up at the Ravens and Browns ahead of them. The Ravens, on the other hand, do remain in the playoff picture, but they go from being the #2 seed in a tie with the Chiefs atop the conference all the way down to #6, with a worse conference record than the Colts but a better one than the Bills. For one week, at least, the Steelers get to wear the crown.
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