It's no secret that there's no love lost between the Pittsburgh Steelers and the Baltimore Ravens. The two teams have a history of gritty, hard-nosed, smash-mouth football - whatever that means, in an era when on our advanced metrics page, one of the strongest predictors for this game was a contest between the Peyton Manning-era Colts and the Tennessee Titans in December 2010. In that game, Manning put up a vintage line: 25-of-35 for 319 yards, 2 touchdowns, and no interceptions, with a QBR of 94.8. The result? His Colts edged out the Kerry Collins-led Titans, 30-28. There are a few indicators to take away from the game, including Manning's brutal efficiency. He converted 14 of the team's 21 first downs on passes, and the Colts as a whole managed to convert 8 of their 15 third downs. It's also worth noting that his statistics above amount to 9.1 yards per pass; to put that in perspective, it's a tick higher than the all-time career record 9.0 that legend Otto Graham put up between 1946 and 1955.

As good as Peyton Manning was that night in 2010, Ben Roethlisberger has the potential to put up similar numbers against the Ravens tonight. In fact, he topped those numbers last week against the Browns, going 23-of-34 for a whopping 365 yards (good for 10.7 yards per attempt), along with a touchdown and an interception. Roethlisberger has to avoid the ball-hawks of the Ravens defense and keep threading passes to talented receivers like Antonio Brown and the emergent Markus Wheaton if the Steelers are to emerge victorious.

Shut It Down. Shut. It. Down

The other quarterback in this matchup, of course, is the aforementioned Elite One, he of the Massive Contract and the Unibrow: Joe Flacco. Last week, Flacco put up a gaudy 345 yards with a touchdown and an interception against a fairly stingy Bengals defense. But, as I alluded to above, he also had to throw the ball 62 times to do it. Sixty-two times. Flacco's 62 pass attempts last week are tied for 18th-most all-time in a single game. I would say that's a once-in-a-lifetime total, but wait: he also threw 62 passes on the dot in last year's season opener against the Broncos! He completed 34 passes in that game; this year, he managed 35. Progress.

To look at it another way, his completion percentage last week was a pedestrian 56.5%. In that sense, it's a lot like another of our strongest predictor games: a victory for the Miami Dolphins over the Buffalo Bills, 16-3, on December 7, 2008. The Bills in that game were led by J.P. Losman, who is admittedly not in the same league of quarterbacks as Joe Flacco, even if Flacco isn't the second coming of Joe Montana. But the Dolphins' manhandling of Losman points to another key area of focus for the Steelers: they must contain and stifle Joe Flacco in order to win.

Losman's line in the 2008 game against the Dolphins is pretty ugly: 13-of-27 for just 79 yards, an interception, and four sacks. Can the Steelers defense do that? Probably not; this isn't a top-flight defensive unit like some of the ones Pittsburgh's fielded in the past, and the Ravens' passing attack is nowhere near as bad as the 2008 Bills' was. But if Pittsburgh's pass rush and secondary can frustrate Flacco to the tune of a sub-60% completion percentage, that might be enough for everything to fall into place in a squeaker, even if Flacco throws a million passes. The Bengals established a template for victory against the Ravens last week - it's up to the Steelers to duplicate Cincinnati's success.

Run Lola Run

Of course, the elephant in the room is Pittsburgh's sieve-like run defense. Last week they were gashed by the Browns to the tune of 183 yards on the ground; even after starter Ben Tate exited the game, rookie backup Terrance West piled up 100 yards on 16 carries, while the little-known Isaiah Crowell notched a pair of big touchdowns on five carries of his own. This is dire stuff for Steelers fans, but it's great news for the Ravens, who happen to be rolling with backup rushers of their own: journeyman Justin Forsett, ineffective Bernard Pierce and rookie sleeper Lorenzo Taliaferro.

Last week, although Taliaferro didn't see time, Forsett had one of the strongest showings of his career against Cincinnati, racking up 70 yards and a touchdown on just 11 carries. The game plan this week against Pittsburgh will feature Forsett (Pierce and probably Taliaferro, too) more heavily, and rightfully so: one of the game's top comparables was a meeting between the San Diego Chargers and the, errm, Washington Football Club way back on September 9, 2001. Over the first six weeks of the 2001 season, Washington sported a run defense about as bad as you'll ever see, allowing an average of over 160 rush yards per game during that time frame. Their first game of the season started things on an especially rotten note, as a young guy named Ladainian Tomlinson ran the ball an incredible 36 times for 113 yards and two scores. The Chargers added 10 carries from other rushers, and even though Doug Flutie played an extremely forgettable game at quarterback (10-for-18, 129 yards, 2 interceptions), San Diego won in a blowout, 30-3.

Now, imagine what a competent running team could do with 46 carries against the defense that allowed 183 yards last week on only 30 carries. It's unlikely that the Ravens will catch the Steelers quite as off-guard as the Browns did last week, but Baltimore will nonetheless look to control the pace of the game and march down the field methodically on the legs of Forsett, Pierce and Taliaferro.

Down To The Wire

Our metrics predict that this one could go either way, and it's easy to see why: Pittsburgh's run defense may be easy to exploit, but Flacco's ability to sustain drives and complete a high volume of passes is suspect. The Steelers could eke out a victory if they play things squeaky clean, but we like the Ravens to edge out Pittsburgh, 25-24. If you're betting though, the moneyline favors the Steelers, and you can take the over, too.