Baltimore Ravens’ three-time Pro Bowl tight end Mark Andrews hasn’t had a hugely productive outing against the Pittsburgh Steelers in any of his first seven career games as a member of one the fiercest rivalries in sports dating back to his rookie season in 2018. He has yet to score a touchdown or even top more than five receptions or eclipse 50 yards receiving in those previous matchups.
However, that fact didn’t stop Steelers’ long-time Superbowl-winning head coach Mike Tomlin from praising the fifth-year pro for his tremendous talent nonetheless. Nor did it prevent him from acknowledging that he is one of the elite pass catchers in the league regardless of position in his press conference on Tuesday, December 27 ahead of the second meeting between the two teams this season in Week 17.
Mike Tomlin said it’s “disrespectful” to label Mark Andrews solely as a tight end.
Andrews has been the Ravens’ most consistent and productive offensive skill position player behind only star quarterback, Lamar Jackson since they came into the league together five years ago.
He has been able to put up impressive numbers and make an impact as a dangerous receiving option no matter who has been under center for the team as they’ve had to periodically deploy backups the past three seasons due to COVID-19, other illnesses, or injuries.
“Mark Andrews is a significant guy for them in the passing game, he always has been and even through some of their quarterback instability, continues to be,” Tomlin said.
He called him a “dangerous vertical threat” and to label him as just a tight end is “disrespectful to his talents”.
“He’s kind of a No. 1 receiving option,” Tomlin said. “He’s like Travis Kelce if you will or that young guy in Atlanta (Kyle Pitts). Their skillset and the plays that they make are kind of caged in if you describe them in a tight-end sort of way.”
He went on to say that his team will try to “minimize” his impact in the game as they have in the past but knows that it won’t be easy. Andrews leads the Ravens by a wide margin in targets (104), receptions (64), and receiving yards (747) and holds the team leads in touchdown catches despite not having scored since Week 6 according to Pro Football Reference.
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The Ravens have the most talent at the tight position that they’ve had since their three-headed monster in 2019. That year, Andrews, blocking specialist Nick Boyle, and former first-round pick Hayden Hurst played key roles in the revolutionary offense.
Together, they helped the unit boggle the minds of opposing teams across the league and be unpredictable and nearly unstoppable on any given down with the way they ran and threw the ball out of multiple tight-end sets.
Boyle is still on the team albeit in a reduced role but they have some promising and dynamic young talent at the position. Rookie Isaiah Likely has flashed impressive playmaking ability at times this season, fourth-year pro Josh Oliver is a complete player at the position who can be just as effective of a blocker as he is a pass catcher. Rookie Charlie Kolar has yet to make his debut this season but has the talent and measurables to be a dangerous red zone weapon.
If the Steelers key in and are able to limit Andrews’ impact on the game again, one of their other capable talents at tight end will need to step up so it could be a big week for Likely and/or Oliver especially.
John Harbaugh Calls Steelers Star a ‘Premier’ Pass Rusher
The rivalry between the two teams was built on the back of strong to elite defense and it seems like every few years one or both of them hits on a cornerstone player on that side of the ball outside of the first round of the NFL Draft.
In 2020, the Steelers selected an outside linebacker from the University of North Carolina at Charlotte by the name of Alex Highsmith and three years later, he has developed into an elite player at the position in the league in the eyes of Ravens head coach John Harbaugh.
“What a year he’s had. He’s become one of the premier pass rushers,” he said during a press conference on December 28.
Highsmith’s career-high 12 sacks through 15 games during his breakout season not only leads his team and more than the totals from his previous two years combined but it has the 2022 Pro Bowl snub tied for the seventh-most in the league.
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Opposing offenses now have to account for him in addition to five-time Pro Bowl defensive tackle Cameron Heyward and reigning Defensive Player of the Year T.J. Watt who plays opposite of him when game planning against the Steelers’ talented defense.
“They have a lot of great players, but those three pass rushers – they have the two edge players and they’ve got the defensive end – everyone knows who I’m talking about here. So, those three guys are just elite players in the National Football League. I think for Highsmith to put himself in the category with a T.J. Watt and a Cam Heyward, that’s high praise. He has done that.”
Ravens Top Running Backs Are Not on Snap Counts
The team’s rushing attack has been the most consistent and productive aspect of their offense since around the midway point of the season and has been utterly dominant as of late since both J.K. Dobbins and Gus Edwards have been back on the field and available at the same time.
They’ve combined for a whopping 524 yards on the ground since Dobbins returned from his knee scope with each of them averaging over 7 yards per carry over that span. However, neither has received more than 16 carries at any point this season.
In fact, the only player on the Ravens’ entire roster that has carried the ball 17 or more times in a single game this year is seven-year veteran Kenyan Drake who did it once in Week 9 for 93 rushing yards and a pair of scores in a 27-13 win over the New Orleans Saints before the bye week.
While that may lead some to believe that the Ravens have their top running backs who both are in their first years back from suffering major knee injuries in 2021 on a snap count, Harbaugh said that there aren’t any playing time restrictions on either player.
“We don’t have them on a snap or carry count right now; we’re kind of doing it just [by] the situation in the game because you have two guys like that,” Harbaugh said. “I don’t think there’s going to be too many reps for those guys. They’re probably all going to want more reps than they’re getting anyways, so it hasn’t been so much of an issue for us.”
He also mentioned that they have fourth-year pro Justice Hill who has run the ball well in sporadic carries this season and is averaging 5.4 yards per carry. There aren’t many carries to go around at the moment between their top two running backs and when star dual-threat quarterback Lamar Jackson is healthy again, there could even be fewer since he is a huge factor in their running game.
Drake hasn’t been active for the past two games and might not be again for this week barring injury. The Ravens could get both Dobbins and Edwards nearly 20 carries a game the rest of the regular season and into the postseason if they lean even more to the run game as they did on their best drive against the Atlanta Falcons in Week 16 where they kept the ball on the ground for 11 straight plays in the second quarter to score their only touchdown of the contest.
Dobbins admitted that he still isn’t quite back to his pre-injury form but believes that his breakaway speed is “slowly coming back” to full strength.
“If football was a game of 30 yards, 40 yards, I would be 100 percent – legit 100%. Quickness, and power, and things like that, I feel 100%. The times when I feel the flexion and things like that is when I have to open up,” he said in a press conference on December 28.
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The third-year pro shared that the issue holding him back from reaching an extra gear is not due to his knee alone. He shared that the hamstring in his left leg isn’t as strong as his right at the moment and that he experiences a blend of tightness and weakness in his left leg at times.
“Before I got hurt, I was a 4.3-4.4 guy. So this leg is still super fast, but this leg, the hamstrings weren’t reaching that speed for over a year,” Dobbins said. “I’m not all the way there, but I’m getting there.”
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Mike Tomlin Says Ravens Have a Dangerous ‘No. 1 Receiving Option’