Super Bowl XLV Preview: Pittsburgh Steelers vs. Green Bay Packers
The Pittsburgh Steelers will face the Green Bay Packers on Sunday at the Cowboys Stadium in the Super Bowl XLV.
What happens when the 11th ranked rushing offence meets the 18th ranked rushing defence? Ben Roethlisberger throws a career high of 503 passing yards for three touchdowns without being intercepted is what happens.
The Steelers and the Packers are the first and second strongest defences in the league respectively. The Steelers have the best rush defence in the league, allowing just 62.8 yards on the ground per game. Green Bay might not be as good as the Steelers, but they certainly will not make things easier for Pittsburgh’s runners.
The Packers stopped all their playoff opponents for less than 100 yards. The Philadelphia Eagles were stopped for 81 yards. The Atlanta Falcons managed just 45 yards and in the NFC Championship game, the Chicago Bears rushed 83 yards (70 yards by Matt Forte alone).
The driving force behind Packers’ rush defence are its three enormous linemen, Ryan Pickett, Howard Green and B.J. Raji. The three players at the front of Green Bay’s defence form a one-tonne wall. The Steelers would love to be able to run the ball against the Packers, but those three might have a trick or two up their sleeves.
“We consider teams running on us a challenge to our manhood,” Raji said. The defensive line was not able to answer the challenge in the regular season. They allowed 118 yards on the ground per game, but in the post-season that average has fallen to almost 70 yards per game. In the regular season, the Packers allowed 4.7 yards for every attempt, whereas in the post-season they brought that figure down to just 3.5 yards per attempt.
Defensive end Ryan Pickett said that there were a lot of reasons why the Packers were doing better against the rush. “I just think we got better. But a lot of the runs that teams got early were quarterback runs and things like that. Mainly, we got better.” Raji didn’t have an explanation. “Maybe it's because the intensity picks up. I don't know for sure,” Raji said.
Pickett said that with the strength of Green Bay’s defence at the back end and their ability to stop the run at the line of scrimmage, any team would have a tough time trying to run the ball against them. “Nobody is going to run on me and B.J.,” Pickett said. “It's tough to move us at our size. And Howard is there with us.”
The Pittsburgh Steelers were not able to run against the Packers last year when the two sides met. The Steelers did not even try. They attempted 19 rushing plays for 65 yards. On the other hand, they attempted 46 passing plays for a mind boggling 503 yards and three touchdowns.
Against the New York Jets in the American Football Conference Championship game, the Steelers used the rush effectively. Rashard Mendenhall rushed 121 yards in 27 attempts and scored a touchdown. The Steelers quarterback attempted just 19 passes in the game. Over the course of the regular season, the Jets had a much better defence than the Packers yet the Steelers were able to tear right through it. The Steelers also comfortably defeated the Baltimore Ravens in the divisional round. The Ravens boast the fifth strongest rush defence in the league. Even with the improvements in the post-season, the Packers would find it hard to contain the Steelers.
While the defence showed signs of improvement in the rush defence, rookie running-back James Starks breathed life into Green Bay’s rushing offence. In three playoff games, Starks has rushed 263 yards and scored one touchdown, which is more than what the Eagles, Falcons and Bears combined were able to rush against the Packers. This would be the first time the Steelers would face Starks and the first time in the season that they would go up against the Green Bay Packers.
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