Sure, the Pittsburgh Steelers were playing on the road, but everything else about their game against the Baltimore Ravens seemed to be in their favor: the Ravens were playing for pride but little else, and elected to start a quarterback, Ryan Mallett, who hasn't shown himself to be much more than average in his time in the NFL.
Considering the Steelers were essentially in a must-win situation to maintain their hold on an AFC wild-card spot, they had to have liked their odds. Especially since Mallett signed with Baltimore less than two weeks ago.
Pittsburgh didn't take advantage.
The Ravens pulled off a 20-17 upset thanks in large part to Mallett, who threw for a career-high 274 yards on 68.3 percent passing but more importantly did not have any interceptions in his first start since Oct. 8, when he faced the Indianapolis Colts as a member of the Houston Texans.
Baltimore's first touchdown came on its first possession, after the Ravens stopped running back DeAngelo Williams on fourth-and-1 from the 25 on the game's opening drive. Mallett's 7-yard pass to Chris Matthews at the back of the end zone was a little high, but Matthews came down with it, finishing off a seven-minute, 15-play march.
The Ravens were up 13-3 at halftime thanks to two Justin Tucker field goals, and 20-10 with 10:35 to play on a Buck Allen 3-yard touchdown run. That score was set up by Jimmy Smith's interception of Ben Roethlisberger (his second pick of the afternoon).
It looked like the Ravens slammed the door on a Pittsburgh comeback midway through the fourth quarter when Smith picked off an end zone attempt and ran it back 101 yards for a score, a play that would have given Baltimore a 17-point lead with just over seven minutes to play. But defensive lineman Courtney Upshaw was flagged for being in the neutral zone, negating the play.
Given another chance, the Steelers scored, with Williams punching it in from 2 yards out.
But they could not get close enough on what turned out to be their final possession of the game to attempt a game-tying field goal, with Upshaw sacking Roethlisberger on first down, an 8-yard loss the Steelers couldn't recover from.
After the game, Ravens coach John Harbaugh announced that Mallett will start the season finale, in Cincinnati.
The win snapped a three-game losing streak for Baltimore, and gave them a season sweep over their rivals for the first time in five years, and ended a three-game win streak for the Steelers. The win also may have knocked the Steelers ouf of the postseason; they are not dead yet, but their chances took a big hit on Sunday.
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