5 things you must know about the Steelers Week 8 matchup vs Ravens

The Pittsburgh Steelers boast the best front 7 in the league, but the Ravens have their own pass rush.

I want to start this off by saying I have no idea what the Jaguars were thinking trading away Calais Campbell last March for just a 5th round pick. It was one of the most one-sided trades this past offseason and Campbell is making a case for it to be one of the more lopsided trades in the last decade. The Ravens got the 5th round pick for a back up kicker that they had shipped to Minnesota. In short, the Ravens got their team’s sack leader for a back up kicker.

Campbell has a respectable 4 sacks and 6 tackles for loss through 6 games this season and has provided more leadership to that front 7. He was a captain in Jacksonville for a reason, players respect him. He has been a bit of a force in the NFL for a few years and he isn’t slowing down a lot in 2020. He makes Matthew Judon better and now he is reunited with Yannick Ngakoue who has 5 sacks on the season.

Pairing these players with the blitz is giving them great results in the sack department. Before adding Ngakoue the Ravens were tied for 5th in league with 22 sacks. After Ngakoue, they should be able to help their secondary more by not having to send as many blitzers to generate this pass rush. Another interesting thing about this pass rush is that they send guys from everywhere. CB Marlon Humphrey has the second most sacks for the Ravens at 2.5 and they have no problem sending players from other positions as well. Free safety DeShon Elliot has 2 sacks and strong safety Chuck Clark has 1.5 sacks. Adding up all of these with more contributions from the rest of the secondary totals 8 sacks for the secondary.

This is a very unique pass rush the Pittsburgh Steelers are going up against. Ben Roethlisberger is going to have to be on point this week pre-snap figuring out where the pressure is coming from every play, because it truly could come from anywhere.