One week after facing one of the league’s greatest defensive players in Aaron Donald, the Baltimore Ravens set their sights on the Pittsburgh Steelers outside linebacker T.J. Watt.
Watt has 21.5 sacks this season and is just one sack away from tying New York Giants legend Michael Strahan’s single-season record that was set in 2001.
Not if the Ravens have anything to say about it, though.
Every record broken in Week 18 will have an asterisk next to it since traditional NFL seasons consist of just 17 weeks. Still, Watt could technically break Strahan’s record in Week 18 against the Ravens, and he has history on his side.
Ravens offensive coordinator Greg Roman spoke about wanting to ruin Watt’s season finale:
Greg Roman's asked about stopping Steelers star T.J. Watt, who's a sack away from tying Michael Strahan's single-season NFL sacks record.
— Jonas Shaffer (@jonas_shaffer) January 6, 2022
"I think everybody's had special plans for him going into the game."
With the current state of Baltimore’s offensive line, they’d better have a plan.
The Ravens have allowed the most pressures of any team in the NFL while Watt has recorded the second-most pressures in the league (48). Already, this is going to be an uphill battle for Roman to figure out how to contain the prolific sack artist.
The Ravens have prepared a plan for containing T.J. Watt in Week 18
Watt has accumulated nine sacks against the Baltimore Ravens in his career, the second most behind his 14.5 sacks against the Cleveland Browns.
The four-time Pro Bowler clearly likes beating up teams in the AFC North, and with Week 18 serving as Ben Roethlisberger’s last NFL game, emotions will run high for this Steelers team.
Watt never needed a reason to sack a quarterback, but if he did, commemorating Big Ben’s retirement would be a pretty good one.
The last time these two teams met, Pittsburgh’s pass rush terrorized Lamar Jackson all game, recording seven total sacks and limiting Jackson to 253 yards passing and one touchdown (Watt led the team with 3.5 sacks and six quarterback hits).
With Jackson still questionable for Week 18, Baltimore may benefit from starting Tyler Huntley, who tends to get the ball out quicker than Jackson and thus puts less pressure on the offensive line to perform well.
The Ravens’ starting offensive line on Sunday will at least have Patrick Mekari, the ever-versatile tackle/center/guard who has arguably been the Raven’s best lineman this year.
Others like Alejandro Villanueva and Ben Cleveland will be expected to step up — the Ravens need to put forth a resolute team effort if they want any chance at stopping Watt.
Roman said the team has a “plan” in the making, but then again, the Ravens didn’t find much success with their “17 Bulldog” defensive package to stop Davante Adams when they played Green Bay.
Everything is on the line for the Ravens come Week 18. Literally.