It didn’t take much prodding for former Steelers cornerback Deshea Townsend to remember the dislike his teammates had for the Baltimore Ravens. Nor did it take a whole lot for him to recall the intensity level needed to play against them.
“The games were always so heated because they had that special defense,” Townsend said. “You wanted to make sure you played well. The dislike was always there. You didn’t have to worry about that.”
Former inside linebacker James Farrior captained the Steelers defense that ranked No. 1 in the National Football League in 2008 and 2011 and was second overall in 2010. He said the nasty matchups with the Ravens defense that featured Ray Lewis, Terrell Suggs, Haloti Ngata and Ed Reed were the focal points of the season.
“Those games, they were brutal,” Farrior said. “They always meant something. The game was always important. Not that they’re all not important, but that was the one you always wanted to win.”
More times than not, the Steelers won those matchups with the Ravens, especially when it mattered most.
The two postseason victories at Heinz Field, including the 2008 AFC Championship that was sealed with Troy Polamalu’s interception return for touchdown. The disputed Santonio Holmes’ touchdown catch at the goal line on Dec. 14, 2008 in Baltimore that clinched the AFC North title for the Steelers and allowed them to face the Ravens in the AFC title game at home. Polamalu’s strip sack of Joe Flacco in the final three minutes that led to the winning touchdown in a 13-10 victory in Baltimore, a game that gave the Steelers (9-3) a one-game lead on the Ravens (8-4).
“That was one of the most intense rivalries you could think of,” said Townsend, now a secondary coach with the Tennessee Titans. “You knew going in you had to outplay their defense and if you gave up more than 17 points you were going to lose.”
Lately, though, the results have changed. The big victories have belonged to the Ravens, who have won the past three meetings with the Steelers and five of the past six overall heading into today’s game at M&T Bank Stadium in Baltimore. That is the most dominating stretch by one team in the series since the Steelers won five in a row and six of seven from 2000 to 2003.
Why?
Perhaps because the Steelers’ ire has shifted away from Baltimore and down the Ohio River to the Cincinnati Bengals, where some of the nastiness that used to be prevalent with the Ravens has resurfaced with new villains Vontaze Burfict and Adam Jones.
“Most of the characters that fueled that rivalry are gone,” Farrior said the other day on the phone. “You can’t really duplicate those types of things sometimes. Hopefully, they’ll keep it going.”
Maybe they need to.
Lost luster
Few players remain on both sides from the nasty battles of a decade ago. Ben Roethlisberger, James Harrison and Lawrence Timmons were starters who remain for the Steelers. Joe Flacco and Terrell Suggs were starters who remain with the Ravens.
And no player who still remains carries the torch of disdain quite like Hines Ward, who once proclaimed, “I hate the Ravens.”
Even Suggs, who is in his 14th season with the Ravens and entered the league a year before Roethlisberger, admits to missing those days.
“The characters in this television show have definitely changed,” said Suggs, who has 19½ career sacks against the Steelers, counting postseason. “Remember this used to be a game where all the 30 other teams tuned in, even the network used to put this on prime time. When you lose an Ed Reed or a No. 43 (Troy Polamalu) and No. 86 (Hines Ward), it loses some of its flavor.”
The Steelers still have one of those characters on the sideline — outside linebackers coach Joey Porter who, following a 2003 game at Heinz Field, went out to the Ravens team bus and challenged linebacker Ray Lewis to get off and fight. Porter, who did not play in that game because of injury, was upset because he felt Lewis was mocking him during the game when he used Porter’s trademark “kick” gesture following a sack.
“I don’t know if the rivalry has those types of characters to make those types of incidents happen anymore,” Porter said. “But, as far as on the football field, it’s going to be intense.”
Even the networks appear to think the rivalry has lost some of its thunder, scheduling the game for a 1 p.m. kickoff instead of what always seemed to be its twice-annual prime-time slotting.
No matter, several Steelers players, including wide receiver Antonio Brown and guard Ramon Foster, have suggested the team needs to rediscover some form of healthy dislike, or even Ward-like hatred, for the Ravens. Especially if they want the Ravens to stop ruining their season.
“They know how to play this game,” Foster said. “I think their understanding of playing this game has been a little bit better than ours in a sense of, it didn’t matter what was going on, what the records were, they wanted to beat us. We have to take on that same mentality.”
Two years ago, after losing to the Steelers, 43-23, at Heinz Field during the regular season, the Ravens came back for a wild-card playoff game and easily beat the Steelers, who were heavily favored, 30-17.
Last year, despite winning just five games, the Ravens beat the Steelers twice — in week 4 in overtime when Steelers kicker Josh Scobee missed two field goals in the fourth quarter that would have won the game; and in Week 14 in Baltimore when the Ravens were down to the fourth quarterback, Ryan Mallet, who was signed two weeks earlier because of injuries. Both Ravens victories cost the Steelers a first-round bye, and possibly the No. 1 seed, in the postseason.
“I think we need to start dictating the positon against those guys,” said Brown. “The last couple seasons we’re 0-3 against them. If we want to be the team we desire to be and dominate the division and give ourselves a chance to play football in January, we’ve got to win division games and this is first one [with the Ravens].”
Or, as Foster said, “This is a game you want to kick somebody’s rear.” Only he didn’t say rear.
“We have to put it on and show them this rivalry is still is something, that we still have some dog to us and come out and we have to dominate these guys,” said right tackle Marcus Gilbert, who returns after missing three games with an ankle injury. “We did in the past. We have to continue that legacy. I don’t know for what reason but they’ve been kind of a nemesis to us.”
Before the Steelers faced the Bengals in Week 2, defensive end Cam Heyward said the Ravens, not the Bengals, were still their biggest rival. Asked if he was trying to make a point to remind his teammates, Heyward said, “No, I was just being honest. That’s how I feel. There’s a hatred, but it’s a respected hatred.”
Still jawing
None of this is to suggest all the nastiness and bitterness have been drained from the rivalry.
Just last season, Ravens receiver Steve Smith Sr. said safety Mike Mitchell is a marked man in his eyes after he accused Mitchell of spearing him in the back after a catch along the sidelines.
“The best thing I can do without threatening him and saying that I will assault him when I see him is, I will say I look forward to playing him again,” Smith said. “He’s on my lifetime hit list.”
Even when Smith was told it was linebacker Lawrence Timmons who hit him in the back, not Mitchell, Smith didn’t back off from his original comments.
“Mike Mitchell, my former teammate, gets up and he’s talking, he’s kind of celebrating,” said Smith, who played one season with Mitchell when both were members of the Carolina Panthers. “He was in my face after I got up, when I was giving the ball to the ref, as if he hit me. Like a moron, I assumed that he actually did something.
“Then, when I went down because my back was hurting, he was yelling, ‘Yeah, how do you like that!’ and he said a few words.”
After the season, Smith was on an ESPN radio show and said Mitchell is still on his “hit list.” Problem is, Smith is expected to miss his third consecutive game today because of an ankle injury.
“He is one of the people I will hunt up when I come back for my final season,” Smith said at the time. “I make enough money so I’m willing to take whatever fine I can get because I still have some change left over.”
Maybe he can come out to the Steelers bus and challenge Mitchell to get off. It’s happened before.
First Published: November 6, 2016, 4:00 a.m.