Inside Steelers’ Game-Winning Defensive Stop
PITTSBURGH β Mike Tomlin and the Pittsburgh Steelers gave John Harbaugh some time to think it over.
The stoppage turned out to be invaluable.
Having just scored a touchdown with 1:06 remaining in Sunday afternoon’s AFC North rivalry clash in Pittsburgh, Harbaugh’s Baltimore Ravens (7-4) needed a two-point conversion to knot matters at 18 points apiece.
The Steelers’ head coach waited to see what his counterpart had in store as two-time NFL MVP quarterback Lamar Jackson, one of the most lethal dual-threat passers in the sport’s history, lined up.
“I wanted to see what structure they were and then call a timeout,” Tomlin said. “Thankfully, we even saw some of the semblance of the schematics of what they intended to run.”
Steelers linebacker Patrick Queen detailed the initial formation, saying, “It was tackle over. Justice (Hill) was in the backfield. He was wide. I think Mark (Andrews) was to my side, too. They ran quick (left). They were trying just trying to get everybody flowing and Lamar was running to the line of scrimmage. I think he was about to do a jump pass.”
The officials’ whistles sounded, though. Harbaugh would have to go with something different.
After the brief stoppage, Jackson lined up in the shotgun with Hill as a sidecar to his right. He sent receiver Tylan Wallace in motion from the left. Wallace crossed Jackson’s face as the quarterback grabbed the snap, but Jackson didn’t even fake the jet sweep handoff as he started toward his left, holding the ball in his non-throwing hand.
Nelson Agholor, another wideout, was tasked with fending off Pittsburgh (8-2) linebacker Nick Herbig, who crashed into him hard enough to reach around and grab the back of Jackson’s jersey. The effort only slightly turned Jackson’s hips, but impeded center Tyler Linderbaum and left guard Patrick Mekari, both pulling, in the process.
Defensive lineman Dean Lowry angled between those linemen, giving chase and raising his arm in case Jackson tried to get rid of the ball. That pushed Jackson nearer to the sideline, where Joey Porter Jr. began twisting him down.
Fittingly, it was Porter who encouraged his Steelers teammates prior to the critical play.
“Joey, who’s (usually) the most quiet one, was sitting there like, “We’re stopping them. They’re not scoring this two-point conversion,'” Queen said. “That was huge. Hearing him actually gave everybody some confidence to go out there and get that stop.”
A last-ditch effort as he lost his footing, Jackson flicked the ball up and over the horde in front of him. It dropped incomplete at guard Daniel Faalele’s feet.
Ravens failed 2 point try to tie up the game #NFL pic.twitter.com/FhH6pYY5Io
— ππ§ππππ‘ ππππ£ πβοΈβ‘οΈ| #ππ£π (@Rlop1234Goat) November 17, 2024
“I think that made them change and go the other direction,” Tomlin said of the timeout he burned. “Mr. Jackson is a little bit less dangerous when he’s going to his left than his right, so we’re thankful for that.”
Harbaugh was asked if the play was designed to be a run-pass option. He wouldn’t go into any detail, but said it was not.
“It was a QB run,” Jackson said after the Steelers’ 18-16 win. “They just stopped it. They did a good job.”
Derrick Henry, the Ravens’ daunting four-time Pro Bowl running back, wasn’t in the game for the two-point conversion. Henry had powered in for a touchdown from a yard out in the first quarter.
“We didn’t talk about that stuff before,” Harbaugh said when asked if there was a thought to putting Henry in on the conversion. “We have two-point plays called. We called the one, they called timeout, we called the next one.”
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