The Pittsburgh Steelers face the Baltimore Ravens on Sunday night for all the marbles. This matchup doesn’t favor the Steelers, or so is the prevailing thought from many. It is for Chris Simms as well, who thinks the Steelers’ offense will struggle to move the ball without DK Metcalf versus the Ravens.

“He [Rodgers] hit DK Metcalf on the first play of the third quarter. He hit Calvin Austin on a fade route on another scoring drive. And I’m telling you, that’s all they did,” Simms said of the Week 14 meeting between the Steelers and Ravens, on his Unbuttoned podcast on Tuesday. “I don’t know if I really think Rodgers and company can surgically destroy the Ravens, without those one-on-one shots that were available to them.”

It was against the Ravens that the Steelers’ offense broke out for the first time in a while, after going through a pretty consistent slump over the middle third of the season. The Ravens played a lot of man and cover 3 alignments, which gave the Steelers chances to hit DK Metcalf on a few deep balls in single coverage. As defensive attention shifted towards Metcalf, things opened up for other receivers. Calvin Austin III managed to bring in this deep ball down the sideline against single coverage.

But this Sunday, the Steelers will be much more depleted. In that game, Metcalf, Austin, and Darnell Washington were all available. Metcalf and Washington will both miss Sunday’s game. We don’t know yet if Austin will play. If he’s out again this week, it will increase an already large strain on the offense. The Steelers moved the ball decently, but couldn’t convert on any key downs against the Browns without any of those three on the field.

It doesn’t get any easier on the other side of the ball for Simms, who expects the Ravens to win.

“The Steelers, again, have had a hard time stopping the run throughout the year. The Ravens dominated the Steelers on the ground here,” Simms said. “The Steelers can’t stop the run, unless they crash T.J. Watt down the line, or crash Highsmith down the line. And that leads to Lamar keeping the ball…I certainly give the Ravens the advantage going into this game.”

There were a few times in which the Steelers crashed the backside of the line to bring Henry down for a loss in that first matchup. This is a good example from Watt.

Simms is right that Jackson or Tyler Huntley could fake to Henry and keep the ball in these scenarios. But on a play like the one above, Jackson never sees Watt coming. A read option also isn’t going to happen very often from under center.

The Ravens are a tremendous threat running the ball, and they put 200 rushing yards on the Steelers back in Week 14. But Pittsburgh deserves some credit defensively in that game. Those numbers were boosted by one long 55-yard run from Keaton Mitchell. It wasn’t perfect, but the Steelers mostly contained Henry, allowing him just 3.8 yards per carry.

However, Baltimore still ran for 300 yards against the Packers last week. And the Ravens are going to try to do the same thing to the Steelers on Sunday. Simms isn’t expecting the Steelers to have an answer for them. Yet they must find one if they want to make the playoffs.