Steelers Pickett and Harris hit career milestones in win over the Ravens

The Steelers, at one point this season, seemed headed for disaster. Since the bye week, somehow, they turned the season around.

In doing so, they managed to beat the Baltimore Ravens at home to keep not only Mike Tomlin’s hopes of 16 consecutive winning seasons alive along with playoff hopes.

Pickett has more 4th quarter magic for the Steelers

In helping keep things going, Kenny Pickett had his 3rd fourth-quarter comeback of his career and his 4th game-winning. Pickett breaks into the top ten list of NFL rookie quarterbacks to have at least three 4th quarter comebacks and four game-winning drives. Of those quarterbacks, only Ben Roethlisberger and Kenny Pickett played for the same team. Pickett now needs 38 more 4th quarter comebacks, and 49 game-winning drives to tie Ben Roethlisberger.

Adding to that, Pittsburgh converted 62% of their 3rd downs, the second-highest percentage against the Ravens and the highest conversion percentage culminating in a win. The previous high mark for a win was 60% in 2002.

More bizarre is that against the AFC north going back to 2002,  Pittsburgh has never had a 3rd down percentage over 60% against any team but the Ravens. Moreover, the Steelers have never fared better than 57.1% against the Browns or Bengals. Yet they have five games of 57.1% or higher against  the Ravens

Steelers have a minor rushing milestone against the Ravens

Najee Harris also made history for Pittsburgh to a lesser degree. He became only the 3rd running back in team history to have at least 111 rushing yards against the Ravens. Before Sunday’s game, the only two Pittsburgh running backs in team history to crack 111 plus rushing yard total against the Ravens were Jerome Bettis and Le’Veon Bell. Three others topped the hundred-yard rushing mark against the Ravens, DeAngelo Williams, Amos Zereoue, and James Conner, but Conner only managed the highest mark at 107 yards.

Steelers have a low-scoring game

Sunday’s game marks the 21st game between the franchises in which both teams scored less than 20 points. That comes to a whopping 38% of all the games they have played.  In those games, the Steelers have a narrow win record over the Ravens of 12-9. Plus it’s the 3rd game in which the Steelers scored 16 points exactly against the Ravens, and they are now 3-0 when scoring 16 points even.

Sunday’s win over the Ravens is the 14th game in franchise history between both clubs in which the Steelers have passed for 168 yards or less. Of those, the Steelers hold the edge at 8-6. The truly odd stat of the week is that in four games in which the Steelers have passed for 168 yards or less, four of them went to overtime.

The Steelers will finish the season against the Cleveland Browns for the 18th time in franchise history. As always, anything can happen and generally does.