OTL: The Team is on to Buffalo, but We’re Basking in that Win

How about them Baltimore Ravens? The Ravens dismantled the Pittsburgh Steelers in the most cathartic and important way imaginable as they conjured up a 28-14 win in the Wild Card round. The Ravens have won themselves a battle with the Buffalo Bills next Sunday at 6:30 PM. Sunday games have almost become a novelty after the Ravens last handful of games have either been on a Saturday or a weekday holiday. Before looking ahead to the game of two MVP candidates that feels like a premature AFC Championship game, or at least an extra pivotal stage of the playoff gauntlet, let’s revel in the Ravens victory.

One can make the argument that the Ravens had their best first half of football since they won Super Bowl XXXV in January of 2001. Everything went right for the Ravens in the 21-0 opening two quarters.

Relive the Ravens DOMINANT 13-play, 85-yard touchdown drive against the Steelers where every play was a run

Bully ball at its finest pic.twitter.com/eNZjdAKUQV

— Kevin Oestreicher (@koestreicher34) January 12, 2025

The Ravens dominated the Steelers and they were the bully. The highlights of this 85-yard touchdown drive produce more dopamine than you can imagine.

Ravens RT Roger Rosengarten went viral last week after telling Myles Garrett “I’m a nobody.”

In his NFL playoff debut, Rosengarten spent most of the game blocking Steelers pass rusher TJ Watt.

Watt didn’t record a single stat. pic.twitter.com/ByYREdcCKN

— The Sporting News (@sportingnews) January 12, 2025

Can we give some credit to Roger Rosengarten? The rookie offensive tackle just had a dominant performance against one of the most talked about defensive players in the NFL. The biggest concern is the beginning of the season was the right side of the offensive line. If you remember, it’s all I talked about back then. Well, we haven’t talked about it in a while and now that we are it’s because recognition needs to be given. T.J. Watt was stat-less, but hey he hit Derrick Henry a lot, when he didn’t even have the ball…

Mike Preston gave every unit on the offense an A. While Lamar Jackson and Derrick Henry get all the attention and accolades my favorite thing about Preston’s weekly column is that he highlights the full scope of what went on in the game. Preston awarded the Ravens pass catchers with an A.

“The Ravens had success in almost every area of the field except outside the numbers. But they didn’t have to attack there because Jackson was successful in the intermediate area of the field. Pittsburgh adjusted its coverage in the second half, but the Ravens made enough plays to keep drives alive in the first 30 minutes. Tight end Isaiah Likely led the Ravens with 53 yards on three catches, and fellow tight end Mark Andrews had two for 27. The Ravens needed major contributions without slot receiver Zay Flowers, who was out with a knee injury, and Jackson completed passes to seven players. It was a good blend of mixing and matching and getting everyone involved. Grade: A”

One thing I want to add to this point is that Rashod Bateman stepped up in a big way. Bateman only had two catches for 24 yards but they were huge impacting plays on the game. Bateman of course caught a touchdown on what was probably Jackson’s most impressive throw in months of great throws but he also had a clutch third down grab on a slant against tight coverage. Like Preston mentioned, the Ravens needed a bit from everybody in the passing game; I just wanted to note that every little bit helped. Bateman had one of the most impressive two-catch performances you’ll see.

Nick Shook posted an article for NFL.com that talked about the things we learned in the first round games. One thing that Shook noted is that the Ravens offense is diverse enough to win without Zay Flowers:

Jackson finished with 175 passing yards, two passing touchdowns and another 81 yards on the ground, accounting for over 250 of Baltimore’s total yards. He didn’t miss a beat even without Flowers and the Ravens knifed through the Steelers defense with ease. Potentially adding Flowers into the mix in the week(s) ahead will be important to Baltimore’s ceiling, but as we learned weeks ago and were reminded Saturday night, the Ravens can beat opponents in many different ways.

The reason it’s so impressive in this game is that it was against a very familiar foe. The Pittsburgh Steelers know the Ravens as well as any team in the NFL and it didn’t matter. The Ravens used their run game and the talents of Lamar Jackson in ways the Steelers knew was coming and it just kept working. If the Ravens can be that hard to stop without Flowers for the Steelers, just imagine how hard they can be to stop for a Bills team that hasn’t seen them since the first stretch of the regular season.

Lamar Jackson and Josh Allen battled down the stretch for MVP. Now they will play the Game of the Year, in Buffalo. The winner probably will play at Mahomes for the AFC title. I believe that will be Lamar. And I believe Lamar is going to the Super Bowl.

— Skip Bayless (@RealSkipBayless) January 12, 2025

Love him or hate him, Skip Bayless thinks the Baltimore Ravens are going to beat the Bills and go on to the Super Bowl. The MVP part of this is interesting because it’s a regular season award. It’s not every year the two MVP candidates get to go head to head in the playoffs. I don’t know what’s wrong with me but I think I agree with a Skip Bayless take.

Current weather forecast for Orchard Park, NY when Ravens-Bills kicks off in the divisional playoffs.

Feels like 15
0% chance of precipitation pic.twitter.com/IRBRj6o8fF

— Ryan Mink (@ryanmink) January 13, 2025

Whatever happens on Sunday evening the two teams will be very cold. There are a lot of things that remind me of the 2012 playoff run. Most of these things are charming little factoids like the fact that Trent Dilfer and Joe Flacco won the Super Bowl at 28 years old, the same age as Lamar Jackson… Or the fact that the Ravens will have to go through the hardest possible path to get to the Super Bowl (sound familiar? Manning…Brady..). That said, the Ravens may not have had a playoff game in this extreme of conditions since they survived two overtimes to beat Peyton Manning and the Broncos in that divisional round classic.

We’ll leave you with the highlights of the Ravens shellacking of the Bills in Week 4 provided on X by Sarah Ellison. It’s a big game coming right up, let’s hope it looks like this:

Full highlights of Bills-Ravens WK4 matchup

pic.twitter.com/E1Tu39L9AT

— Sarah Ellison (@sgellison) January 12, 2025

CAWWWW!

The post OTL: The Team is on to Buffalo, but We’re Basking in that Win appeared first on Russell Street Report.

Source: https://russellstreetreport.com/2025/01/13/out-to-lunch/otl-the-team-is-on-to-buffalo-but-were-basking-in-that-win/