The Pittsburgh Steelers enter their Wild Card Round matchup with the Baltimore Ravens as losers of four straight games, and former NFL head coach Jon Gruden thinks that Pittsburgh’s season will end on a five-game losing streak. On The Barstool Rundown on Monday night, Gruden said that he doesn’t think the Steelers have much of a chance against the Ravens on Saturday.
“I’m off of Pittsburgh,” Gruden said. “They haven’t looked good to me on offense in a while…I think the Ravens are the most improved team right now in the AFC. Their defense is playing good. I think they’re gonna smoke Pittsburgh.”
The Ravens pass defense struggled in the early part of the year, but it’s a group that’s been one of the NFL’s best over the second half of the season, and all-around, the Ravens are a tough opponent. Lamar Jackson is again an MVP candidate, while Derrick Henry has given the Ravens a real threat in the backfield. They dominated the Steelers in a 34-17 win in Week 16 in Baltimore, and Gruden thinks a similar result will play out on Saturday night.
Given what we’ve seen out of the Steelers lately, it’s a fair assessment of how the game will go. They’re a team that just can’t do much of anything right. While their defense played better in Week 18 than it did the prior three weeks, the offense’s inability to score has been a serious issue. They haven’t scored more than 17 points during their four-game losing streak. They’ve started slow and gotten absolutely killed in the time of possession battle, which they were winning routinely earlier in the season when the Steelers looked like a legitimate contender.
The Steelers will really need to work to clean up their offensive woes if they want to have a chance against Baltimore. While it helps that it’s a team they’re familiar with, the same can be said for the Ravens, who should have an added bit of confidence, given what happened in the last game between the two.
The Ravens are a popular pick to make a run in the playoffs this season, and there won’t be much faith in the Steelers on Saturday. It will take the best offensive performance in a month for Pittsburgh to have any chance. Their defense, which has been banged up and tired down the stretch, will need to find a way to stop Jackson, Henry, and the rest of the Ravens offense. The Steelers historically have played well against Jackson, though, so if they can find a way to do so again, things could wind up in their favor on Saturday. But Gruden might wind up being right that things could be ugly for the Steelers, especially if they can’t fix things offensively.
