After beating the Ravens in Baltimore in the first meeting and building a four-game lead on the defending AFC North champion, the Steelers don't want to change much of anything that has fueled their 10-0 start.
But one thing will have to change before Thursday night's return match with the Ravens at Heinz Field: The Steelers need to come up with a different scheme to defend the Ravens' running game, which has shredded their defense the past three meetings. And they are hoping to do just that.
Of course, they won't have to worry about the Ravens' top two running backs — JK Dobbins and Mark Ingram — after they tested positive for COVID-19 and will miss the game.
The Steelers have allowed the Ravens, who have the NFL's No. 1 rush offense, to run for 626 yards in the past three games, including 265 yards when the teams met Nov. 1. That was the most rushing yards the Steelers had allowed in 27 years and came at a time when they were the league's top-ranked run defense.
Since then, the Steelers have slowly declined in the rankings. They have allowed an average of 118 yards rushing in their past three games to drop to No. 7 in the league. They were better against the Jaguars, though rookie James Robinson still managed 73 yards on 17 carries, an average of 4.3 yards per attempt.
The Steelers like to cite players getting out of their gaps as the reason, but the reality is they are getting pushed too far off the line of scrimmage in some instances. That explains the number of runs of 10 or more yards (13) since they allowed six against the Ravens. By comparison, the Steelers have had four in the past four games — and two came on runs of 25 and 16 yards by James Conner in Sunday's 27-3 victory in Jacksonville.
