Highs And Lows: Steelers Domination In Ravens’ Heads, Von Miller Says ‘(Bleep) That, Richardson Wins Now

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The Steelers came away from their game with the Baltimore Ravens with a victory that, no matter how difficult or ugly or physically painful, had to be satisfying because it said important things about Mike Tomlin’s team.

Tomlin would never admit that one regular-season game was exceptional in any way other than it accomplished it’s purpose: Delivering a win.

“When my car leaves that parking lot, I’m on the move,” the coach said Monday. “I’ve been in it too long to bathe in it.”

Steelers Ride High In AFC North

But even if this win wasn’t a whole, long bath, it had to be a great French shower.

That’s because the Steelers are now in the Ravens’ heads. And that’s a great place to be against a division opponent. (More on that in a minute).

The Steelers are atop the NFL highs and lows this week because they won an NFL game without scoring a touchdown. That’s hard to do. They beat an MVP favorite in Lamar Jackson by limiting him to a 48.4 completion percentage. And they confirmed the point that while no one necessarily owns Jackson because he gets his against everybody, the Steelers are definitely renting space in his head.

That’s not me saying that. Jackson was asked if he felt “mental pressure” in trying to beat the Steelers. 

“Yes,” he said. “If anything, we’re just too hyped at the beginning. Because I believe when we settle down, we start making things happen. In this type of game, it’s a momentum game, it was swinging for both teams. And those guys had the best swing at the end.” 

The Steelers have won 8 of the last 9 games against the Ravens.

More Highs:

More Highs:

Miller Believed Chiefs’ Game Big

Von Miller: Both before and after the game between the Steelers and Chiefs, Buffalo coach Sean McDermott preached to his team that this game was no different than others. But, God bless Miller for not totally accepting what clearly was coach speak to relieve pressure from his players.

“The speech from coach McDermott was it’s just another game, 100 years from now no one’s going to remember it,” said Miller, who had a sack in the game. “We were like (bleep) that. This is a big game. This is why we’re here. When the bright lights come on, we rise to the occasion. We don’t need to sugarcoat it to take pressure off of us.”

My man.

Anthony Richardson Wins Now

Anthony Richardson: Remember Colts coach Shane Steichen said he benched Richardson because Joe Flacco gave the Colts the best chance to win now? On Sunday against the Jets, the Colts trailed 24-16 in the fourth quarter.

In that deciding quarter, Richardson completed 8 of 10 passes for 129 yards. He threw a 10-yard touchdown pass and then ran for the winning touchdown with 46 seconds to play.

This after the Colts lost the two games Flacco started.

Bye-bye win-now narrative.

Lows:

Lots Of 49ers Narratives, None Good

San Francisco 49ers: The narratives are coming fast and furious Following the loss to Seattle, which happens to place the Niners behind the Rams and Seahawks in the chase for a final playoff spot.

The narratives?

Everyone got paid and they have lost their edge.

Kyle Shanahan, 3-7 in one-score games the past couple of seasons, cannot get his team over the hump when the going gets rough.

But here’s the real problem: The defense is not good in crunch time. Matthew Stafford, Kyler Murray, Baker Mayfield and, on Sunday, Geno Smith led drives in the final minutes to win or tie close games.

Last year, the 49ers, under former defensive coordinator Steve Wilks, held opponents scoreless in the fourth quarter of 11 games. This year the 49ers have given up fourth-quarter points in all of their games.

Bengals Botch Another Great Burrow Outing

Cincinnati Bengals: They are wasting Joe Burrow. Completely wasting him.

Burrow is on pace to throw 42 touchdown passes with only six interceptions. He is an MVP candidate all day long. Except his team has lost seven of its 11 games and cannot figure out how to finish out opponents.

Consider that in Cincinnati’s seven losses, Burrow has thrown 18 touchdown passes with two interceptions and completed 67 percent of his passes.

He threw for 428 yards against Baltimore and the Bengals lost. 

He threw for 356 yards against the Chargers on Sunday and the Bengals lost.

This doesn’t diminish the worth of having a great quarterback. This increases the need to know how to complement him.

Eberflus Refused To Gamble And Lost

Matt Eberflus: It too often comes back to him as the Bears continue to struggle. The Bears played better against the Packers on Sunday, but still lost a 20-19 decision. So why does this reflect on Eberflus?

The Bears got in position to win the game by kicking a last-second field goal. Faced with a first-and-10 situation at the Packers’ 30-yard line with 35 seconds to play, the Bears simply ran it up the middle and then called time before trying a game-deciding 46-yard field goal.

Eberflus got conservative. Rather than try to press another pass for some extra yards, he decided to play it safe with an inside. The problem is NFL statistics show a 40-yard field goal traditionally comes with an 85 percent success rate while a 45-yarder comes with a 75 percent success rate.

Eberflus, wittingly or not, settled to trying a lower percentage kick.

And this: Green Bay special teams coach Rich Bisaccia told his special teams unit they were going to block a field goal against Chicago. Last week he apparently saw issues in the Chicago blocking scheme that he believed gave the Packers an opening.

That’s a scheme issue. Scheme issues are coaching problems.

The Packers blocked Cairo Santo’s attempted game-winning kick.