Setting a team record for rushing yards in a playoff game was the perfect exclamation point to the Baltimore Ravens bullying the Pittsburgh Steelers in the Wild-Card round, a record that left former Ravens defenders DeShon Elliott and Patrick Queen feeling the pain.
They had reason to be salty after Derrick Henry and Lamar Jackson helped the Ravens amass 299 yards on the ground, en route to a 28-14 win at M&T Bank Stadium on Saturday, January 11.
Inside linebacker Queen, who joined AFC North rivals the Steelers last offseason after four years in Baltimore, was in no mood talk. The 25-year-old bluntly told reporters after the game, “I don’t want to talk about it,” per Ravens.com Editorial Director Ryan Mink.
Elliott, who spent four years as an oft-injured backup safety for the Ravens, didn’t mince his words. He put it candidly, “Having 300 yards rushing on you is worse than having 300 yards passing. They definitely put belt to butt today,” per ESPN’s Brooke Pryor.
Both Elliott and Queen had their pride stung, along with the rest of the Steelers’ defense, by a Ravens offense that turned smashmouth football into an art form. They made the Steelers guess between attacking Henry or Jackson, a conundrum the visitors never solved.
Derrick Henry, Lamar Jackson and Schemes Dominated Steelers
The Ravens entered the game with a commitment to ground and pound football. They stayed true to this identity thanks to the overwhelming physical talents of two-time NFL rushing champion Henry and two-time league MVP Jackson, allied to some clever scheming.
Offensive coordinator Todd Monken forced the Steelers into a deadly guessing game based on one question. Who has the ball, Henry or Jackson?
Members of Pittsburgh’s front seven never guessed right as Jackson and Henry dominated with read-option runs. Jackson routinely pulled the ball from Henry’s gut and ran off tackle for big gains, while his lead running back was tackled by over-eager edge defenders like T.J. Watt, who simply couldn’t crack the code.
Eventually, Jackson’s outside runs became the decoy for linebackers to flow laterally in vain and leave ample room up the gut for Henry to exploit. Like for a 44-yard touchdown run illustrated by ESPN’s Mina Kimes to show how Jackson breaking to the outside drew the attention of Elliott (25), Elandon Roberts (50) and fellow ‘backer Queen (6).
This scheme punished the natural, downhill instincts of aggressive edge-setters like Watt and Alex Highsmith. They could almost never be right, one reason why Jackson and Henry “combined for 267 rush yards in the Baltimore’s Wild Card win. That is the second-most rushing yards by a QB-RB duo in a playoff game in NFL history, trailing only Colin Kaepernick and Frank Gore’s 300 combined rush yards in the 2012 Divisional Round,” according to Around The NFL’s Nick Shook.
Henry accounted for 186 of those yards, another franchise record, one he owed to a special play or two installed just for the Steelers. Specifically, Monken devised ways to exploit the Steelers’ weakness against motion.
The most notable example was a wildcat run with Henry in the quarterback position, while Jackson motioned from wide receiver. As Kimes depicted, the motion from No. 8 took Elliott, Queen and Roberts out of Henry’s path.
This brute-force mix of brawn and brains, of scheme and personnel, not only makes Monken a worthy candidate for a head coach job. It’s also making the Ravens unstoppable this postseason.
Running Game Can Win Ravens a Super Bowl
Monken and the Ravens only need to continue leaning into the running game all the way to the Super Bowl. Nobody is stopping the Henry and Jackson combination. Nobody.
The Ravens showed the right level of commitment to this duo on a 13-play, 85-yard drive that was all runs in the second quarter.
Those rushing plays bludgeoned the Steelers, milked the clock and established a swagger among Baltimore’s offense. The zero-pass march was made possible by the usual themes, including Jackson’s athleticism and ability to improvise what would have been a pass attempt into a long scramble.
Monken’s X’s and O’s also played their part when Henry thundered beyond the 10-yard line on a run that’s been a devastating finishing move for the Ravens this season.
Plays like this are why the Ravens need fear nobody during the remainder of the playoffs. Whether they face the Buffalo Bills or defending champion Kansas City Chiefs in the next round, bring them on and let them just try to stop this running game.
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