This week 4 was the confrontation of two of the toughest teams in the NFL, Both of these teams are from the AFC North and excel on football fundamentals.
Each team has a big defense, a big ground attack and is known for being conservative, the Pitsburgh Steelers hosted the Baltimore Ravens at Heinz Field where the crowd is known for its terrible towels.
Baltimore has huge defense led by Ray Lewis, 33 years old but still as impressive as before. They brought an intense pressure on Ben Roethlisberger by blitzing all day!
Steelers' QB was sacked twice and hurried on almost every play.
He completed 14 of his 24 pass attemtps for a gain of 191 yards,1 touchdown, 1 interception.
That's never easy to adapt to a defense like the Ravens' one.
Without Willie Parker (injured) their offense became almost unidimensional.
Each point in this game was very expensive and tough to add.
The first touchdown came during the 2nd quarter for the Ravens with a screen pass from Joe Flacco, Ravens first round pick of the last NFL Draft, to Le'ron McClain (photo #83) in the red zone after having, on the previous play, hitted Derrick Mason for a 35-yard gain.
Flacco's got a powerful arm, he threw 16/31 for 191 yards and his first pro touchdown. If the first half was Ravens' one, the second was clearly Steelers' one.
After a penalty on Ravens' linebacker Jarret Johnson for an out-of-bounds hit on Hines Ward.
This penality gave an automatic first down to Roethlisberger who found, three plays later, Santonio Holmes for a 38-yard touchdown pass.