It’s Steelers-Ravens week and it doesn’t get much better than that if you’re a football fan. The faces change but the tensions between the two organizations are always high which makes for increasingly exciting contests. Pittsburgh will see a somewhat familiar face on the opposing side on Sunday in Lamar Jackson, who missed both matchups last year due to injury. The Steelers have been one of the only teams’ league-wide that have given Jackson problems. Since being selected as the number 32 overall pick back in 2018, Jackson is 1-2 against the Steelers with twice as many turnovers responsible for (8) as touchdowns accounted for (4).
This Ravens offense is different, though. The organization finally moved from longtime offensive coordinator Greg Roman in favor of Todd Monken. Jackson burst onto the NFL scene and immediately leaped into stardom, winning Most Valuable Player honors in his first entire season as a starter in 2019. Roman, who had previous success with a young mobile quarterback named Colin Kaepernick, designed an offense that accentuated Jackson’s unique athletic ability by creating a dominant running game. At first, the Ravens looked unstoppable, but things grew stale over time.
Roman’s archaic passing game playbook kept a governor chip on the Ravens offense and Jackson, in particular. For years now, there have been looming questions about what the next step would be for them offensively. So, they turned the reigns over to Monken in hopes of discovering if there’s another level to Jackson’s ceiling that has yet to be reached. It’s still early in the relationship, but we have a four-game sample size of what this new-look offense looks like. What changes exist? And more importantly, what can the Steelers’ defense use to counteract them?
*Subscribe to SN+ to read the rest of the story. Get intelligent Steelers content, as well as exclusive coverage of the Penguins and Pirates by joining SN+.