‘Same old scenario’: Mistake-prone Ravens collapse in 4th quarter, lose stunner to Steelers
Pittsboro, PA The Ravens were practically unable to look at each other for a short while on Sunday afternoon. After a perplexing 17-10 loss to the Steelers, walking into their locker room revealed a team that wasn’t quite sure what had transpired. The players were seated on their seats, staring straight ahead as they mentally relived the humiliations of losing and the unsettling silence that descended like a dense mist.
One of the last people to depart was Patrick Queen. Six questions were posed by media to the inside linebacker. They revolved around his annoyance, the reason the Ravens were losing to Pittsburgh once more, and why the team was not completing games. Queen used the phrase “opportunities” five times, as if to draw attention to all the significant opportunities that the Ravens had missed.
“We had opportunities,” Queen said. “We didn’t capitalize, unfortunately. Same old scenario every time. I’m pretty sick of it.”
It was another coulda-woulda-shoulda game, the stink of failure reaching into every phase of the Ravens’ afternoon. There was the offense that dropped pass after pass, botched scoring opportunities and was blanked over the game’s final 42-plus minutes. There was the defense that finally cracked late, pierced by a 41-yard go-ahead bomb from much-beleaguered quarterback Kenny Pickett to new Ravens nemesis George Pickens. There was the punt team that found a new way for the Ravens’ special teams to struggle. There was the coaching that smoothed little of their rough edges.:quality(70)/cloudfront-us-east-1.images.arcpublishing.com/baltimorebanner/LGSKPZ4UMFCUVA6EHSZTD637BQ.JPG)
Add it all up, and the Ravens had another frustratingly familiar loss, this one most notable for the strains of recent misery it spliced together. Want the untimely turnovers and questionable play-calling of the Ravens’ narrow losses late last season to the Cleveland Browns and the Cincinnati Bengals? Sure thing. Another late Pickett touchdown pass to spoil an otherwise stout defensive effort? Done. How about a fourth-quarter offense that made performance art out of high-leverage misfires? Something like the loss to the Indianapolis Colts in Week 3? No problem.
“I want to start off by saying we fought hard,” tight end Mark Andrews said. “It just felt like, at times, there was just too many things going wrong. It’s almost like a sleeping giant, man. We need to wake up.”
Instead, the Ravens blew through every blaring alarm they heard inside Acrisure Stadium, almost oblivious to the encroaching danger.
For the first third of this game, they’d handled Pittsburgh as the tale of the tape suggested they would. Here was a Steelers offense so depleted, so seemingly feckless — and that was the case before Pickett entered Sunday’s game with a bone bruise on his knee — that fans were calling for coordinator Matt Canada’s job in the first quarter. Here was a Steelers defense that had allowed 451 yards one week earlier in a blowout loss to the Houston Texans, rookie quarterback C.J. Stroud and their shell of an offensive line.
But even in taking a 10-0 lead early in the second quarter, the Ravens dropped hints that catastrophe was looming. Their first drive ended a few plays after wide receiver Zay Flowers couldn’t secure a wide-open pass that would’ve moved the offense into field goal range. Their third drive ended with a field goal after Andrews and wide receiver Rashod Bateman dropped would-be touchdown catches. The Ravens led 10-0 then; they should’ve been up at least 17-0.
“We don’t expect our guys to drop passes,” said quarterback Lamar Jackson, who fell to 1-3 as a starter against Pittsburgh. He finished 22-for-38 for 236 yards and added six carries for 45 yards but was held without a touchdown for the first time all season. “It happens in NFL football. It just happened at the wrong time. But we’re going to get better and go to practice and go to work.