Steelers travel to Baltimore for Thursday Night Football

The NFL season is still young but here’s one of those weird games where off-the-field news dominated all of the talk leading up to tonight’s contest between AFC North foes the Pittsburgh Steelers at the Baltimore Ravens.

Naturally we’re talking about the Ray Rice situation. So is America. With that in mind, let’s stick to the Xs and Os about these two veteran squads looking to locate the magic that made them dominant over the past decade.

As far as the Steelers are concerned, it was the tale of two teams during last weekend’s last-second win – after winning by 24 at half time – against the Cleveland Browns.

Steelers coach Mike Tomlin said, “We’ve had some good days. Obviously, [Sunday] was not one. We’re not going to let [that] define us by any stretch. The big thing is we’ve got to communicate. Communication is integral to execution We were where we were supposed to be, but based on some of the results of those snaps, I can’t say that we were ready.”

Then there’s the Ravens, which lost to the Cincinnati Bengals at home but there’s a good argument to be made Baltimore beat itself with dropped passes.

Ravens Coach John Harbaugh said, “You have to make those plays. In the first half, we had a number of drops, and we have to clean that up. Our guys have good hands. There’s nothing that they’re not capable of doing … it really threw off our timing in the passing game in the first half.”

When it comes to analyzing the game, this is where the Ray Rice situation does come into play. The Ravens have had a tough week. While some would argue getting back on the field is what they need, the Steelers appear ready to steal this away game.